Konami Game Reviews
Review Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)
Vampire killing with a nostalgic twist!
We've already seen Konami resurrect two of their most popular gaming franchises with WiiWare’s Gradius and Contra ReBirth, so it comes as no real surprise to see them giving the same treatment to yet another much-loved classic series: Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth. Despite its title, this actually has...
Review Batman Returns (Super Nintendo)
Merry Christmas, Mr. Wayne
The release of Batman Returns was perfectly timed at the peak of Konami's SNES development and during a high point in Batman movie history. The festive feel of the game was slightly out of sync with its Spring '93 release date, but it was completely fitting in regard to the source material. Konami had already mastered a...
Review Space Manbow (Virtual Console / MSX)
Old school shooting fun on the PC standard that wasn't.
Don't feel bad if you've never heard of the MSX. It was an early-80s Microsoft-driven initiative to create a hardware standard for home computers to transform software development in the same way that the VHS standard transformed home video: by removing the need to develop for multiple hardware...
Review Sunset Riders (Super Nintendo)
Bury me with my SNES
Just for a moment, cast your thoughts towards Saturday matinee Western films and reel in all of their imagery of the Old West. Picture in your minds the characters deftly dodging stampeding cattle, guiding their trusty steed as it gallops alongside a runaway train, chasing down a stagecoach, gun fighting in uncouth taverns and...
Review Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii)
Hill hath frozen over
Harry Mason is not having a good day. After crashing his car in a freak snowstorm, he wakes up to find his daughter missing with nary a trace. Determined to find her, Harry sets out into the night with a flashlight to explore the town of Silent Hill in this reimagining of the series’ original entry. Yes, reimagining, not...
Review Frogger Returns (WiiWare)
The return of an arcade legend.
It cannot be denied that Frogger is one of the original arcade hits. It was ported to pretty much every 8-bit console and computer system in the world, bootlegged numerous times and even immortalised in song on the seminal "Pac-Man Fever" LP by Buckner & Garcia. It's the only Konami arcade game from the...
Review Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
B-Grade horror movie action comes to the Virtual Console.
Every once in a while a game is released that's so unique it garners a cult following and becomes more popular years later than when it was first released. Toe Jam & Earl for the Sega Genesis is one such game, but another prime example would be Konami's Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The game...
Review Biker Mice From Mars (Super Nintendo)
Time to rock 'n ride!
If you want to know what Biker Mice from Mars is like, think of it this way. Take RC Pro-Am for the NES, change the cars into Harleys, and then throw a bunch of thug-like mice onto those bikes and there you have it. It's pretty much a carbon copy of the ideas and gameplay found in RC Pro-Am, with the over-the-top weirdness of...
Review Contra ReBirth (WiiWare)
Still separating the men from the boys.
The Contra series has always been one of gaming's greats: incredibly simple yet fun gameplay, top-notch design, and of course, what the games are most known for, a hard-as-nails difficulty level. After multiple failed attempts to create a good 3D Contra game, the DS recently got a brilliant new 2D entry that,...
Does the diminutive adventure bring the big guns?
Let's just get this out of the way now: if you like the NES games, you'll probably dig this entry. Operation C isn't an adaptation or a port (arguably); it is an old-school Contra game. It may lack in a few notable areas, but you'll largely enjoy it. Operation C does a pretty good job of sticking to...
Nobody parodies their own games quite like Konami!
Konami had already enjoyed some success creating a parody of their Gradius series of shooters with their Parodius releases, so they must have felt like they were on to something when they decided to do the same with their popular Castlevania series back in the early '90s. Kid Dracula basically takes...
Review Hybrid Heaven (Nintendo 64)
The N64's own Metal Gear Solid? If only.
Back in 1998, Konami's Metal Gear Solid took the gaming world by storm. Its masterful combination of action-packed gameplay and cinematic storytelling was unlike anything ever before seen in a videogame. The only bad news was that unless you owned a PlayStation, you wouldn’t be playing it, as it was...
Super Sprint and Super Off-Road had a baby and it's soooo cute!
If you were a gamer in the mid-late 80s you'll probably remember a couple of arcade games called Super Sprint and Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road, both of which gave 1-3 players the chance to compete in a series of races against human or computer-controlled opponents seen from a...
Review Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Game Boy)
The second Game Boy Castlevania atones for the sins of its predecessor and ranks as one of the finest entries in the entire series
Before we plough headlong into this review, a short history lesson is probably in order. As the title denotes, Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge isn’t the first instalment of Konami’s vampire-slaying franchise to...
Review Smash Table Tennis (Virtual Console / NES)
Smash Table Tennis delivers a backhand to your wallet.
Sometimes, you just have to wonder who at Nintendo is in charge of the Virtual Console game selection. Perhaps it's one of those people who, when unable to decide what to do, throws a dart at a dartboard with possible "options" on it in order to come to a decision. That almost has to...
