Author: Sean

Mr. Driller Drill Land is famous (and infamous) amongst Mr. Driller fans. It’s the Holy Grail of drilling games (yes, that is a genre in its own right) having multiple game modes, brilliant cut scenes and engaging music (released on CD as Project Driller). It’s also noteworthy as being one of the few Gamecube games that’s frustratingly difficult to get working properly on anything bar a Japanese Gamecube and is a big part of why I own a Japanese Wii.

As a result, the confirmation of Mr. Driller World getting a global release should make a lot of people happy. It’s not Drill Land, but it includes some of the same music and some of the same gamplay for an economical 800 point and 126 blocks on the Japanese WiiWare service.

After getting the initial menu to come up and the familiar announcement “Mistah Drill-e-dah” you’re shown the controller options which run the gamut: wiimote sideways, Classic Controller, wiimote+nunchuk or Gamecube controller. I always choose the former when given the choice and it works well given the game only uses one button (a second buttons allows for backing out of submenus).

After choosing one of six save profiles and entering your name, you can view leaderboards or jump into the game. You have the standard character choices from the Drilling Association: Taizou Hori, chairman and hero of the “Dig Dug incident,” his son — Mr. Driller himself — Susumu Hori, his other son (the black sheep of the family) Ataru Hori, Susumu’s talking wonder dog Puchi, Susumu’s rival and possible love interest Anna Hottenmeyer and the amazing robot Hollinger-Z. Ataru’s black rabbit Usagi appears to be an unlockable character judging from the silhouette seen in a central circle with a “?” on it in the character select screen. The human characters differ slightly in movement and block-breaking speed, Puchi can jump up two blocks when moving side-to-side (other characters can only jump one) and Hollinger-Z can take two hits before losing a life.

After choosing your character you have an initial choice of four areas to play in: Drill Lab (a training exercise of 100m depth that prompts you to carry out various in-game actions — intended for Mr. Driller novices only), Japan, China and Russia. After choosing the country you want to play in (represented by a flag) you have a choice of three levels of difficulty. In some cases there are different depths involved, but this is not always the case: easy on Japan is 300m; the two harder difficulties are 500m each. China is 500m, 800m and 1000m; in Russia all the difficulty levels are 500m depth. Countries also differ in the background graphics and animated characters dancing in the upper right corner of the screen.

The gameplay hasn’t changed since 1999: rather than guiding the blocks themselves, like Tetris or Columns, you move your character on-screen; and rather than trying to link objects of matching colours you’re trying to drill down to the target depth avoiding falling blocks and boulders on the way. It sounds and looks simple, but it’s definitely not easy.

Your character can face in one of four directions using the d-pad/control stick; pressing the A/2 button breaks the block or boulder you’re facing. Since you’re deep underground you need to bring air with you which is constantly running out; luckily you can find capsules that will restore %20 of your air if picked up. Coloured blocks (in lovely primary or pastel colours of red, green, blue and yellow with textures that change every 200m or so) will merge with ones of like colour and disappear if massed in groups of four or more. This is also true of X-blocks (which look like crates), but whilst coloured blocks will disappear after one hit, X-blocks take several and also cost you %20 of your air supply. There are boulders which won’t stick to anything, making them extra dangerous and finally crystal blocks which disappear causing instability in the blocks above them.

Blocks are tracked by the game even after they’re off-screen; clearing large groups can cause them to fall continuously making for some frantic drilling. Thankfully you get small respites in the form of all blocks clearing every 100m until you either lose all three of your lives or reach goal. Despite being on home console it plays like the original arcade game: there are no continues, you simply need to do better to complete the different “missions” if you fail. Difficulty levels vary consistently in the width of the playfield: on the lowest difficulty the screen appears zoomed-in and the playfield is only 7 blocks across, on the medium level you have a 9-block playfield width and the highest difficulty has more than double the playfield width of the lowest difficulty, which results in a zoomed-out look with your character and the blocks being much smaller than normal. Other hazards that vary with difficulty are the speed with which your air runs out and the number of boulders, crystals and X-blocks encountered.

Reaching the goal results in a large graphic of your character triumphant, a message of Congratulations! and a prompt to replay, exit to character selection or main menu. Completing the lowest difficulty level for the first three countries will unlock more countries with the full listing (and depths) as follows:

Japan: 300m, 500m, 500m
China: 500m, 800m, 1000m
Russia: 500m for all three difficulties
Egypt: 500m for all three difficulties
Brazil: 500m for all three difficulties
USA: 800m, 1000m, 2000m
UN: Infinite for all three difficulties

There is apparently also a Space “country” which plays like Star Driller from Drill Land and is also Infinite, but I’m uncertain of the conditions for unlocking it (part of the reason I’ve delayed writing this was review was in the hopes of doing so) and so I cannot confirm this.

The audio will be familiar to anyone who has played Mr. Driller A or Mr. Driller Drill Land: in addition to the menu theme music the characters all have the same audio pronouncements when they get air capsules, die, come back (after losing a life) and lose their last life. The in-game pause menu and post-game menus are also the same with options to restart a game in progress or exit out to various top-level menus.

Lastly stats are kept after every completed play (win or lose) tracking your score, character used, depth reached and total time. Your score is automatically entered on the leaderboard for the difficulty level in that country and these scores can be viewed prior to loading a saved profile by selecting an option from the profile select screen.

There is no multi-player option — either local or online — and no online leaderboards (though with six profile slots you could have multiple people tracking their scores together locally). For me it’s all about bettering my game so I can live without both of these things, though online leaderboards would have been nice.

