Game Reviews
Latest Reviews
Browse our collection of reviews.
Latest Reviews
Review: Pokémon Rumble (WiiWare)
Rumble or fumble?
One thing we've learned time and again (sometimes painfully) is that when it comes to WiiWare there's no necessary correlation between quality and cost. Of the most expensive games available, for instance, one of them is arguably the best game on the service, and another is ...not. And so when a new release scurries into view dragging a 1500 Point price tag behind it, reluctance..
Review: My Zoo (WiiWare)
Bigger animals, bigger features.
We thought quite highly of Hudson's last WiiWare game based on keeping animals, but we also warned potential buyers that it was not so much a game as an interactive screensaver. My Zoo is meant to expand on the previous game in many ways. Aside from the animals being bigger, there are many new features and things to do with them, meaning you're not just feeding and..
Review: Excitebike: World Rally (WiiWare)
Will this remake kick the tires out from under the competition?
Nintendo’s often-overlooked Excite racing series kicks in the turbo and has released not one but two new games this year. This time, the series returns to its roots with a remake of the original NES classic. But with so many other “excite”-ing options to choose from on the Wii, is there room for one more? Or has this series..
Review: Dragon Master Spell Caster (WiiWare)
Dragon Master Spells Disaster
In Dragon Master Spell Caster, you mount your pet dragon and take to the skies in search of thrilling adventure (or floating balls), engage in epic struggles with (or shake your Wii remote randomly at) elementally-themed opponents, and fly on into your new life of fame and fortune (or...turn your Wii off and think about all the other things you could have done with 500..
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 early '80s that's been kept alive as a franchise..
Review: UNO (WiiWare)
Gameloft WiiWare card games, take two!
Like many American board games, Uno was started by your average Joe making sets in his house and selling them to friends and neighbours before getting picked up by a big outfit and made into a classic. It's a fun social game that's been around for nearly 40 years now and is played around the world. Given the game's enduring popularity it should come as no..
Review: Manic Monkey Mayhem (WiiWare)
A monkey barrel beater?
Manic Monkey Mayhem is a clear attempt by UK-based developers The Code Monkeys to make a straightforward multiplayer shooter that anyone can play. All you need is a Remote and a decent throwing arm to pick this one up, but does it have enough depth to justify laying out 1,000 Points? The controls are very straightforward: you aim with the pointer, throw by holding (A) and..
Review: Carnival King (WiiWare)
Is this take on the old-fashioned carnival shooting gallery a hit or miss?
There have been quite a few games over the years that have made use of various carnival-style shooting galleries. Some have leaned towards an arcade feel while others have gone for a more realistic experience using a light gun. Intelligent Technologies, makers of Target Toss Pro: Bags, has now released its own take on the..
Review: Family Card Games (WiiWare)
The family that plays drinking games together, stays together
Worn out from extended sessions of Table Tennis, Mini Golf and Slot Car Racing? Feeling like if you have to look at Mommy, Daddy, Billy, or Sarah’s plastic smiling faces one more time you will throw your Wii Remote through the TV? Why not unwind with a few pleasant card games? What’s that? You said “yes”? Then we have good..
Review: Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 3 (WiiWare)
A well-liked classic character returning makes everything better.
As you might have expected, it's a tad pointless to review this game. It's a direct sequel to the previous chapter, and plays exactly the same way. As it is not recommended to play this before playing the previous two chapters, you should already know what you're getting into when you buy it! At the end of chapter 2, Guybrush sailed..
Review: Doc Louis' Punch-Out!! (WiiWare)
What's your favorite WiiWare download, Mac? Mine's chocolate.
Before the release of the Wii version of Punch-Out!! earlier this year, rumors began circulating that a few "surprise" fighters would make appearances in the game. One of those rumors was that Mac would have to face his trainer, the rotund and irresistibly optimistic Doc Louis. With the release of this US Club Nintendo reward..
Review: Ghost Mansion Party (WiiWare)
Less party, more pooper.
Mini-game collections are becoming a dime-a-dozen on the Wii console as of late, and with Halloween coming up, it comes as no surprise to see an aptly-themed release that's packed to the gills with yet another round of fairly standard mini-game fare. But at a lofty 1000 Wii Points, is this haunted board game release good enough to scare up some good times? While Ghost..
Review: Shootanto: Evolutionary Mayhem (WiiWare)
An evolutionary step for light gun shooters?
In the grand tradition of so-called “light gun” games, Shootanto uses the pointer function of the Wii remote to task the player with shooting targets onscreen as quickly as possible. Given the strengths of the Wii remote in this regard, the Wii should provide fertile ground for this genre. But is Shootanto the right fertilizer, or is it just..
Review: Little Tournament Over Yonder (WiiWare)
It can stay over yonder for all we care!
The strategy genre is not a very popular one on WiiWare - aside from the RTS game Swords & Soldiers, there's no real "traditional" offerings available. Little Tournament Over Yonder finally gives us a turn-based strategy game, although it has some action genre elements as well. A match in Little Tournament consists of two "modes",..
Review: Heron: Steam Machine (WiiWare)
WiiWare: the home of arcade puzzling goodness
Many people ask "don't we have enough puzzle games on the Wii already?" Triangle Studios answers "no!" and it's hard to disagree with them - especially given the quality of recent releases including their own Heron: Steam Machine. A little animated introduction tells the game's back story of a rubber duck factory taken over by the..
Review: Gravitronix (WiiWare)
One of the first titles announced for WiiWare finally sees the light of day.
Among the very first games announced for WiiWare, we might have expected to review Gravitronix around two years ago. But, as they say, life gets in the way. Plans change, things don't work out the way we expect them to, and release dates slip further and further away. It happens, and it's not infrequently to the benefit..
Review: LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias (WiiWare)
Is this Winter warmer as good as Toku’s first adventure?
LostWinds was one of WiiWare's launch titles, and is still one of the best games on the service. Now, almost a year and a half later, it has finally gotten its long-awaited sequel. For the uninitiated, in LostWinds you took control of Toku, a young boy who found a magical crystal containing the spirit of wind, Enril. Using Enril, Toku could..
Review: Happy Holidays: Halloween (WiiWare)
Take your holiday elsewhere!
The idea of sending greeting cards to your Wii friends isn't a bad one - after all you can already send messages with photos - so as a concept a cheap and cheerful greeting card program could easily have a place on your Wii, but a Halloween-focused one? Creating an application that will only be used once a year seems redundant from the start, and there's no DLC so..
Review: Word Searcher (WiiWare)
Words fail to impress
Digital Leisure and Aksys seem locked in a fight to the death to see which company can release more generic, public domain games on the WiiWare service. Following up on their release of Sudoku Challenge earlier this year, which we found to be about as barebones a presentation of that game as you could get, DL now brings us ‘Word Searcher’. That’s the genre and the..
Review: "Aha! I Got It!" Escape Game (WiiWare)
Will you want to escape from this game as fast as possible?
"Escape the room" games have been quite popular on the internet for a while — a quick Google search will yield a number of creative flash-based puzzlers in which the aim is to solve a number of puzzles within a single room in order to escape. With "Aha! I Got It!" Escape Game, developer Ateam has attempted to bring..
