Game Reviews scoring 3/10
It is indeed crazy that we're still getting Sudoku games on DSiWare
Counting this new release, there are now nine Sudoku games available on DSiWare in Europe. Some offer a little more than others, but all in all it tends to come down to the price and amount of puzzles available. Crazy Sudoku does well in both areas, but with so many other choices...
Review Chess Challenge! (DSiWare)
Chuck, mate
Chess is over two thousand years old and still hasn't gone out of style. It's arguably the perfect game of strategy, enjoyed the world over by countless bright adults, reflective retirees and nerdy youths. Just about every city has a hub, a certain coffee shop or public park, at which one can go to watch two competitors going at it, the...
Review Puffins: Let's Roll (DSiWare)
Let's not
It's kind of a bummer when games come out with controls that just don't fit the platform. This wasn't much of a problem a mere generation ago, but with the plethora of options today ranging from button to motion and touch it's become more prevalent an issue. Other Ocean, behind the excellent Dark Void Zero, has fallen into this very trap...
Review 5 Arcade Gems (WiiWare)
Gems? More like paste.
The term "arcade" has seemingly come to be synonymous with a game that has a "pick-up-and-play" feel to it, just as arcade games of old. Of course the motivation of manufacturers of these arcade machines was to encourage players to drop coins on games they hadn't seen before, in the hopes they would enjoy...
Review Game & Watch Ball (DSiWare)
A load of old balls
Before the world-crushing DS, before the Game Boy began its decade-plus of supremecy, Nintendo’s handheld division began with the humble Game & Watch line, which started with the even more humble Ball in 1980. Over the past 30 years, odds are good that if you’ve had any interest in the company’s portables you’ve come...
Review The Price is Right (DSiWare)
No it isn't
Guess a number. Wrong. Wait ten seconds, then guess again. Wrong. Wait ten seconds, then guess again. Wrong. Now all this exciting number-guessing action can be yours to own with the release of Ludia’s The Price is Right for DSiWare! Yes, you too can estimate the prices of fanciful items you can’t win, compete against AI opponents...
Review Disney Fireworks (DSiWare)
All flash, no bang
Combining both loud noises and pretty colors (things we've been conditioned from birth to stare at in awe), there's something magical about a good fireworks display. Disney is well-known for the nightly shows put on at their assorted theme parks, and now their game-developing arm has brought the fun to the DSi Shop in the form of...
A winning combination?
God bless the common burglar. Without his sticky-fingered ways, the humble safe may never have been invented to keep important things in and unimportant people out. Sadly it also gave rise to Safecracker, a crime against gaming that has stolen something more important than jewels or money: our time and attention. The story...
Review Wario: Master of Disguise (DS)
Not even a master could disguise this mess
Wario games have always stood out as being excellent venues for experimental game design. He challenged death in games by going immortal for a spell, helped Nintendo test the waters with motion control across multiple games and platforms and for the most part boldly goes where Mario dares not. He's seen a...
Review Prehistorik Man (DSiWare)
A real dinosaur
Originally released for DOS as Prehistorik 2, Prehistorik Man has seen ports to the Game Boy, SNES, and GBA already, and it seems the GBA version has been ported to DSiWare this time around. In each version, the story is the same — hungry dinosaurs have snuck into a prehistoric village in the dead of night and eaten all the...
Review Sudoku 4Pockets (DSiWare)
Time to dig out your sudoku dictionary
Since 2002, the aptly-named 4Pockets.com has been creating applications and casual games for pocket PCs and smartphones, including Breakout clones, jigsaw puzzles, pinball games, and of course, sudoku. Their version of the ever-popular puzzle game has received a slight makeover and a cute Japanese doll-shaped...
Review "Aha! I Found It!" Hidden Object Game (WiiWare)
Flawed by fuzziness
It took Ateam Inc. almost a year to bring their last WiiWare offering to the west after its initial Japanese release, but their next reached our shores within a matter of months. "Aha! I Found It!" Hidden Object Game brings with it the promise of good old-fashioned 'find the hidden object' family fun for up to four...
A budget title in more ways than one.
When Cinemax first announced their plans to bring the classic Sokoban puzzle to DSiWare, we were somewhat excited – especially with the price being set at a measly 200 points. But unfortunately, in this case, this has also resulted in the game itself not offering much content. The game starts with pretty...
Review Arcade Hoops Basketball (DSiWare)
Flick and swish
Arcade Hoops Basketball is a simple beast. Odds are you've played it's real-life counterpart before, too. No, not basketball. Have you been to a fair? Theme park? Arcade? Large movie theater? It's the one where you have to chuck a ball through the hoop as many times as possible before time runs out and you may or may not win a cheap...
Diabolic.