An antagonizingly good game.
Konami returns to Wiiware with another semi-strategy game. This time instead of reactively fending off crabs, you’ll be proactively leading a nation of ants in a war of senseless aggression. Finally, those ladybugs will get what they deserve. But is this nation worthy of a leader such as you? Ant Nation is...
Review Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Nintendo 64)
You know it makes sense!
Save Japan from a group of stage performers by throwing coins and hitting robots with your trusty kiseru pipe. What do you get if you take a generous helping of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, mix well with a portion of Mario 64, and add a heavy sprinkling of traditional Japanese culture? The answer, of course, is...
Time travel has never been so complicated
Ever since the launch of the Nintendo DS console, the format has been heralded as a great way to bring out adventure games to make use of the stylus as a mouse substitute. In many ways this has borne fruit, with releases like Another Code, Hotel Dusk and the Phoenix Wright series all proving to be excellent...
Review Eledees: The Adventures of Kai and Zero (DS)
The Elebits head to the Nintendo DS in this action-packed sequel.
Shortly after the Wii was launched in 2006, Konami released one of the most bizarre and enjoyable third-party games that year. Entitled Elebits, the game showcased the new functionally of the Wii Remote. Played from a first-person perspective, players explored the land looking for...
Review Detana!! Twinbee (TG-16)
It's the popular vertical-scrolling shooter renowned for its cute and comical world.
The Twinbee series of shooters hasn't seen a lot of action outside of Japan, so it should come as no surprise that this PC Engine version of Detana!! Twinbee was never released outside of Japan and marks yet another import release for Hudson on the Wii Virtual...
Review Suikoden: Tierkreis (DS)
Is the first handheld instalment in Konami's classic RPG series as fun to play as it is to pronounce?
Who could have guessed that the current console generation's go-to platform for RPGs both old and new would turn out to be the humble DS? It's a hand-held, it's manufactured by Nintendo and the hardware leaves a lot to be desired in comparison to...
Review Gradius ReBirth (WiiWare)
Does Konami's old-school Gradius formula still hold up all these years later?
The original Gradius arcade release was one of the first truly great side-scrolling shooters and, along with R-Type, spawned a legion of copycat video games back in the 80s and 90s. The Gradius titles have been copied and cloned more times than can be counted and, much...
Review Life Force (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Use the force!
For those not in the know, Life Force started out life known as Salamander in Japan and was renamed for Western audiences. The Salamander series is a spin off to Konami’s famous Gradius franchise of shooters; the main differences in Salamander are the introduction of a simultaneous 2 player mode, vertically scrolling stages in...
Hopefully that’s just sand in your pants and not crabs…
Konami is well known in the gaming world and is a much larger game company than the typical WiiWare studio. With their resources, a simple budget title should be something they could throw together in a weekend. Unfortunately, Sandy Beach (developed by Frozen Codebase and published by...
Review Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Drac's back!
After the success of the original Castlevania title on the NES system, Konami decided to change things up quite a bit for Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Gone was the straight-ahead platforming action of the original, replaced with a much more rpg-flavored approach that placed more emphasis on item collection and exploration. While...
Review Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Oh baby!
Let's be honest, a platformer built around a tiny baby and his rattle doesn't exactly beam with potential from the start, so it's no small wonder that this game was originally rejected by Nintendo of America at the time it was submitted for release in the US. But if you look at screenshots of Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa and prematurely dismiss...
Review Critter Round-Up (WiiWare)
The animals aren't the only thing that stink in this mediocre WiiWare release.
Critter Round-Up has been branded by many people as an animal-themed version of the classic arcade game Qix. While that description isn't too far off the mark, there's more to it than simply boxing in area on the screen, but unfortunately it's not enough to keep this...
Review Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou (Virtual Console / TurboGrafx-16)
Gordon the Gofer
This is an almost arcade-perfect port of the arcade version of Gradius II, which was also known as Vulcan Adventure. Konami made no compromises in choosing the PC Engine’s Super CD format to release this game on, and the music sounds better than ever as a result. Sadly this never made it to the west as a TurboGrafx-CD game, so...
Review Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Wii)
Right on target, or way off the mark?
Konami's flagship Pro Evolution Soccer (Winning Eleven in other territories) series really caught the gaming world's attention with its fourth release, a beautifully playable and engrossing take on football. Since then it's become even more popular, and now rivals EA's FIFA brand in the sales stakes. However,...
Some of us have waited nearly two decades for this game - does Konami's latest 2D effort match the brilliance of the SNES Contra III?
Konami’s Contra (AKA Gryzor, Probotector) is one of those franchises that has struggled to make the transition from 2D to 3D. After the excellent arcade and 8-bit editions, lucky SNES and Megadrive owners were...
