February2009
Review New Play Control! Pikmin (Wii)
Pik-up a Pikmin
Pikmin has been, and always will be, one of those games that make me smile- there is something so very… charming about its concept: You play as Captain Olimar, a space pilot marooned on a strange planet. Upon atmospheric entry, his ship's parts were strewn across the local landscape, and, with no apparent means for being able to...
Review Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii)
Monolith's near cancelled game finally gets a release, but is it a total disaster waiting to happen?
The term 'action-blockbuster' is thrown around frequently these days, usually to describe an explosion-heavy-plot-thin film which garners praise and box-office approval. Taking a cue from this definition, Disaster: Day of Crisis leaps onto the Wii,...
January2009
Does this WiiWare puzzler have what it takes to stand out from the crowd?
Having been available since WiiWare launched in Japan, Lonpos' Western release has been a long time coming. The game itself has been adapted from a popular logic puzzle game of the same name. The question, of course, is how well does it fare against the many puzzle titles...
Review Kirby's Dream Land 3 (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
Kirby for beginners
Kirby's Dream Land 3 obviously had a lot to live up to - It was released not long after the amazing Kirby Super Star (Kirby's Fun Pak in Europe), which is still regarded as the greatest Kirby game ever. The game returns to the gameplay from the second Dream Land game for Game Boy - It's got rather standard Kirby platforming, but...
December2008
Review Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II (NES)
Revenge of Zoda
While the original StarTropics was a great game, it did have some nagging problems. In 1994, after the SNES was already out for 3 years in the US, Nintendo saw fit to finally make a sequel to one of the (sadly) most underrated games on the NES. But they didn't make it for the SNES - They actually made it for the NES as well! In...
Review 100 Classic Book Collection (DS)
100 classic books write their way into the DS’ history
100 Classic Books has had me intrigued since it was first announced. Being the massive bookworm that I am, I’ve been itching to give this a go for a while now. It’s here at last, and the selection on offer is simply fantastic: 22 Shakespeare; 12 Dickens (Charles, not Anthony); 5 Austen;...
Review Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)
The wait is finally over... let's go to the city.
Wii owners have been waiting for quite some time for this new Animal Crossing title to be released on the Wii console, especially given how long ago the game was first announced for the system. It's this long wait that might have actually hurt the game more than helped it since expectations have...
November2008
Review Devil World (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
A devilish Pac-Man clone from Miyamoto
Devil World is one of extremely few Nintendo titles that was released in Europe, but not the US. Most likely this was due to Nintendo of America's strict rule not to feature any "religious" factors in games, and seeing as the game includes a devil, that just wouldn't slide with them. It's actually a pretty fun...
October2008
Review Art Style: Rotohex (WiiWare)
Is this hexagonal puzzler a welcome addition to the Art Style series?
The one constant of the three Art Style games that have seen release on the WiiWare service so far has been their simplicity. There are no fancy visuals, no epic musical tracks, and no complicated play control schemes to tarnish the "less is more" theme of these unique...
Grab yourself a WiiMote, it's time you became a maestro!
Miyamoto is Nintendo's legendary games developer, he's responsible for the majority of Nintendo's success over the past 30 years and proves a lot of people wrong time and time again. The release of Wii Music takes me back to earlier in the year, when Wii Fit was first released. Wii Fit was...
Review Art Style: Cubello (WiiWare)
Is Nintendo's latest Art Style game a triumph of style over substance?
When it launched, WiiWare signalled a shift in Nintendo’s attitude toward developers and gamers. After Dr. Mario and My Pokémon Ranch hinted that it was really just another outlet for them to spawn pedestrian versions of their tremendously popular franchises, many gamers lost...
Review Art Style: Orbient (WiiWare)
Does this bit generations remake keep the spirit of the original game intact?
Back in 2006, Nintendo published a series of games on the Game Boy Advance in Japan called bit Generations, which were a sister series to the DS’s Touch Generations games meant to illustrate the beginnings of video games. One of the games released in this interesting...
September2008
Review Mario Super Sluggers (Wii)
Mario plays rounders
Baseball, a sport that we Europeans don't really care to understand, is the scene for the latest Mario Sports title. Developed by Namco on behalf of Nintendo, can Mario (in probably his last game of 2008) and his buddies do enough to make the game a little more exciting? Anyone who's familiar with previous Mario sports games...
