Game Reviews
Latest Reviews
Browse our collection of reviews.
Review: Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep (Wii)
What lurks beneath?
2007’s Endless Ocean was a true original: a diving game that made little attempt to be a game, basing most of its gameplay around just touching fish. As part of the Touch Generations range it clearly appealed to enough aspiring divers to merit a sequel, but it’s certainly changed from the inviting warm waters of the Manaurai Sea. This time around the game takes in seas and..
Review: Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars (Wii)
Crossover chaos at its very finest
When Capcom’s Versus series burst into arcades in 1996 it was a refreshing change of pace after the seemingly endless stream of copycat brawlers and tired sequels. X-Men vs. Street Fighter also marked a significant new attitude for the veteran developer; it was willing to let its most famous characters duke it out with some of the comic book world’s leading..
Review: No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle (Wii)
Travis Touchdown is back with a vengeance and better than ever
The mirrors don’t work. It’s a minor detail and completely inconsequential to gameplay, but when Travis Touchdown meanders into a public restroom to do his deeds and save the game in No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle, he might as well be a vampire. Despite his bloodlust, Travis is not a vampire – he’s just the star of an..
Review: de Blob (Wii)
¡Viva la revolución!
Chroma City has been subjugated by the diabolical INKT Corporation! Can anyone free the formerly colourful Raydians from their grey prison? Enter the members of the Colour Revolution led by legendary Chroma City graffiti artist Blob, whom players control in their quest for colour, funk and freedom! Based upon a game created by university students (many of whom went on to form..
Review: Avatar: The Game (Wii)
The sum of its parts
There's no doubt that James Cameron's Avatar in all its 3D blue-and-green beauty is a worldwide phenomenon, grossing millions upon millions of dollars and becoming a word of mouth sensation. With such a wave of success comes James Cameron's Avatar: The Game from Ubisoft, with its oft-heard promises of being an interactive experience to complement the movie, expanding the story..
Review: Puzzle Series 2: Illust Logic + Colourful Logic (Wii)
We just died and went to picross heaven...
Nonograms (you may recognise them by the Nintendo trademark "Picross") are relatively recent to the puzzle world, first appearing in Japanese puzzle magazines in the late 1980s. Nintendo quickly popularised them by publishing titles for Game Boy and the Super Famicom and have continued to do so on the DS. Hudson has released their own DS..
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 remake. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is not the..
Review: Ultimate Shooting Collection (Wii)
A 3-in-1 tour of Milestone's vision of Bullet Hell
Milestone is a pretty rare beast: a company completely focused on arcade shooters (well, other than that hula game) at a time when arcades and the old shoot 'em up game genre are both practically extinct. They were putting out Dreamcast games after that system died, so perhaps they just have a morbid obsession with dead game systems. In any event,..
Review: Planet 51 (Wii)
Join the space race!
Planet 51 is based on the animated film of the same name. It’s produced by Pyro Studios, the team behind the Commandos series, and published by none other than Sega, so it should be pretty good. The problem is of course that most film to game translations are cheap and badly designed. Does Planet 51 join them? Planet 51 is a world populated by little green aliens that live in..
Review: Castle of Shikigami III (Wii)
Shooting things and shooting the breeze...
The Castle of Shikigami series is one of the more recent shooting franchises to appear in Japanese arcades and subsequently home consoles. Castle of Shikigami III is the first to appear on Wii with Aksys providing the localisation for North America. Combining good looks, humour and challenging gameplay, it's a welcome addition to the Wii's shooter..
Review: Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Wii)
Do not underestimate the power of the Darkside!
When Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles was seen to only cover RE0, 1 and 3 it was pretty clear that a sequel would be in the offing; the positive reception and respectable sales figures it received probably didn't hurt. If you're a fan and expecting more of the same in this digest-version of the Resident Evil saga, then you certainly won't be..
Review: ANNO: Create a New World (Wii)
Have sim fans' prayers been answered?
The history of sim games on home consoles hasn't been the brightest since the control pad interface doesn't lend itself as well to the fine control you would normally expect using a mouse on home computers. The Wii's pointer makes a good mouse replacement of course, so theoretically a game like Anno: Create a New World (the console version of Anno 1404, the..
Review: Jambo! Safari (Wii)
Jambo! Now jam on outta here!
Animal games seem to be the big new thing, especially on the family-friendly Wii. You can't throw a Remote in a shop without hitting one these days, with every major publisher putting out their own take on the safari-vet-sim sub-genre. Jambo! Safari is Sega's entry in the virtual-wild-animal-game stakes, and a resurrection of an old arcade title, but is this game one..
Review: Arcade Zone (Wii)
A mini-game collection for retro-fans.
Whilst the word "arcade" will mean "video game" to many, it mustn't be forgotten that many arcades also featured carnival-style games that dispensed tickets for buying plastic trinkets (or, for the truly skilled, something more flash like a transistor radio or a soft toy) from a prize shop. Developed by Baltic/South American development..
Review: Ju-On: The Grudge (Wii)
Time to break out those rubber underpants!
The Ju-On series of films are a true horror landmark. Released at a time when most horror films have just become an endless series of remakes or are more depictions of torture than "scary movies," they refreshingly provide genuine frights with terrifying tales of vengeful spirits haunting the sites of their bodily demise. In celebration of the..
Review: New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
The Super Mario Bros. experience long-time fans have been waiting for.
Nintendo has been making Super Mario Bros. games for as long as they've been making game consoles, and after the mammoth success of New Super Mario Bros. on DS, it comes as no real surprise to see them continuing that tradition on the Wii. And while Nintendo have made it clear that the unique multiplayer aspects are the selling..
Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex (Wii)
Two years old. HD-to-Wii port. Surprisingly good
When Treyarch first announced that they'd be porting Infinity Ward's two-year-old Xbox 360/PS3/PC powerhouse Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to Wii, nobody seemed to think that the game would faithfully translate to Nintendo's underpowered console. The first screens were laughed at and the game seemed poised to be a disaster of Dead Rising: Chop 'Til..
Review: Need For Speed: NITRO (Wii)
You've got boost power!
With lagging interest (read: sales) in their Need For Speed series, EA decided to try something new: instead of half-sim, half-arcade street racing games that lost direction with each new entry, the franchise would be split in two and refocused. Back in September, the Xbox 360/PS3's sim-oriented Need For Speed: Shift was met with all-around high-fives, and now Wii owners..
Review: Rabbids Go Home (Wii)
Well and truly off its trolley
As the fourth Rabbids game in the Wii’s three-year lifespan, you’d be forgiven for thinking Ubisoft has run out of ideas for its bizarre creations, but Rabbids Go Home is potentially the oddest game in the series yet. Making a clean break from its minigame origins, Rabbids Go Home is an all-new adventure game from the talented Ubisoft Montpellier team, but how..
Review: Wii Fit Plus (Wii)
A worthwhile upgrade or just Nintendo milking their new cash cow?
Wii Fit's runaway success seemed to take even Nintendo by surprise given the number of times Satoru Iwata has publicly stated he never thought he could sell millions of bathroom scales as a new kind of fitness product. It's probably not much of a surprise to see them testing whether not lightning can strike twice with a title that's..
