Wii U eShop Game Reviews
Review Rakoo & Friends (Wii U eShop)
Love is in the air
Rakoo & Friends is a strong case for the allure of beautiful presentation. From a gameplay standpoint there's nothing really special about this one, but the fact that it's a joy to watch adds greatly to the overall package. Rakoo & Friends tells the story of the eponymous critter and his quest to find true love. The game...
Review Toto Temple Deluxe (Wii U eShop)
#GetTheGoat
You may be wondering, what is a Toto? No, we're not talking about the 1970s American rock band behind hit songs like 'Rockmaker' and 'Hold the Line'; Toto is amazing, but this isn't that Toto, even though this toto is also amazing. A toto is a small sentient tablet which has a strange obsession of having a goat sit on its head, and they...
Review Medabots: Metabee & Rokusho (Wii U eShop / GBA)
Meh-abots
Medabots has always been a bit of an odd case. Clearly created to hitch a ride on the Pokémon hype train, it's a series about people who - instead of capturing and fighting with creatures - collect machine parts to build and fight with robots. Unlike Digimon, which was also similar in setup, Medabots never really seemed to catch on...
Not so sparkly
Puzzle solving games with gems, jewels and shiny objects are a dime a dozen. Sometimes, it doesn't take a gemologist to determine which ones are valuable or worthless colourful bits of glass. Gemology joins this glamorous, risky world of puzzle games hoping to be discovered. But is it really worth it? How many gem puzzle games are...
Review Perpetual Blast (Wii U eShop)
A shot in the dark
Perpetual Blast is an endless shooter. Similar to the concept of the popular endless runner genre on mobile devices, Perpetual Blast focuses on doing one thing and one thing only. Sadly, myriad execution errors keep it from being an enjoyable experience. The idea of Perpetual Blast is simple: find and destroy 100 boxes as fast as...
Review Race the Sun (Wii U eShop)
A fine line between rapture and ruin
Race the Sun doesn't look like much from its screenshots. The minimalistic visuals and simple gameplay premise might not grab you at a glance. It's in hurtling down those gray fields, narrowly missing hulking monoliths as your plane's solar fuel gauge steadily drains, the sun slowly falling as the sky turns a...
Review Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (Wii U eShop / DS)
A toy story
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis is the Nintendo DS sequel to the original GBA classic and a new recruit to the ever-growing Wii U Virtual Console library. Rather than being more of the same platforming puzzle action, Nintendo chose to focus this entire game around what is but a small percentage of the previous game - the...
Review Hold Your Fire: A Game About Responsibility (Wii U eShop)
Star Chores
It's time we put a stop to the romanticism of life in space. Too long have we had to endure the thrills of blast-filled chases through asteroid belts and hyperspeed flings among the stars. Who do these games think we are? Interesting? No, we want the truth! We demand the 9-5 trudgery and certain, unforgiving death that comes with being a...
Review Freedom Planet (Wii U eShop)
Purple is the new blue
Yes, Freedom Planet feels like an old-school 2D Sonic game, but thankfully it manages to overcome some of the hurdles that bog down the blue hedgehog's classic Sega games. Freedom Planet boasts colourful characters whose story extends past a bland cliché of catch phrases. The art style consists of a gorgeous colour palette...
Review Car Battler Joe (Wii U eShop / GBA)
One cup of Speed Racer lore. One cup of Mad Max universe...
Car Battler Joe tells the cliched story of how Joe Todoroki went out of the comfort of his bedroom to drive through the wasteland of Galacia in pursuit of his estranged father. Rumour has it that he joined a band of misfits in order to destroy the same sport that made him the most famous...
Review The Rivers of Alice: Extended Version (Wii U eShop)
We’re all mad (about watercolour) here!
Fictional rivers usually come in one of two forms – either gentle and beautiful, moving softly through mystical forests, or fast and dangerous, destroying everything in their path. Luckily, in The Rivers of Alice: Extended Version the former idea is adopted, leaving us with a game that is just as...
Review Defense Dome (Wii U eShop)
It seems that the rocket has missed its mark
Defense Dome is a classic-style arcade action game developed by the aptly named HullBreach Studios for the Wii U eShop. Designed to be played in short bursts, this game offers quick access to three separate level designs, with promise for more content to be made available as add-on content. It is...
Exploring Space, One Turn at a Time
Oh to be lost in space, exploring strange new worlds with a plethora of rocks. Lots and lots of space rocks. Enjoying the thrill of combat from dangerous, colourful and stinky creatures at your fuel tanks. Rescuing your fellow scientists, some unwillingly and others affected by the loneliness that is space...
Review Rock 'N Racing Off Road DX (Wii U eShop)
Quantity over quality
EnjoyUp's top-down racer Rock 'N Racing Off Road, released in February, was a disappointing, frustrating experience that left much to be desired. Now, just months later, Rock 'N Racing Off Road DX aims to improve upon the formula and offer a more robust set of features, tracks, cars, and modes. Yet while there's certainly more...
Review Job the Leprechaun (Wii U eShop)
"What do I look like, me lad?"