Review Clu Clu Land (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Clu Clu a choo
First, a lesson in linguistics – ‘Kurukuru’ in Japanese means ‘turning around’. Why are we telling you this? Well, it neatly explains Clu Clu Land’s rather unusual title, and also gives some insight into the mechanics of the game. You assume the role of a funny-looking fish called Bubbles, who due to some cruel...
August2008
Review MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade (WiiWare)
Three games in one - Triple the fun or triple the terror?
MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade is a rather unique game from Mindware, a company that's relatively unknown outside of Japan. As the title suggests, MaBoShi is based around three shapes - Circle, Stick and Square. The gameplay comprises three mini-games based on these shapes, which all...
Review Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
Mario + RPG = WIN!
What do you get when one of the best RPG creators in the world decides to build an RPG around one of the most recognizable video game characters in history? What you get is a video game that is considered one of the greatest ever made and an RPG that's not only unique, but extremely playable as well. Many were skeptical when the...
July2008
Review Donkey Kong 3 (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Bug off
Poor old Stanley the Bugman, not only have all the bugs got into his greenhouse, there’s a big ape pestering him too. To add insult to injury, he would never feature as a playable character in another Nintendo game again and be forgotten forever, whilst Mario went on to international stardom. Donkey Kong 3 started out life in the arcades...
June2008
Review My Pokémon Ranch (WiiWare)
Is this WiiWare release a Dude Ranch or a Dud Ranch?
My Pokémon Ranch follows the franchise’s long, tumultuous history of 3D games with questionable design choices and narrow appeal. Unfortunately, this WiiWare offering is one of the worst offenders due to its strictly passive “gameplay”, ineffectual features, and obtuse design. In fact, MPR...
Review Magnetica Twist (WiiWare)
Does the intuitive Magnetica Twist have hidden depths that make it something to shout about?
It was always likely that WiiWare would provide the perfect platform for the criminally overlooked puzzle genre. These games have always been popular, but given their nature they are often unfairly ignored when sitting next to higher-profile releases such as...
May2008
Review Dr. Mario Online RX (WiiWare)
Zany pill-popping madness with Nintendo's favourite son.
Dr. Mario was the perfect NES game. A bold, simple statement to start this review, but never has a sentence rang so true in the ears of our peers. This was a game that combined mad colours, infectious soundtracks and a delightful twist on the classic Tetris formula and is (in our opinion) the...
April2008
The most difficult game we’ll ever have to review
Why? Simply because there are a number of angles and routes we could take to determine the final verdict. Those different routes would end up giving extremely different verdicts and so it is from this point of the review that we have to pick our destination carefully. To get straight to the point:...
Review Yoshi's Cookie (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Mmmm, cookies!
Another Mario puzzler? Say it ain't so! Like Yoshi (Mario & Yoshi in Europe), Yoshi's Cookie is less well known than Dr. Mario and Wario's Woods, mainly because, well, it's not that interesting. To its merit, it's not another falling block puzzler. In fact, this is one of the more unique puzzlers on Virtual Console. The objective...
March2008
Review Cruis'n USA (Virtual Console / Nintendo 64)
Put pedal to metal and hang on for a wild ride across the highways of America!
One of the first games to be announced for Nintendo’s 64-bit console, Cruis’n USA was given a fair amount of attention when it was first released; for the 32-bit generation, driving games that had established the credentials of rival machines (Ridge Racer for the...
Review Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
Perhaps the greatest game of this generation? Hmm... maybe, just maybe.
Smash Bros.? What's Smash Bros.? If you are a Wii owner asking that question, you'll get many funny looks from other gamers that wonder where you have been the past ten years. Super Smash Bros. is perhaps Nintendo's most successful franchise (in terms of sales per game) in the...
February2008
Review Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64)
Not Kirby's finest hour
Since the first Kirby game, we've seen our puffy pink friend in a series of high quality platform adventures (not to mention spin-offs) up until the release of Kirby 64 back in 2000. Despite predictably rendering Kirby's world in 3D for the first time, true to form for a N64 outing our pals at HAL Laboratories have retained...