As a single-player game I cannot fault it: there’s a lot of Driller action here and it’s got the same great presentation I’ve become accustomed to from playing Drill Land. The variety of difficulties provides a different challenge from previous games, so I don’t feel it’s superfluous if you already have Mr. Driller A or Mr. Driller Drill Land. For owners of Drill Spirits the attraction is clearly going to be the bigger screen (this appears to be essentially a Wii port of the Mission Driller mode from that game). Will it come to the rest of the world? Well, the fact that it appears to have been derived from Drill Spirits (which had a worldwide release) should be very encouraging.

I’m hopeful that there could be more WiiWare Driller games that re-package other elements of Mr. Driller Drill Land; in the meantime the hardcore Driller fan will simply have to bite the bullet as I did and get a Japanese Gamecube or Wii to experience the full range of Mr. Driller goodness.

If you played games on the Neo Geo in the 1990s or you’re a fan of fighting games generally you’ve probably heard of the King of Fighters franchise. It’s one of the longest gaming franchises, full stop with a 12th installment having already been in the Japanese arcades and debuting on consoles in 2009. Ignition has been kind enough to bring The King of Fighters Collection over to Europe and like SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1, it’s a quality release for both them and SNK.

As with the aforementioned Arcade Classics Volume 1, you’re treated to a nice intro montage showing fighters and scenes from the different games leading into a menu using a wheel motif on the right whilst images of fighters appear on the left. Again, you can choose your controller layout from the same choices as in the Arcade Classisc collection: wiimote-only for left or right-handed play, wiimote+nunchuk, Gamecube controller or the preferred method: Classic Controller. All buttons can be remapped and functions that are mapped to multiple button presses also have single button equivalents for a total of seven buttons in play (that Hori Fighting stick is looking more and more justified).

I’m not the biggest fighting game fan in the world, but I have to say that the King of Fighters makes for a compelling presentation and I really prefer it to the typical “best of three” one-on-one fighting games. You get a team of three fighters and fight other teams of three in an “iron man” elimination. Each fighter fights until they get knocked out with a small health regen between bouts. Whomever still has a fighter standing at the end of it wins the match. You not only have more of a feeling of achievement, but you get to play with different styles in the course of a single match.

King of Fighters ’94 has fixed teams, but later installments allow you to build your own team from the fighters on hand. The cast of characters changes a bit over the course of the first four games and King of Fighters ’98 has 38 fighters to choose from covering all the previous games.

In addition to having a team format another major difference from other fighting games is the controls. Rather than simply having six buttons used to execute light, medium and strong kicks/punches, you have five buttons for attacks (punches/kicks/knockdown — throw in King of Fighters ’94), one to charge a meter for executing special moves and another for evading which allows you to sidestep or roll to the other side of your attacker. This can make for a more nuanced battle than in most fighting games and will take some practice to fully master.

The art style is brilliant 2D presented in the original 4:3 screen aspect with 480p resolution available and the emulation is flawless. Difficulty can be set on a scale from 1-8 just like the arcade, and I have to say even the lowest setting is not without challenge (I only managed to get to the end boss in King of Fighters ’97 and got soundly defeated — damn you Oroshi!).

Starting up each game shows you a picture of a character and the actions for executing one of their special moves as the game loads. You’re then given a choice of either playing in Arcade Mode or Training Mode. Arcade Mode is pretty obvious: play the game as it was in the Neo Geo MVS/Arcade; Training Mode is really a terrific addition for people who want to better their game and learn new techniques. You choose a character and an opponent and can fight without a timer or your opponent fighting back. Their health will also regenerate so you can continue to try different moves as long as you like. Helpfully you can bring up the list of moves for the active character via an in-game tabbed menu interface which uses symbols to represent different move aspects and groups them into categories. It’s really what you would expect in a separate guide to the games, but here it is built-in and available at the press of a button.

There is also bonus content in the form of high quality artwork with pan and zoom functions, and videos. This content has to be unlocked and rather than use the medal method of Arcade Classics Volume 1, you have different challenges to achieve. The challenges take place across the different games and present specific game conditions and requirements for achieving them, e.g., winning a match without visible display metres or winning a match where only special attacks cause damage to your opponent. They really are quite challenging and I think it’s a great feature for the experienced player to test their skill at the game.

The only negative thing I could say is that I would have preferred to see these games released over a series of Arcade Classics volumes, but I’m sure there’s enough King of Fighters fans out there to justify this anthology on its own. It’s interesting to see the incremental changes to the games and the differing character rosters and character move shifts between games as well as the subtle changes in the art used for characters, interstitials and backgrounds.

A collection of classic games can be done cheaply enough whilst still delivering what the customer wants: classic arcade fun on current hardware. You don’t really need anything else, but it’s always nice. SNK/Ignition have gotten the gold crown from me for this collection because from the menu to the extras you have a package that is not just slapping out a games collection to make the maximum return for minimal outlay, but is really trying to appeal to new players as well as old fans and shows that the companies doing the publishing really care about the content.

SNK is a company with a long tradition in videogames going all the way back to the black and white era. Unlike Taito’s Space Invaders, SNK didn’t have a runaway success with Ozma Wars, but they have proved one of the more enduring names in video games with their zenith during the 1990s thanks to a bold entry in the form of the Neo Geo.

