Game Reviews
Latest Reviews
Browse our collection of reviews.
Review: Triple Shot Sports (WiiWare)
Shooting pain? Get relief fast - don't play!
In the promotional literature, developer Code Monkeys claim that Triple Shot Sports is "the most advanced recreational shooting game available for WiiWare." Well, with its presentation of Olympic shooting events it's certainly unique, but the only thing we found to be really "advanced" was the state of the pointer bounding box issues..
Review: Rage of the Gladiator (WiiWare)
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Ghostfire Games' Rage of the Gladiator makes no bones about paying homage to Nintendo's classic arcade boxer Punch Out!!, using similar mechanics based around recognising enemy attack patterns to battle through a bevy of foes. Whilst its shoes are planted firmly in the Nintendo title's footsteps, this..
Review: Military Madness: Nectaris (WiiWare)
Tactical Mutually Assured Destruction
They say the moon is a harsh mistress — especially when it's home to prisoners building a super weapon to destroy Earth! This is the setting of Military Madness: Nectaris, a tactical strategy game which originally appeared on the Turbo-Graphx-16 as Military Madness (and in its native Japan as Nectaris). This revamped WiiWare version proves to be faithful to..
Review: Dart Rage (WiiWare)
These darts be angry
Dart games have traditionally been pretty plain affairs. Pub Darts on WiiWare was as basic as it could get and left us with a bland and forgettable taste in our mouths. Developer JV Games may not have left the best taste among WiiWare connoisseurs after some beginning duds in Frat Party Games: Pong Toss and Incoming!, but their latest, Dart Rage, is a pretty tasty morsel. Where..
Review: Mega Man 10 (WiiWare)
More classic Mega Man gaming goodness.
With the release of Mega Man 9, Capcom was able to successfully recreate the classic 8-bit feel of the Mega Man series for game fans to enjoy, this time allowing the game to be downloaded on Nintendo's WiiWare service. Not only did the game bring back many of the unique gameplay mechanics of the earlier titles, it also managed to look and sound like them as..
Review: Dracula: Undead Awakening (WiiWare)
Undead a go-go
Dracula: Undead Awakening is a nice example of how to port an iPhone game to the Wii properly: make sure the graphics are up to scratch and Wii-ify the controls. If you're unaware of the iPhone original, it's like a horror film version of Williams' arcade classics Robotron: 2084 or Smash TV, or the more recent Geometry Wars: players control a character attempting to fend off..
Review: Family Go-Kart Racing (WiiWare)
A pit stop on the road to hell
The family that just can’t get enough of each other is back in their eighth outing on WiiWare. By now, Aksys has had plenty of time to figure out what works and what doesn’t in this series of games. And it was becoming pretty obvious that if these games have a fault (and they’re all pretty flawless) it’s that the cast of characters was just too small. With the..
Review: GhostSlayer (WiiWare)
When there's no more water in the well, the dead will walk the Earth
You know what they say: if you can’t beat ‘em, take what they did and put a fresh coat of paint on it. In this case it’s Gevo Entertainment taking on Wii Sports Resort’s sword-fighting modes with a mythical Chinese folklore twist. This is by no means a bad thing. GhostSlayer is a MotionPlus-enabled slasher on rails. Your..
Review: Mouse House (WiiWare)
Home improvements needed
Mouse House is the latest game to make the jump from iPhone to WiiWare. Not all of these transitions are very successful, but Mouse House is a basic enough puzzle game that it survives the leap intact and without bringing any shame upon developers Plaid World Studios. Unfortunately, in the competitive WiiWare marketplace, it's lacking in features that make it as compelling..
Review: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice For All (WiiWare)
“Sustained!”
This second game in the Phoenix Wright series brings more of the same intriguing puzzle solving game play mixed with addictive storytelling that made the first game a runaway success when it was released. And like the first game, Phoenix’s second outing is one of the best experiences to be had on a handheld. But as we pointed out in our review of the WiiWare port of the first..
Review: Art of Balance (WiiWare)
Who would have thought stacking could be so much fun?
Shin'en, probably best known for their Nanostray shooters on the Nintendo DS, decided to toss their hat in the increasingly crowded ring of WiiWare puzzlers. Instead of rehashing another dumbed-down clone of an existing idea, however, they've instead taken the basic idea of stacking and built one of the most unique WiiWare titles to date around..
Review: WarMen Tactics (WiiWare)
Shockin' awful
Here at Nintendo Life we pride ourselves on reviewing every downloadable game and application released for the Wii and DSi. As a reviewer this may mean reviewing games in genres you might not regularly play, and there's also the risk of playing a bad game; sometimes a really bad game. WarMen Tactics is one of the latter, a game that might well cause one to question whether we should..
Review: Hubert the Teddy Bear: Winter Games (WiiWare)
Teddy bear Christmas comes early
WiiWare has seen a surprising number of mini-game collections come its way, probably due to the simple nature of the genre and the greater likelihood of standing out as part of a weekly download release than on a store shelf crowded with such titles. Hubert the Bear: Winter Games makes a decent addition to the genre as a party game experience that will likely be..
Review: Blaster Master: Overdrive (WiiWare)
A blast from the past gets a makeover
Over the years, Sunsoft's NES Blaster Master release has become a favourite among fans of the console. Not only has it gone on to become a true cult classic for the system, it's also been called one of the most innovative gameplay experiences of the 8-bit era. Now Sunsoft is back and after having recently releasing the original Blaster Master on the Virtual..
Review: Bloons (WiiWare)
Floats like a lead bloon
Balloons have a proud history on game consoles, stretching all the way back to Circus Atari on the venerable Atari VCS and Nintendo's Joust clone Balloon Fight. There's just something about popping balloons that tickles a part of our inner children it seems and it's an activity that generally translates well to video games. Enter Bloons — which you may already have..
Review: Tumblebugs 2 (WiiWare)
When the bugs come tumbling down
Originally released on the PC, the first and second Tumblebugs games were relatively well received. However the series failed to attain the mass popular appeal of similar games such as Zuma and Luxor as well as others. Tumblebugs is not even the first in this genre on WiiWare: that distinction goes to Magnetica Twist, from the makers of the very first marble..
Review: 5 in 1 Solitaire (WiiWare)
Tethered to a television is not the way to play
Just like sudoku, crossword puzzles, word searches, and other public-domain fare as WiiWare, Digital Leisure's 5-in-1 Solitaire will have you tied down in front of a television after having plunked down your Nintendo Points for games available for free on the internet or, worse yet, that came pre-installed on your computer. You can easily bust out..
Review: Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 5 (WiiWare)
Another episodic adventure comes to an end.
It took a surprisingly long time, but the fifth and final chapter of Guybrush's latest adventure has finally hit WiiWare. Every previous chapter has been building up towards this supposedly epic conclusion, so was the long wait worth it? Considering this is the fifth and final part, spoilers for the series abound in this review. If you think back to the..
Review: bittos+ (WiiWare)
A little bit here and a little bit there...
With as many puzzle games as there are in Nintendo's WiiWare shop it's impressive that companies are still developing more. Even more impressive is how many of them are fun and original, and Unconditional's bittos+ is definitely one to add to the "good" pile. At first glance you might think it's just a garden-variety Tetris clone, largely..
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 players. You'll spend your time here helping aliens to..
