Category: Wii Reviews

Zaxxon (Virtual Console Arcade)

Not the best Sega arcade game ever due to the unconventional isometric view that makes it confusing to line up with your target (especially true in the space sequences) and a giant analogue flight stick that made it even tougher to control your ship – especially when it broke, which was pretty often.

Thankfully it’s nicely emulated and it appears to be the first Sega VCA title to support widescreen displays (meaning the display is already pillarboxed and you won’t need to mess with your TV controls); a good thing too, because otherwise the fact it was on a vertical monitor in the arcade would mean the game would take up even less screen real estate! The analogue stick on the nunchuk or Classic Controller Pro (my weapon of choice) works just as well as my Playstation dual analogue controller via MAME OS X on my iBook, though it still cannot overcome the limitations of the original game. You can remap the fire button wherever you like and there’s an option to configure a button for auto-fire if you so desire.

I think Future Spy (another isometric shooter from Sega) is a better game, but Zaxxon is worth having in your collection if you’re a nostalgic old fart like me.

Blaster Master (Virtual Console NES)

Sunsoft was known for getting the most out of the NES and this is exhibit A for that case. Wow, I really haven’t seen a nicer looking NES game than this and the music is excellent. You control a little spaceman in a tank that trundles along blasting enemies and jumps between platforms. When you get to little doors you can exit the tank and go into dungeon areas on foot where the game switches perspectives for the boss battles. On top of that there’s upgrades for your tank and special weapons to find. Far more than I would expect from a NES game and a must for the retro-junkie.

Ordyne (Virtual Console Arcade)

A cutesy shooter from Namco that already has a pretty decent PC Engine port, but I decided to forego that in favour of the arcade original. Music is excellent and it’s a challenging little game where you shoot various critters for money which you use to buy temporary upgrades for your ship. Not brilliant, but fun nonetheless.

Rompers (Virtual Console Arcade)

Now this is brilliant. A great maze game as only Namco can make them. Your little straw-hatted chibi character needs to get all the keys Pac-Man-style and avoid monsters in order to open the door to the next level. Your only weapon is the ability to push walls over to squish the baddies who then respawn from eggs. It’s great fun and has a nice playful air about it. The only console release it ever had was on the original Namco Museum Encore in Japan, so I’ve been waiting a long time to play this on something other than a home computer and it’s wonderful, though people without a Japanese Wii are sadly out of luck.

Chō Aniki (Virtual Console PC Engine)

I actually bought the sequel before this one, but felt I should check this out before reviewing the former. Whilst there’s no question that Ai Chō Aniki is superior in every way this is still a pleasantly bizarre shooter with a good soundtrack. It’s a little bit more pedestrian than the utterly insanse follow-up, but still good fun.

Galaga (Virtual Console Arcade)

What more needs to be said about this game? Certainly it’s the best vertical shooter EVER and this is a fantastic emulation of it. The only downside is the fact that no d-pad will provide the click response of a proper arcade microswitch. Get it now!

Toy Pop (Virtual Console Arcade)

Another classic from Namco. 1 or 2 players move through a series of single screen mazes (yay!) destroying giftboxes to find bonus items and special shots to dispatch rampaging toys. Some toys can only be killed by certain items which ups the challenge and ensures you’re always breaking boxes looking for the one you need presently. Get the hearts in jars to open the door and go to the next level. This kind of game is why Namco are the true masters of arcade fun!

Bit.Trip VOID (WiiWare)

The 3rd in what looks to be an enduring series that really epitomises what I love best about WiiWare: small developers putting out interesting little titles that would probably not see the light of day as disc releases. In this one players use the analogue stick on the nunchuk to manoeuvre a black void about a playfield whilst little white and black dots stream by like flocks of birds. You want to collect the black dots and avoid the white ones. The more black ones you collect the more your score increases, though your void will also increase in size making it difficult to avoid the white dots that will penalise your score and take you closer to the Nether zone (as in previous Bit.Trip games doing well gets you more complex music and background visuals; messing up strips these away and ultimately ends the game).

There are checkpoints in each of the levels which makes this game a bit more accessible than the previous two entries, but that doesn’t make it any easier. There’s a lot of dots to collect (and avoid) and other than the control stick your only other weapon is the ability to proactively shrink your void to dodge the white dot onslaught. I can only look forward to the next “trip” from Gaijin and wonder if these guys can keep delivering the quality!

LIT (WiiWare)

We’ve been waiting for this seemingly forever in Europe, but it’s well worth the wait. It’s a horror puzzle game that feels like it could have come from any era and has a solid mechanic based around creating light paths through shadow-covered rooms to move from a starting point to the exit. You need to collect items like slingshots (for shooting out windows) and interact with objects on the playfield like computers and light switches to get through the monster-infested dark places that will instantly kill you should you stray from the path you create. The setting is a high school and your protagonist is trying to find his girlfriend who will phone you from time to time.

There’s extra items to find and getting all the phone calls will get you some kind of bonus so the replay value is definitely there. Changing views for projectiles and the different controls for different items can feel a little awkward, but overall it’s a great little game and a welcome addition to the service. Definitely worth checking out.