The first time many saw images from Diatomic one word was in their head: Geometry Wars (okay, that's two). The similarities in appearance are definitely there: closed-border shooter (attention: new term coinage alert!) and old-school wire-frame graphics. This isn't a bad thing though, with imitation being the best form of flattery and all...
Review Hell's Kitchen VS (DSiWare)
Dog's dinner
Cooking games are ten-a-penny on DS, and it's all Cooking Mama's fault. See, if she hadn't started off getting youngsters interested in preparing food we never would have wound up here, reviewing Hell's Kitchen VS on DSiWare, and for that Ms Mama can never be forgiven. Based on the TV series featuring acerbic chef extraordinaire Gordon...
Crash and burn.
We've already seen a few racing titles released on the WiiWare service, although, to be fair, many of them have been fairly substandard. So any time a new racing title is released, it's generally met with not only a small degree of anticipation, but also a solid helping of caution and scepticism as well. Stunt Cars brings yet another...
Now you’re playing with power. Dolphin power.
My Dolphin is the dolphin training simulator for the Wii for which everyone's been clamouring for years. Using the Wii Remote, players guide their aquatic pal through a performance to carry out jumps, spins, back flips and other tricks in order to perform for your audience like…well, like a trained...
Review Just Sing! Christmas Songs (DSiWare)
Not something you'd want to find in your stocking
Developers seem to be absolutely crazy about releasing smaller versions of DS games as DSiWare downloads - just look at Bookworm and Master of Illusion as it is once again the case here. Just Sing! Christmas Songs is a small sampler of the retail game Just Sing!, which is due out sometime in 2010. As...
Take this one back to the lab
Here at Nintendo Life Towers we are quite partial to those Raving Rabbids: those mindless jabbering critters remind us of ourselves. Seeing the release of a scaled-down version of Rabbids Go Home’s In Ze Remote feature, however, gave us cause for concern: could this dress-up game justify the 500 Point price tag? For...
Review Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)
A history lesson in the failure of PC-to-console ports.
Activision was the first to sell a mahjong solitaire (for lack of a better term) game for IBM PCs and Apple Macs in 1986 under the name Shanghai. They even got the programmer of the original game -- which was created on University of Illinois mainframes -- to do the programming and create...
Review Fighting Street (Virtual Console / TurboGrafx-16)
Proof that some memories are best left in the past
Before Street Fighter 2 became all the rage in arcades and one of the most popular fighting games in the world, it began life as an overlooked arcade title called Street Fighter, which saw the light of day way back in 1987. While the title was far from the monster hit its successor would become, it...
A mini-game too far...
Mini-games. One might say that mini-game (or, more nicely, "party game") collections have a serious presence on the Wii; it is often a fact bemoaned by more "hard-centred" gamers. Some of these titles are amongst the more successful games on the platform: both Carnival Games and Game Party have done quite...
Review MySims Camera (DSiWare)
Ever wanted to share a photo with a My Sim? No, we haven't either...
My Sims Camera is a simple program that requires an equally simple explanation; essentially, it takes animations from the My Sims series and allows you to edit photos taken with the DSi camera by placing characters and stamps into your photos in various poses and styles. The game...
Review Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans (Wii)
History? Sort of. Horrible? YES!
If you live in the UK you're probably familiar with the Horrible History series of books from author Terry Deary; featuring illustrations by Martin Brown. They're books aimed at children (mainly boys) between the ages of 8-12 which try to make history fun by discussing the nastier bits of it; using humourous...
Review Virtual League Baseball (Virtual Boy)
Does stepping onto the virtual diamond impress?
You take control of a team then bat, pitch and field as you compete against others, either in one off games or a league, offering you the chance to become Virtual League World Champion. Each game lasts for 9 innings though games will end early if a team is winning by over 10 points. For both batting...
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 Altered Beast (Virtual Console / Virtual Console Arcade)
Welcome to your doom!
There’s no two ways about it: Altered Beast is a terrible game. Even here, in a perfect conversion of the arcade original, it’s so horrendously stodgy and repetitive that it makes you wonder quite why anyone holds it in the slightest bit of regard. For those lucky few amongst you yet to engage in a little beast altering,...
Let's not...
When Prope revealed Let's Tap to the world everyone though it would be yet another gimmicky Wii motion-based mini-game collection -- which it was, although a pretty good one. After that turned out surprisingly well, expectations of Let's Catch were a bit mixed: playing catch on your Wii sounds a bit goofy, but could it be a hidden gem...
Review PDC World Championship Darts 2009 (DS)
Bullseye? Perhaps not.
PDC World Championship Darts 2009 from Oxygen Games brings all the, ahem, "excitement" of darts to the Nintendo DS, offering four different modes of gameplay as well as a local tournament mode. Being a game based on arguably not the most active of sports, and indeed one which is most often associated with an older...