The Neo Geo was a bit of a gamble, but the timing was perfect. By the early 90s arcades had taken a significant hit and there weren’t as many around any more; those still operating didn’t necessarily have the floor space to accomodate many cabinets. Namco and Williams had been using game cabinets with standard internals that could be used to play other games with little more than an internal board swap and change of marquee panel for years. SNK decided to go a bit further and introduce a system that could play multiple games without opening the cabinet and a home console that would run identical code. This gave SNK a much bigger footprint in the arcade scene than they had previously as well as a toehold in the home console market.

Machines appeared that could run between two and six different games all with the same joystick and four-button configuration. The system had a good run from 1990-1998 with incremental processor and memory improvements, but SNK ran into trouble and eventually folded. Playmore (now SNK Playmore) acquired their assets and has kept the name and key franchises alive into the present day (Metal Slug 7 and King of Fighters 12 are being released in 2009).

Ignition’s freshman effort on the Wii was SNK Playmore’s Metal Slug Anthology, which is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of the controls and the overall presentation. Thankfully lessons have been learned and SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 more than makes up for the missteps of that first collection. Opening the booklet you can tell the message about controls — the major gripe about the first collection — was taken to heart. It states in black-and-white that “The Classic Controller is the recommended method of play,” and all controls referenced in the manual refer to the Classic Controller button layout. Hallelujah!

In addition to the Classic Controller you can use the wiimote on its side (either in left- or right-handed mode), wiimote and nunchuk or the Gamecube controller. None of these control methods use motion input whatsoever. Controllers can be specified on a per-game or global basis for both player 1 and player 2 and all buttons can be remapped on a per game basis. Even better the in-game code has been changed to reference player-defined buttons rather than the original Neo Geo ones so you don’t need to worry about remembering what controls you mapped to which button (though it will display a graphic of your chosen controller with labels for the controls as currently mapped after you launch a game). The icing on the cake is that Samurai Shodown and King of Fighters ’94, which both used combinations of button presses for a virtual 5th and 6th button, have those moves also mapped to the L and R buttons. Time to break out that Hori Fighting Stick again, fighting fans!

Matching the improvement in controls is a nicer presentation. Pressing up or down on your d-pad or thumbstick (both are active in the games as well) scrolls through the games which are displayed in the form of a running series of still shots surrounded by medals representing various goals and icons indicating the game genre and number of players (nearly all of these games feature some kind of co-op or competetive simultaneous play). The left sidebar features a shifting collage of promotional artwork for all the games. It’s a good effect and shows a bit more care than the Metal Slug Anthology, which felt a little rough around the edges.

From the main menu you can launch a game, call up the options or view the goals for that particular game. Goals are divided into different color groupings (oddly enough just like the colours of the Neo Geo buttons) and achieving them illuminates the corresponding medal and unlocks bonus content: game artwork, video hints, fighting game moves and music. Getting ten medals will also unlock the game World Heroes.

There are eight goals per game and then eight overall goals. There are a few standard goals (beating the game on each difficulty level) and ones that are specific to individual games which can be quite challenging (try getting 1,000,000 points in the first Metal Slug with the score resetting between continues!). What may irritate people who feel compelled to unlock everything is that the unlockables are scattered about such that seeing a piece of artwork in Metal Slug will require you to achieve a goal in Art of Fighting or Baseball Stars 2. I kind of like this because it encourages you to play games you might otherwise have ignored, but I don’t know that I’ll ever earn a single medal in Baseball Stars 2 so I might have to learn to live without some of these.

Medals appear in the lower right corner of the screen as they’re earned during the course of a game. Whilst you cannot save progress mid-game at will, the games do record checkpoints and some of these happen during gameplay (between innings in Baseball Stars 2) or after the Game Over screen appears. This allows you to at least go back to a game with your high scores intact and resume some games in progress. Still, these are arcade games so playing one through to completion shouldn’t take more than 40min. (well, unless you’re really crap at fighting games like me, in which case no amount of time is enough).

You can change the difficulty level of the games before launching them and you have the usual 7 Neo Geo difficulty levels boiled down to four. Helpfully the game will tell you the corresponding Neo Geo difficulty setting: Easy (1), Normal (3), Hard (5) and Insane (7). These options change number of lives and continues available as well as in-game difficulty. Whilst we don’t get access to the full operator control panels, people concerned about such things will be relieved to note that all the blood and violence is intact (no doubt accounting for the 12+ Certificate on the box).

I won’t review all the games included, but you get a great selection of games featuring the large, detailed 2D sprites the Neo Geo was known for. Whether it’s sports (baseball, football and golf), fighting, side-scrolling beat-em-ups, shooters or action platformers you’re bound to find several games worth your time here. The full offering includes:

• Art of Fighting
• Baseball Stars 2
• Burning Fight
• Fatal Fury (King of Fighters)
• King of Fighters ’94
• King of the Monsters
• Last Resort
• Magician Lord
• Metal Slug
• Neo Turf Masters
• Samurai Shodown
• Sengoku
• Shock Troopers
• Super Sidekicks 3
• Top Hunter
• World Heroes

Fighting game fans should note separate anthologies are being released for both King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown, but I hope we’ll see more genre-spanning compilations like this from SNK Playmore and Ignition. Nightmare in the Dark, Cyber Lip, Neo Mr. Do! and Puzzle Bobble are other Neo Geo games I’d love to see in a future release. And don’t forget SNK’s non-Neo Geo assets: Ikari Warriors, Vanguard, Victory Road and Prehistoric Isle are all deserving of the same treatment.

For a budget price you get a great collection of games with the attention to detail they justly deserve. If you’re a fan of arcade gaming at all, you’d be mad not to get this. Long live SNK!

