Wii Game Reviews
Review Mahjong Taikai Wii (Wii)
A solid straight-up Mahjong game for fans of the real deal.
This is the latest in a series of Mahjong Tournament games which have appeared on previous consoles and handhelds. These are single player games (as with card games Mahjong player have hidden hands, so multiplayer with one screen wouldn't work too well) with virtual opponents; online play...
Sunsoft brings the classic match-two game to Wii.
Shanghai is the name Activision gave to series of simple matching games featuring patterns of stacked mahjong tiles on the Apple Macintosh and later Wintel PCs (other companies have sold the same game with various other names; the game is generically known as "mahjong solitaire" or...
Review Hysteria Hospital: Emergency Ward (Wii)
It does indeed invoke hysteria, but not the good kind.
Hysteria Hospital: Emergency Ward is the latest treat from Oxygen Games for Wii and in a sense it truly does replicate how a hospital nurse must at times feel; overworked, frustrated and at times more than a little tired. The game begins with the player deciding upon the gender and name of their...
Review Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
Is Wii Sports Resort the worthy sequel fans of the original have been waiting for?
When Nintendo needed a showpiece for the unique motion control system of their upcoming Wii console, their developers came up with the original Wii Sports title that was eventually packed in with the system. Needless to say, it's become one of the most beloved titles...
Does High Voltage's much touted FPS manage to live up to the hype?
The Conduit has been hyped for quite a while. Announced over a year ago, the game saw delay after delay, did not get a publisher until late last year and suffered a few other minor problems. After all this time you'd expect the game to be fantastic, but is it really? The Wii doesn't...
Something from Eidos that isn't Tomb Raider or Championship Manager and SURPRISE, it's actually good.
Gamers from the PlayStation era may recall Tecmo's answer to Pokémon, Monster Rancher. Creating a monster to send into gladiatorial combat and doing jobs with the chance of getting special items to use was good fun, so seeing a similar game which...
Review Godzilla Unleashed (Wii)
Up from the depths thirty stories high, breathing fire his head in the sky -- Godzilla! Godzilla! Godzilla!
Godzilla Unleashed is the latest in a string of Godzilla games from developer Pipeworks, the same folks that brought us Rampage Total Destruction, another giant-monsters-smash-everything game that is squarely targeted at the Kaiju-loving...
Review Rampage: Total Destruction (Wii)
Still Rampaging after all these years...
This game is the latest in a series of Rampage games from Midway stretching back to the mid-80s when Rampage was released in the arcades as the first (and practically only) example of the Giant Monsters Wreaking Havoc genre of video games. To many who grew up watching Godzilla, Ultraman and any number of...
Review Namco Museum Remix (Wii)
Something classic, something new, Namco we love you!
In recent years purveyors old arcade games have seen fit to repackage them into "Greatest Hits" collections. Namco first had their Museum series on the original PlayStation in a series of six volumes (cleverly one for each letter of the name "Namco" and then a Japanese-only...
There's a whole lot of blasting going on, but how does it all work?
User-generated content in games goes all the way back to titles like Bill Budge's Pinball Construction set on 8-bit home computers and first-person shooters like Doom and Quake, but it's not something that's ever really been prominent in console games due to both system storage...
Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube765k Watch on YouTube Review Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Wii)
Marvel heroes trapped in a Wiirld they never made!
As the title suggests, this is the ultimate game featuring Marvel super heroes. The storyline resembles many classic Marvel title-spanning events: Doctor Doom has assembled The Masters of Evil to undertake an audacious gambit to assume ultimate power in the universe. Nick Fury, Agent of...
Review Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre (Wii)
Can a last generation port based upon a licensed property possibly be any good?
Rebellion and 2000 A.D. are both British veterans of their respective fields: video games and comics, and like Marmite and potato crisps, both go well together. Unlike Marmite crisps, however, Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre is a winning combination in anyone's book...
Every arachnophobe's worst nightmare brought to life...
Deadly Creatures got a lot of attention in 2008 due to the novel scenario of putting the player in control of a creepy-crawly arachnid, rather than the usual space marine or swashbuckling hero. Why this hasn't been done more often in the post 8-bit gaming world isn't clear - maybe all the...
Review Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii)
A blast from the past!
For those among you who are fond of arcade classics such as Robotron 2084, you might have heard of a little title called Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. It was one of the first premier downloadable titles for the Xbox 360, and was later expanded with the Wii/DS-exclusive Geometry Wars: Galaxies created by British game developer...
Review Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Wii)
The world's most famous wizard returns for his second Wii adventure
After being so pleasantly surprised by Harry Potter’s previous Wii outing we approached this latest title with a fair degree of expectation. Promises of realistic potion-making, intense Quidditch matches and generally improved presentation echoed through the office as the disc was...