Pop (WiiWare)

This was an early WiiWare release and to be honest one I had totally skipped because it didn’t look that interesting. I like a good puzzle game, but this seemed too aimless for me. The only reason I bought it was to use up the spare 700 points I had laying about so I could cash in a big points card, but I’m glad I did because it’s a nice little game. Popping bubbles is deceptively easy, but you’ve got a timer rapidly counting down that initially seems like it will never run out, but in time chaining bubbles whilst avoiding misses or popping penalty-bearing skull bubbles becomes more difficult. There’s a never-ending zone-out mode where you can pop bubbles as a form of self-hypnosis or you can go for high scores on worldwide leaderboards or spam your Wii friends with your bubble-busting prowess. Nice job guys!

Bosconian (Virtual Console Arcade)

Another arcade classic from our friends at Namco. Bosconian is a seminal release: one of the first games to feature voice sampling (though garbled to amusing effect), one of the first games to offer the ability to continue and one of the few shooters to allow players to travel in any direction in a defined multi-screen playfield. There’s a radar handy for finding the starbases you’re tasked with destroying whilst avoiding enemy ships. It’s a great game and definitely worth picking up.

Carnival Games (WiiWare)

One of the main strengths of the Wii’s controllers over those of other platforms is the pointer, which makes it a natural for shooting games of all kinds. Carnival Games is about as basic as you can get: a collection of 12 carny-style target shooting games divided into 3 groups with each group having its own unique bonus round. The colours are vibrant and the control implementation is excellent. There’s online leaderboards (one for each group, regardless of difficulty), 3 difficulty settings and plenty of challenge on offer so you’ve always got room to improve your score. You’re not going to take hours to explore it, but it’s a nice arcade-style experience you can enjoy if you have a spare 5 minutes. My initials are SRA, so do try to best me! The first game from this developer hasn’t crossed the pond, so it’s not clear if a PAL release is in the cards, sadly.

Grobda (Virtual Console Arcade)

A classic Namco top-down tank game, similar to the tank game from Wii Play. You’re controlling one of the tanks seen in the Xevious arcade game and trying to become the best Tank Battler of them all! At first glance it’s pretty simple: move your tank left and right to fire a barrage of shots that cross the screen almost immediately (no dodging here!), whilst avoiding your opponents. But if you’re going to get the big points you actually don’t want to shoot all the tanks yourself. Instead try to hit tanks when they’re grouped together so the explosion from one gets the other ones. You’ve got an energy shield which will stay on as long as you hold the button – at least until your energy reserve runs out! It’s a nice little game not commonly seen in arcades and only available elsewhere in the original Namco Museum release on the Playstation as well as a resent PSP compilation, so definitely give a look if you have the means.

Tank Force (Virtual Console Arcade)

The sequel to one of Namco’s older arcade games, Tank Battalion, Tank Force offers more colours and more detailed sprites. You need to defend your flag against invading enemies which come in from the top and sides. You can blast buildings to make new passages and so can they, but you’ve got power-ups to give you an edge. After blasting all the invading tanks you go to the next level with a different layout and tougher enemies. If you like maze games or tank games or tank maze games, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Simple Series 5: The Judo (WiiWare)

I was hoping to do a full write-up on this for Nintendo Life, but after spending 30min. with it I simply couldn’t figure out the controls. There’s a couple-dozen characters to choose from with a full tournament mode, vs. CPU or what looks like a 2-player mode. The perspective is 1st-person; moving to 3rd for throws. You thrust the nunchuck forward and press Z to grapple with your left and do the same with remote and B for your right, but how you throw your opponent remains a mystery. I could get thrown plenty, but after much remote flailing and button pressing I could do little more than struggle with my opponent and draw endlessly, never throw them. If anyone who knows Japanese can clue me in on the instructions that would be great, but otherwise I’ll just have to regard this as a casualty of the language barrier – shame there’s no tutorial!

Classic Controller Pro (Hardware)

I got my new CC Pro this week and just had to do a write-up. I was mostly interested in using it with Midway Arcade Treasures 1 on the North American Wii because I like shoulder buttons for firing in Defender and Vindicators and the Gamecube pad’s analogue triggers just don’t work well for that. It’s only available in black in the UK (so far) and was released along with the new black Wii and associated peripherals. It feels lighter than the old Classic Controller, but it’s comfortable and does the job. The logic of using the Z buttons as the big triggers is completely lost on me since the L and R buttons are more commonly supported by Virtual Console titles like Assault (Namco sadly doesn’t allow you to remap Zl and Zr from their function as coin drop and start), but the presence of handles still makes for a great improvement in games requiring both analogue sticks.