If SNK Playmore has an iconic game franchise it has to be Metal Slug. Appearing in the mid 90s, by which time most arcades in the West has disappeared, Metal Slug stood out for two reasons: it was a run-and-gun game at a time when coin-op games could be placed into the categories of fighting, puzzle and racing (with the very occasional vertically-scrolling shooter) and it had an unprecedented level of detail.

It was the latter that earned the franchise a following which has seen it through five sequels (with a sixth due shortly for release on the DS as of this writing) and made it one of the most-recognised franchises in video games. Player and enemy characters have a variety of animations and there is fantastic attention to detail in the designs of the vehicles and bosses as well as the multi-layered backgrounds. The effect is very much like participating in an animated film; the enemies and allies seem to have a life of their own. It’s an appealing package and was an unexpected surprise when first released.

Home consoles have moved on since the Neo-Geo home and arcade system and Metal Slug Anthologies have appeared in various forms on many home consoles. It was a natural to also release one for the Wii as a launch title in 2006; the best selling point being the inclusion of another all-new entry in the franchise: Metal Slug 6.

As a fan of the series I was interested of course, but I was put off due to some negative press regarding the controls. Control issues in Wii games are almost cliched, but in this case there is a definite problem: there are many control schemes supporting the Wii remote in this collection, but every single one of them needlessly uses motion control. For a series of games that had basic controls even at the time they were first released (one digital joystick and three buttons), it seems almost sacrilegious. I won’t go into much detail, but none of the default control schemes is terribly satisfying despite their variety. The best you can do is use the wiimote on its side which uses a shake to throw a grenade. Tragic.

Thankfully the Gamecube controller is also supported (though oddly this isn’t indicated anywhere on the game box) and allows for controls to be remapped as well. Presumably the Classic Controller wasn’t supported because it wasn’t available to code for that early in the Wii’s lifecycle; thankfully in subsequent disc-based Neo-Geo game collections published by Ignition Entertainment (and individual Virtual Console releases of these games) this is not the case.

The game menus can be navigated with either the Gamecube controller or the wiimote and whilst the content is good, the presentation feels like it was a bit rushed and lacks some polish. The main interface consists of a Metal Slug tank facing you and a small, badly compressed display next to it which shows some video of the game. Pressing left-right on the d-pad toggles between games and options with a corresponding rotation of the mini-gun facing you. Choosing a selection with A fires the gun and launches the option (cute).

You can choose one of seven Metal Slug games (including Metal Slug X, an alternate version of Metal Slug 2), setting Options and viewing bonus content. The games themselves have been well-translated and play just like the Neo-Geo equivalents other than some loading times which are a bit unexpected in their placement, but don’t detract too much from the experience. Options can be set globally or on a per-game basis (a nice touch) and extras consist of concept and promotional art and music files as well as a text-based interview with the creators.

Games can be saved mid-stream (barring Metal Slug 6) and have unlimited continues. Finishing a game earns credits which are used to unlock the art and music files. The number of continues used to complete a game are recorded as well as your scores to give you some incentive to better your game.

If you like Metal Slug — especially if you want to play Metal Slug 6 (which is the best Metal Slug game since MS3) — then you’d do well to get this. I would like to have seen a little more polish in the menus and the interface (and especially Classic Controller support or optional gestures at least), but I’m hopeful that we’ll see another release in the future correcting these aspects. Surely we’ll want to have Metal Slug 7 on the Wii as well, won’t we?

I never really intended to write any negative reviews on this site. Mainly it’s because of the old adage: if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all (besides, no publicity for a game can be worse than bad publicity). I’ve also been fortunate enough not to buy a game for the Wii that I’ve disliked enough to give a negative review to. I also know people tend to read reviews to find out whether or not a game is worth their time and in the import scene they’re not always easy to come by, so I feel obligated to share my views even if they’re not very positive, so here goes…

If you’re as old as I am you would have been going to arcades when Rainbow Islands first appeared more than 20 years ago and you may have seen it. I didn’t, either because arcades were starting to become less common or the ones I frequented just didn’t have as much turn over as they used to. This game was subtitled “The Story of Bubble Bobble 2” (not to be confused with Bubble Symphony, which was titled Bubble Bobble 2 outside of Japan), though the gameplay is quite different from Bubble Bobble.

Firstly the protagonists, Bub and Bob, have been transformed from cute little dinosaurs back into cute little boys; secondly instead of platforming on a single screen they move vertically up through multiple screens in a Super Mario World-style multi-level environment subdivided into stages that end with a boss battle. Enemies are dispatched by casting rainbows over them and jumping on the rainbows to make them fall; this also kills all enemies below them (even if a bit off-screen) and also picks up powerups and bonus items. The rainbows are also used as bridges between gaps and to continue upward progress. The worlds have different themes: Insect Island, Toy Island, Monster Island (no, not the one from Godzilla), etc.

The gameplay mechanics worked well and it was fun to play. I never made it past the third world boss, but still enjoyed having a go now and then on the arcade-perfect Playstation port that came on the Bubble Bobble Collection disc.

Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! is sort of a remake of the Rainbow Islands arcade game, but the problem is that the things that made the original game fun have been all but removed. The graphical tarting up is not a big deal: the characters are less cutesy and have a 3D rendered look and the backgrounds are much more detailed. The game certainly looks good, but play it and you’ll quickly realise something is wrong.