Job the Leprechaun is having a hard time. A witch has kidnapped his best friend, Eri, and has taken her far away, past lands filled with knights, zombies, and goblins. So Job's going to save her…eventually. First, he'll grab all the four-leaf clovers he can find, slowly moving through the poorly-defended countryside...
Out of this world
There is something to be said about the power of some good ol' fashioned couch multiplayer in this age of online gaming. There's a certain degree of delightful chaos in the experience of competing head to head with friends that are physically present that can't be replicated by voice chat or matchmaking. Nowhere is this more...
Review StarTropics (Wii U eShop / NES)
Sun, sea, sand, and aliens
Winter is slowly creeping up on us, so it's as good a time as ever to explore warmer climates and take your mind off of the bad weather. For some NES-filtered beams of sunshine, why not step into the shoes of young Mike Jones, an American kid who's headed for an alphabetic island on the tropical adventure of a lifetime?...
Review Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Wii U eShop / GBA)
Prophesizing the amiiboom
Mario vs. Donkey Kong is interesting in that it's the only game in the Mario vs DK franchise (to date) that actually allows the player to control Mario; indeed this was originally planned to be a sequel to 1994's Donkey Kong on Game Boy, so arguably those two have more in common than the other games in the series. Mario vs...
Review Extreme Exorcism (Wii U eShop)
A hauntingly good time
Extreme Exorcism is a simple, fun indie title that embraces one of Nintendo's core values: getting people together to play. From its aesthetics to its modes, this game is dripping with retro charm. If you haven't seen or heard of it before, it's a 2D pixel-art shooter that focuses on platforming and run-and-gun mechanics. It...
Review Explody Bomb (Wii U eShop)
This bomb's a dud
Oftentimes when playing on the Wii U, it can be easy to forget that one of the major selling points of the console is that it features a second screen on the controller. Sure, a game here or there may attempt use it in an "innovative" way, but it seems that most of the time the second screen is simply used as a screen mirror or as...
Review Tecmo Bowl (Wii U eShop / NES)
Move over Madden 16, Tecmo Bowl is back and stealing the NFL spotlight
1989 wasn't just an amazing year because that's when this writer was born. It's an also amazing year because that's when Tecmo Bowl received its home console release on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Boasting an impressive roster from the 1988 NFL season, players could now...
Review Year Walk (Wii U eShop)
Into the woods
A year walk — or "Årsgång" — is an archaic form of divination in Swedish folklore, in which a person would deprive themselves of sleep and food in a dark room for 24 hours to then venture through the woods towards the local parish. Certain nights, such as New Year's Eve, were said to be better suited than others for a successful...
The sky, the stars and the B button
Star Sky is not a video game. Well, not in the usual sense at least. It is described as being "similar to an interactive poem", something to experience rather than something to play - and that's a perfect description. There aren't many games that make you feel like lying down, grabbing a box of chocolates and...
Review Funky Physics (Wii U eShop)
Taking the Fun Out of Funky
There's a lot of physics in Funky Physics. There are also some minor annoyances, like hitting blocks and timing them just right to bounce off platforms for them to function properly. It takes the funky out of the title. Or maybe it adds to it depending on which perspective you're looking at the game from and your...
Review Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Wii U eShop / DS)
Emerging from the shadows
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is a Nintendo DS remake of the first Fire Emblem game (originally released in 1990 for Famicom in Japan) that's now available to download in Virtual Console form for Wii U. The series staple of strategic turn-based gameplay along with the perma-death possibility for characters would form the...
Review Brave Tank Hero (Wii U eShop)
War, war never changes
Oh Brave Tank Hero, you were not a great game on the 3DS. For those of you who missed the review, ultimately Brave Tank Hero was a mediocre affair on the portable system - the flawed game design and an array of oversights ruined what could have been a good title. Now, Natsume has released the game for the Wii U eShop; will a...
Review The Swindle (Wii U eShop)
An old-fashioned cyber thief
The Swindle represents the first foray onto Nintendo hardware for Dan Marshall and his studio Size Five Games - via Curve Digital - having built up a strong reputation with PC releases. Bringing its own unique brand of quirky cyberpunk thievery, it's a slice of procedurally generated silliness likely to amuse as well as...
Review Mario Golf (Wii U eShop / N64)
Serious Golf for Serious Plumbers
You could argue that the best part of many of the Mario sports titles is that they bring goofy, lighthearted aspects to those pastimes. Games like Super Mario Strikers and Mario Hoops: 3 on 3 all make dramatic changes to the sports they're portraying, capturing the attention of players who might not be interested in...
Review Zombie Defense (Wii U eShop)
Here a zombie, there a zombie, everywhere a zombie zombie!
The game title Zombie Defense couldn't be more accurate and straight to the point. Developer Teyon's Wii U début is exactly that: a tower defence/RTS (real-time strategy) game where you fight off waves of zombies in an attempt to save the planet from total zombie supremacy. As with all...
Review Crab Cakes Rescue (Wii U eShop)
This cake is a lie
The Wii U's library is bursting with quirky, innovative, fun games. Crab Cakes Rescue is not one of them. From the moment you start up Crab Cakes Rescue, its lack of polish is readily apparent. For starters, it runs in a 4:3 aspect ratio, leaving unsightly black bars on either side of the screen. The title is lifted directly from...