Review Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Wii)
Don your proton packs and answer the call.
For years, many of us had childhood dreams of being a Ghostbuster. We longed to don a brown jumpsuit, strap on a proton pack and take down some ghosts - and get paid for it. The days of dreaming are now at an end - besides the getting paid part, Ghostbusters: The Video Game allows us to finally live a day...
Review The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
Has the Hero of Time’s style withstood the test of time?
Twilight Princess is Nintendo’s last Zelda game for the Gamecube and also the first for the Wii. Although the Wii boasts technical improvements over the Gamecube in terms of its processor and graphics hardware, in this case the Wii version is essentially a port of the Gamecube game and...
Definitely a tap you'll want to leave running
Miyamoto might not see the appeal in playing a game without holding a controller, but ex-Sega genius Yuji Naka can certainly think outside the box – or, more accurately, think on top of the box. For his first game since leaving Sega five years ago, Naka has crafted a game played entirely by tapping a...
Review New Play Control! Pikmin 2 (Wii)
Olimar comes back for second helpings
New Play Control! – a series of games that seems to have sparked many mixed views. Pikmin is probably at the forefront of these debates: Nintendo saw it fit to re-release both the Gamecube Pikmin games with a new series of controls designed for the Wii, and then announce Pikmin 3. The first NPC Pikmin was good...
Review Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (Wii)
Will Wii MotionPlus help EA land this golf franchise on the green, or is it just a sand trap for your wallet?
The Tiger Woods games are the current ‘serious’ golf games for PCs and consoles, but let's be honest: how seriously can you take a game of golf that you play with a keyboard or analogue sticks? Tiger Woods 10, (the 12th game in the Tiger...
Review Grand Slam Tennis (Wii)
It's got the courts, it's got the players and it's got MotionPlus support. Does Grand Slam Tennis provide the definitive Wii tennis experience?
It's here, people. After months of feverish anticipation, Wii MotionPlus is upon us. Finally, Wii owners the world over will have access to the kind of precise, fluid and nuanced motion controls that...
Review Virtua Tennis 2009 (Wii)
The new world number one
The first question you might ask when playing Virtua Tennis 2009 is “why has it taken so long to make a great tennis game on Wii?”. Ever since we saw the first videos all those years ago it seemed the console was destined to become better than the real thing when it comes to sports, yet it’s taken years for anyone to...
Who would have thought eating your fruits and vegetables would be so much fun?
We've already seen some strange stuff from Namco-Bandai in the past with their Katamari Damacy releases, but they appear to have outdone even themselves with their latest oddball outing for the Nintendo Wii console. The Munchables carefully weaves a zany world full of...
Fighting fit
It's hard to believe, but it's been 15 years since a Punch-Out!! game was released. Perhaps this is due to the fact that even though the games were made by Nintendo, naturally situated in Japan, they never really found an audience over there. When the Wii came out this was even more of a shame; a new instalment in the series would fit...
Review Boom Blox Bash Party (Wii)
Spielberg's block-based baby is back for another helping
The original Boom Blox - a collaborative effort between big-shot Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and Electronic Arts - proved to be both innovative and enjoyable, especially when playing with friends and family. Due to the success of the original, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise...
Review Guitar Hero Metallica (Wii)
Scraping the bottom of the barrel or taking the franchise to new heights?
Whenever a developer stumbles onto a gold mine, they usually start milking the franchise for all its worth. While Activision certainly falls into that camp with the Guitar Hero series, they’ve managed to maintain the quality of their titles from one installment to the next...
Review PDC World Championship Darts 2009 (Wii)
Does the Wii's latest darts title hit the target or fall flat on its face?
Another year, another video game adaption of the PDC World Darts Championship from publisher Oxygen Interactive. Although this is only the third entry in the series with the first game releasing in late-2006 and the 2008 sequel receiving average critical acclaim, new...
Review Minon: Everyday Hero (Wii)
He may be an everyday hero, but Minon certainly isn't ordinary...
The Japanese have a rightly earned reputation for releasing oddball game titles; it's not so much that the gameplay is unusual, but the content itself. Minon: Everyday Hero (Go! Go! Minon in Japan) is a prime example, seeing as the titular super hero does mundane things like helping...
Is this two-wheeled racer quick off the mark or does it experience some trouble before leaving the starting grid?
Before we get stuck into the review, it's time for a little history lesson. Back in 2006, when Disney bought the Climax racing studio (who produced some excellent MotoGP titles for the Xbox), the MotoGP license went exclusively to...
Review New Play Control! Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (Wii)
Um Bongo
Donkey Kong has traded in his bongos for a Wii Remote and nunchuk - will he still be able to collect all of his coveted bananas or will he make a monkey of himself? Prior to Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo EAD Tokyo had their hands full with Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. This title was quite innovative for its time due to its unique control method...