Firstly the rainbows don’t collapse when you jump on them; only when you jump up underneath them, which is a bit more difficult to pull off. Secondly there are no worlds and no stages. Instead you have levels which are 1000m each. You go up and up and up and then a boss comes up from below which is basically some machine climbing the tower you’re on, you drop rainbows on them until they are dead (if they don’t kill you first, which they probably will since they keep coming up and firing various attacks as they do), get a few power-ups and continue without more than 2 or 3 seconds pause before you’re doing it all over again.

As if this wasn’t bad enough you have no lives; instead there’s a timer that starts out with 300 seconds and counts down constantly; you also lose 30 seconds off the clock every time you touch an enemy. Along with the power-ups which speed up your rainbow-casting ability and how far they reach, you also get gems when you dispatch enemies. In the original game they were large gems and if you got all seven you got a 1up; since we don’t have lives anymore you just keep your power-up levels when you hit an enemy instead of losing a level. In addition you can earn smaller gems which put time back on your clock — mostly in 1 and 5 second increments — but the fact is that you’ll be lucky to have 60 seconds on the timer by the time you reach the boss.

Finally, if you do beat the boss you’ll find no stage end that resets the timer; instead you get a bunch of time gems and power-ups in place of the point-laden food items of the original and the game just keeps going! The time gems disappear pretty quickly, so you just grab what you can to top-up your clock and continue on your way with no breather and not much feeling of accomplishment. Even the enemies look the same from level to level. The enemies on the first two are a combination of different enemies from the first three worlds of the original game: caterpillars, bees and spiders from Insect Island coexist with tanks and bombers from Toy Island and bats from Monster Island. I suppose if I continued with it they might change (I’ve seen screenshots of Level 7 with Space Invaders in them), but the fact is that without variety in the boss battles or changes between levels other than the scenery — and most of all the constant countdown of doom — I didn’t really feel like playing any more.

If Taito had done the same as Bubble Bobble Wii (tarting-up the graphics and adding a bunch of new levels), I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. If the time penalties for hitting enemies hadn’t been so punishing and it had a smaller block size (295 — why?) I could have tolerated it, but as it stands the game is functional but lacks enough appeal to keep my interest. If it was in an arcade I’d probably drop a few coins into it, but I cannot recommend anyone spend 800 points and 15% of their Wii storage on this: you’re really better off waiting for the excellent PC Engine port of the arcade game to show up on the Virtual Console instead.

If you haven’t heard of Bubble Bobble by now, then odds are you’re not into classic arcade gaming like I am, so gather round children and let gramps tell you a little story.

Bubble Bobble is a classic platform game in the truest sense of the word: all the action takes place on one screen broken up by platforms. There were 100 levels in the original arcade game (plus some hidden ones), with each level having different patterns of platforms and enemies to dispatch. These levels would often have a hole in the bottom of the screen which allowed players and enemies to drop through and come out at the top of the screen (and vice-versa for flying enemies). Enemies were dispatched by having your cute dinosaur blow bubbles to trap them and burst them to release bonus fruits. Power-up items appeared with some frequency on each level, upgrading player speed and bubble shooting power as well as allowing the skipping of levels and other fun effects; all while a lovely soundtrack played in the background.

This classic game has had many incarnations on home consoles, including the somewhat decent NES port which has been available on the Wii Virtual Console for some time. Bubble Bobble Wii (known as Bubble Bobble Plus in the rest of the world) is a WiiWare update of the game which stays quite faithful to the original in content if not appearance, and adds many new levels as well as 4-player action and online leaderboards.

Right out of the box you get two sets of levels and “Super” versions of them. Access to two Expert Mode level packs can be unlocked for 200 points each (they are included with the main game download and appear as greyed out options on the main game select screen) for a grand total of 300 levels of Bubble Bobble. The “Super” versions of Classic and Arrange Modes have harder enemies that will be familiar to anyone who has ever played the arcade bootleg Super Bubble Bobble. All six game modes can be played normal or Ranked, which has fixed play settings for difficulty, number of lives and number of continues (10 for Classic and Arrange modes; 5 for Expert). Your Ranked scores can be uploaded and viewed in local or worldwide leaderboards to see how your Bubble Bobble skills stack up against other players. When not playing a Ranked game you can choose Easy, Normal, Hard or So Hard difficulty settings. Difficulty settings affect the duration of bubbles on screen and aggressiveness/speed of enemies.

The classic game levels look just like the original arcade ones. The characters are the most obvious change to the game with 3D renders replacing the old 2D sprites. This face lift is minor and shouldn’t offend purists too much, though I think that nicer looking 2D sprites would have been preferred. The game has been tweaked a bit to add some balance: getting the speed-up power up only modestly improves jumping speed and bubbles “decay” faster than in the past so going for big combos becomes riskier (you can combo by bursting more than one bubble at the same time). You’ll also notice that once past the first level enemies that have become enraged due to excessive time or being freed from bubbles will no longer revert to normal after a player death. Like the original arcade game these levels and their Super versions are only playable by one or two players.

Arrange mode introduces the option to play 100 new levels with up to four players. Many of these are quite challenging layouts having ramps and areas that cause bubbles to float upward or downward and sometimes multiple entry and exit points in the floor and ceiling.

The Expert levels are in two sets of 50 each and the name is justly applied. They are extremely challenging; some will have you trying to figure out how to reach your enemies, let alone dispatch them. As with Arrange Mode you can play these levels with 1-4 players.

Bubble Bobble Wii is a great set of Bubble Bobble levels. 256 blocks is on the hefty side for a WiiWare game, but the gameplay is the same and the added levels more than make up for any bad feelings over the graphical retouching (though it is presented in 480i for those that have issues with that). Even better is the photo/card album which records the power ups and food items found across the different modes as you acquire them. Getting your album filled by finding all the goodies and upping your score on the leaderboards should be sufficient incentive to keep you coming back even without the brilliant gameplay. Add to all of this a new and interesting musical soundtrack and you have a compelling package that old and new players can appreciate for the low cost of 800 points (1200 including the unlockable levels).

Giant robot fighting is as Japanese as umeboshi pretz and as tasty (yum!). Overturn serves up a nice helping of the arena variety of robot combat in a compact WiiWare package which is reminiscent of Sega’s Virtual On arcade game.

The game premise is pretty basic: players control one of four OTMs (OverTurn Mechas, I presume?) and battle others through a series of tournaments in Story Mode, against a local opponent via Local Multiplayer via split screen, or against an individual or groups in 4-way bashes via WiFi.

Much of my time was spent in Story Mode because there was no one to play against in WiFi mode (whether this is because the game came out at the beginning of December and everyone in Japan who was into it has since moved on or I’m coming in at the wrong time of day due to timezone difference I’m not exactly sure) and no mates + non-gaming wife = no local multiplayer for me. Initially you’re presented with a choice of four characters and their OTMs. Chracters are represented by anime-style hand-drawn figures. There are a few “slides” for each character and they’re used to “animate” cut scenes during interaction with other characters — mainly opponents — often with intentionally humourous effect.

Once you’ve chosen a character and their OTM you can name it and choose a paintjob using RGB sliders to either change the hue of the entire OTM or separate colours for the head/torso, base and arms. After this you can have a practice bout against another OTM where you can control the AI (leave it standing still, have it evade, or actively fight), which is a great way to get to grips with the controls.

Basic controls use the nunchuk and wiimote, however there’s an option to use the balance board instead of the nunchuk control stick for moving your OTM. At first this might seem a bit strange, but it’s actually quite appropriate as the OTMs all glide about rather than run on legs or roll on wheels and have inertia (you continue to drift and bounce off of objects rather than come to a dead stop) that is well-conveyed using the balance board. Changing views is done in a way similar to Metrod Prime 3 or other first person shooters on the Wii by moving your targeting reticule to the edge of the screen in the direction you wish to look. This is not configurable, however you get the hang of things pretty quickly. An upward jerk of the nunchuk causes your OTM to jump into the air where you can float around for a bit and deal destruction from above before settling back down to the arena platform. Z fires the left-arm weapon, B fires the right and holding A+B charges a special weapon which then fires when the buttons are released.

Your OTM has two statistics of critical importance: Hit Points (HP) and BP. BP appears to stand for Balance Points and in the game HUD is represented by a rainbow-hued metre in the upper left corner. Getting hit by enemy fire reduces it; pressing and holding the C button refills it — though at the cost of not being able to move during the time it’s refilling. If it runs out the game changes from the normal 3rd person view behind the OTM to first person. You’re in the sky above the arena and see that pieces of the background have been cut out of the background and mixed about. The images in the pieces flip about wildly to confuse you. In this mini-game the object is to use A+B to “grab” a piece and put it in the right hole and do so with all pieces within 10 seconds. During this time your opponent will be taking shots at you. Success returns you to the arena floor promptly, but failure means you lose control for an additional few seconds; in higher-level tournaments this is usually fatal.

When you feel like you have a good grasp of the controls you can go into the tournaments. There are six in total with each one being unlocked after finishing the previous one. Each tournament consists of two to four single-round fights against different OTMs in one of four different arenas which have varying obstacles or different level platforms within them. Your opponents are either generic or other playable character OTMs. The latter are more difficult than the former and fights with them are preceded by a little banter using text balloons and character cut-outs. The arenas are good-sized and your weapons appear to be able to hit your opponent clear across from the other side, though your accuracy may suffer. This is aided by the use of the pointer for targeting, but given that you both drift about getting a shot to land can be challenging.

The end of a tournament returns you to the basic Story Mode menu and you will get access to the weapons used against you by your opponents, so it’s worth having a look at the arm customisation screens to see what new pieces have been added. Outside of changing the OTM colour, swapping arm weapons is the only customisation available, but for a WiiWare game it’s pretty good. There is no automatic save, so manually saving progress is necessary after making changes or between tournaments. When you check the tournament menu option again you’ll see a new tournament is available and your skill in completed ones measured by a grade. This rating appears to be determined by the amount of damage you sustain to your OTM in the course of the matches.

Interestingly there is no selectable difficulty. Whilst enemies do get tougher in skill and the amount of hit points they have as you progress (your OTM HP also seems to upgrade of its own accord), the main means of easing difficulty for the less-skilled players (like me) is to enable an unlimited number of rematches against an opponent who defeats you. After three consecutive losses you’re given the option to restart normally or fight the opponent with only 75% of HP. If you still fail to beat them a further three times you get an additional option to fight them at 50% of HP (I confess the final tournament saw me playing a good deal of 50% fights to secure victory to my shame). It’s a novel system and works well because it’s unobtrusive: if you can beat the opposition as-is then you’re doing well and if you need help it’s freely given without having to feel like you’re taking the easy way out from the start.

After the sixth tournament you can view the end credits and (in the case of the character I was using) a still shot of your character with their OTM in a touching scene (ah, anime characters and their robots looking wistfully over the horizon together…). Finishing the sixth tournament also unlocks four characters which are not initially selectable (but which are the main “bosses” in the Story Mode tournaments) as well as two additional tournaments. One appears to be a time attack mode where you get a status screen showing elapsed time after a match; the other I suspect has an unlimited number of enemies: unlike the other tournaments you get no option to choose to fight an opponent with reduced HP and they are very tough. Needless to say the single player game has a lot of replayability between playing through using different characters/OTMs, extra tournament modes and replaying existing tournaments for a better grade.

WiFi mode is a bit different to other online Wii games by having more of a lobby format. When starting you connect and then choose your character: you’re able to select any OTM you’ve already created and then do any customisations you’d like as if you were in Story Mode. Then you enter the lobby and can view your friend code, add friend codes and see if friends are online. Alternatively, you can choose a random VS or 1-4 player match at which point you’ll see your OTM in a box with either one or three other empty boxes waiting for other players to turn up. Whilst sitting there you can press Z to pull up a range of 32 different Japanese phrases to display in a sort of canned chat for the lobby. I liked this set-up, kind of like Tetris Party, but without having to select available phrases in advance. Sadly after waiting for a few minutes no one else showed, so I have no clue what this is like in WiFi or what potential lag issues there are given the servers are located in Japan and I’m in Scotland.

Visuals are basic, but good with decent use of minimalist textures to give character to the OTMs and a decent feel to the arenas. Music is a basic nondescript techno-guitar soundtrack which works well. Considering the game fits into only 200 blocks when less graphically-demanding WiiWare is using upwards of 300 and it only costs 800 points, it’s quite a nice package and I hope someone decides to publish it more widely. Studio Zan have created a welcome diversion from the normal puzzle games we get on the WiiWare service and it really should be available for people to enjoy who don’t have Japanese Wiis. Gamebridge in the UK have just (as of 07 April 2009) announced they will be bringing this game to Europe, so I hope to see some more people online for matches soon!

If Cubello and Rotohex are for the mathematicians then Orbient is for the physicists (one wonders if the next Art Style game will be for chemists or biologists).

This is the most sedate of the three Art Style games released and features the simplest controls. Unlike Rotohex, which has the pressure of pieces filling your playfield, or Cubello, in which the titular object drifts inexorably closer to the viewer with each passing moment of inactivity, Orbient has no pressure in terms of time: you can sit and watch the game forever. There is no clock ticking or assault to fend off. Indeed the only onscreen hud-like feature is a series of white dots in the upper right which indicate how many collisions your “star” can sustain. The controls are the most basic seen on the Wii outside of the “Circle” game in MaBoShi: A and B buttons. No other buttons are used, no pointer and no gestures. And yet behind the serenty and simple controls is a surprising amount of depth and an excellent, engrossing game.

The playfield is black, spanning multiple screens and you control a small grey “star” which drifts through this void. You control your star using two kinds of weak gravity: the A button causes gravitational attraction between your star and others of various sizes and the B button causes gravitational repulsion between same. Using this combination of attract and repel you influence your trajectory. All other stars have stable orbits indicated by rings around them. Red stars are larger than yours and may be orbited by yours; grey stars are smaller than yours and may be absorbed via collision or may orbit your star (the number of smaller stars you collect will add bonus points to your score). You will also see blue stars which are of similar size: colliding with these will cause your star to grow and increase the available number of stars you can capture in your gravitational field. When you achieve a target size the “goal star” will begin to flash a silvery yellow. Get this star into your orbit to end the stage.

Whilst initially quite simple with only a few objects, later levels introduce objects which aren’t stars and don’t respond to gravity, but, like red stars, will reduce the metre in the upper right of the screen by one if collided with. When you have no more white dots in the corner the game is over. In addition to these new hazards massive red stars will appear; often more than one with complex, interlocking orbits and tons of smaller orbiting stars.

With multiple levels composed of several stages each there’s a lot of game here. For only 600 points and taking up a minimal amount of blocks it’s the kind of game WiiWare was made for and shows that 3rd parties have to up their efforts to match Nintendo.

I have to confess to being a member of the generation that put the first nails in the coffin of Pinball.

My earliest recollection as a child in the 1970s was not being able to see over the top of the table without sitting on a barstool and games consisting of wild button presses in a vain attempt to keep the ball on the table. Videogames came quickly on the scene and were more accessible as well as offering an animated TV screen — what kid could resist that? I still liked to play pinball occasionally, but videogames were clearly the New Big Thing.

As I got older and arcades began dying in the late 90s, the pinball machines with their brightly lit backglass, colourful playfields and the challenge of keeping the silver ball in play became far more interesting. Whilst I can easily relive the videogames of my youth via MAME and numerous cross-platform collections, pinball is not an experience easily re-created in the home and I just don’t have the space to accommodate the real thing.

Ironically it is through videogames that pinball machines which otherwise would never be played by gamers today can live again. Farsight Studios has seen fit — in cooperation with the Pinball Museum — to create a collection of virtual tables modelled on some of the best of Gottlieb’s repertoire and System 3 has graciously brought this to us on the Wii in the UK. Indeed, seeing this game in a Woolworth’s catalogue (R.I.P.) and learning a follow-up collection of Williams tables was planned is what caused me to come back to gaming consoles and buy a Wii!

Gottlieb is one of the pioneering American pinball makers along with Bally, Midway and Williams. Their tables may not be as readily recognised in the UK, but they were the first company to make pinball machines and they have made some really fine ones.

This collection spans the 1930s-1990s and the tables are faithfully re-created including effects such as electromagnets, sound effects, lights, drop targets and moving playfield elements. The level of detail is quite good, although the focus has clearly been on the playfield and backglass art with textures on the front and sides of the machines being a little unpolished and rough-looking (though to be fair you rarely get a glimpse of these). There is also an option to enable a glass table effect – which reflects the backglass on the playfield as if you were looking at it under a glass surface, but I find this distracting and keep it turned off.

The tables included are:

* Genie (1979 wide-body table)
* Eldorado – City of Gold (1975, jungle themed)
* Black Hole (1981, featured reversed lower-level)
* Ace High (1957, card themed)
* Big Shot (1973, billiards themed)
* Central Park (1966, very challenging; lots of bumper action)
* Play-Boy (1932, flipperless mechanical)
* Tee’d Off (1993, Golf Theme)
* Goin’ Nuts (1983, Unreleased wide-body table with unique timer-based play)
* Victory (1987, Racing theme)
* Strikes N’ Spares (1995, Novelty Bowling table using balls and flippers to hit pins)

The tables are well emulated and the physics feel spot-on and consistent without the glitches or “off physics” you sometimes find in video pinball, though some tables, like Black Hole, have a ball which is extra bouncy and there is a (thankfully) very rare clipping issue where the ball can fall through the table in the lower playfield.

The games can be played in one of three ways:

“Gottlieb Challenge” presents the tables in a fixed order and there are three attempts to achieve a target score on the current table. Beating the challenge score progresses you to the next table; failure ends the challenge. High scores are recorded and ratings assigned at the end of the challenge based upon performance.

“Tournament” mode allows play-through of all tables by 1-4 players and scores are recorded as with the Gottlieb Challenge. Your score in the tournament will also earn you credits to use in the Practice Arcade and to buy codes to unlock extra features. These credits are also earned when you “match” after a game is over during regular play.

Both Gottlieb Challenge and Tournament score points to determine standing based upon the score required to get a replay on a given table which is based upon actual pinball tournament rules.

“Practice Arcade” puts you in a virtual arcade where you can view each table as a 3D model, display the history of the table (with text and audio), original sales flyers, high scores and — most helpfully — the primary methods of scoring points (also accompanied by text, audio and rotation and zooming on the areas being discussed). Only some of the tables have free play enabled to start. Achieving goals related to each table’s play mechanics can enable free play on other tables. Tables without free play can be played using the credits you earn from Tournaments, getting a “match” after a game or playing the novelty Love Handle and Fortune Teller machines.

There are a few unlockable features, namely Payout Mode which enables you to play the card-themed table Play Boy in either Black Jack or Poker mode to earn credits. There is also an unlockable option to disable table Tilting and to change the appearance of the ball. Some people might be annoyed by the lack of free play on all tables, but the tables are still playable as credits are readily earned and accumulated, and the challenges aren’t really challenges without some kind of reward. If the challenges are too challenging you can also apparently buy codes to unlock features using your credits, though I have yet to investigate this.

The controls are pretty straightforward and only minimally utilise the motion controls of the Wii. The B button is the right flipper and Z is the left. The direction stick on the nunchuck controls the plunger and is implemented as a proper analogue control so that you can control how far back the plunger goes (though the visuals indicate a full range of plunger travel, in practice anything more than the slightest flick will produce a shot of identical strength, so this is an area that could have used some more finesse from the developers). It might seem better to use the remote given that it’s on the plunger side and would lend itself to a pull/thrust motion for ball launch, but using the stick and releasing it seems like a faster, more intuitive process.

The 1 and 2 buttons scroll through the camera angles, but only whilst the ball is in play. Before the ball is launched the camera shifts to an angled view near plunger with the ball and plunger visible. I think it would have been a good idea to have the ability to set camera angle before play; on the plus side the camera angle is remembered between games – although I find some tables play better with certain camera angles than others.

Tilting the machine is enabled; the option to switch it off is something that must be earned (although the manual doesn’t indicate how). A sudden jerk on a controller causes the game to react as if the corresponding table side had been “nudged”, but it really does need to be a sudden jerking motion and requires a bit of practice to pull-off effectively. On one hand it seems like it should be easier, but if it was too easy you’d end up accidentally tilting the tables a lot which wouldn’t be any fun. Given my sometimes spastic reactions to events in the game I’m glad it’s not more sensitive! It probably could have been tweaked a little, but is functional the way it is.

Pause is via the – button, so you may need to remember to shift your grip a little when playing to avoid pausing mid-game (or play a little less vigorously than I do).

Nice bonuses are information about the Pinball Museum in Las Vegas which is a non-profit venture that has amassed the largest pinball collection in the world (Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame Pinball Museum, Nevada NV — at last a reason to visit Las Vegas besides gambling!). You also get a photographic tour of the Gottlieb pinball factory to see where the machines were built.

Things I would like to have seen:

1. 480p support. The PAL resolution of 576i looks quite good in the close-up camera modes with very fine detailing on a large screen, but using the fixed full-table camera setting suffers a bit detail-wise; fortunately none of the tables really requires this camera mode to play well.

2. The ability to choose camera angles independently of playing the game would have been appreciated, but changing angles in-play isn’t terribly difficult.

3. I would have enjoyed the ability to “tour” the tables: zoom in/out and review the backglass to better appreciate the effort that went into to virtualising these machines.

It’s a great package all told and considering you can get it for under £20 online it’s a bargain that fans of real pinball shouldn’t pass up.