If you’re like me and use the CC via a Classic Linker then note that the CC Pro isn’t supported. Instead you’ll need a Classic Linker+ (thankfully I had the foresight to order one of those without realising the difference). Defender works much better, though the increased travel of the CC analogue sticks over my usual PS pad means that I’m using the d-pad for up-down movement due to better response. Vindicators is also much improved, though the fact that the Gamecube only had one Z button means that you’re not able to utilise the other trigger for the special weapon. Overall if you play a lot of VC titles or want to use it with Gamecube games via a CL+ it’s definitely worthwhile picking one up.

Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen (Virtual Console SNES)

A tactical game from Squaresoft which lacks the story content of Fire Emblem, which I really love, so at first glance it isn’t too great. Somehow it gets its hooks into you by serving up a more instantly rewarding and fun tactical board game style.

You work through the overworld map moving from province to province slowly trying to defeat The Empire and liberate the land. Each province has several towns shown on the map and here you can send your forces out to liberate towns and defeat the provincial boss before moving to the next. The battles are real-time rather than turn-based, but this isn’t an action game: instead you merely get to control attack style or use special powers via Tarot cards you collect when you liberate towns and the action plays out on its own.

It ends up being quite an enjoyable game directing your little bands of fighters and wizards and beating on the baddies. Definitely worth a look for strategy fans, though folk in Europe have to pay extra since it was never originally released in PAL territories and has only come to the VC via a Hanabi Festival.

ExciteBots: Trick Racing

How much fun is this game? I really cannot say enough good things about it or enough bad things about Nintendo for not only failing to promote it but not seeing fit to localise it for any territory other than North America (though a Club Nintendo release happened in Japan, eventually). It takes everything that made Excite Truck great and turns it up to 11 – okay there’s no MP3 playback support, but who cares?

You have wacky animal robots, great drifting, lovely scenery with great graphics, a brilliant soundtrack, big air, terrific sense of speed and new fun things like hitting bowling pins and throwing pies for extra stars (that’s just the tip of the crazy iceberg). On top of that there’s a Poker Race mode where, indeed, you race and play cards at the same time! If that wasn’t enough you earn stars for unlocking more bots and paint jobs, an unlockable Super Excite mode and online for both Excite races and Poker races where you can bet your stars to earn more for buying those aforementioned extras — FANTASTIC!

This game is brilliant fun and European importers can rest easy that not only is the online community active – even during European evening times – but I didn’t experience any issues connecting to matches or doing races with a North American Wii set to Brazil. Do yourself a favour and don’t let NoE’s short-sightedness keep you from this brilliant masterpiece.

Devil World (Virtual Console NES)

An oddball Nintendo title that only appeared in Japan and Europe due to an apparent concern for American sensibilities over the word “devil” being in the title and imagery of crosses and bibles. It’s a bit silly really and Americans should feel left out since it’s a pretty nice game. An entry in the sadly neglected “maze game” genre, it features a toad-like dragon who’s trying to eat all the dots Pac-Man style whilst evading the minions of the titular Devil. There’s a couple of twists in that the dragon can only eat the dots after grabbing one of the crosses located on the screen. Whilst holding the cross he can also spit fireballs at the devil’s minions and turn them into fried eggs for a limited time during which they can be eaten for bonus points.

The devil can be seen at the top of the screen directing the movement of the playfield bounding box that can squish players between parts of the maze as it drifts about. After clearing the maze of dots there’s a bonus round where the player is trying to grab four bibles from the four corners of the screen and stick them into the sides of a central box which then banishes the devil. There are no crosses so you just need to avoid enemies (and getting squished by the maze walls as the playfield boundary shifts). It’s a nice little game that you might not have paid £50 for when it was first released, but on the Virtual Console it’s worth a punt for less than a fiver. No sign of this coming to North America though, sorry!

Ice Climber (Virtual Console NES)

This is a port of an arcade game from Nintendo that I honestly cannot recall ever laying eyes on. It’s sort of like Crazy Climber meets Roc ‘n’ Rope: you control a guy in a snow suit who’s trying to get to the top of a mountain of ice and you have a hammer to knock back enemies. Rather than climbing windows you bust out holes in the platform above which you can then jump through. There are abominable snowmen who will fill these in if you’re not quick about it and birds that divebomb you. Between game levels are bonus rounds where you’re trying to collect as much fruit and veg as possible (as in real life they’re sitting on moving ice platforms) before falling or after reaching the top.

Great simple fun; good for a quick play now and then. You can input your name after getting a high score and thanks to the Virtual Console state save you can actually have a go at beating it if you don’t use the “Reset Game” option in the home menu.

Eduardo the Samurai Toaster (WiiWare)

This is a platforming shoot-em up like Contra, but with some very unique artwork consisting of scanned-in pen-and-paper drawings which are used in place of conventional sprite- or polygon-based graphics. It’s a brilliant effect giving the game an oddball cartoony look as a result, but still offers some fun gameplay. The only serious issue I have with it is the lack of any kind of scoring system or leaderboards of any kind. I don’t care if they’re online, but I do like a little “beat my highest score” incentive to play it again, you know? Only a North American release for this, so European and Japanese players are out of luck.

Evasive Space (WiiWare)

A non-shooter where evading the baddies to reach a goal in a maze whilst collecting astronauts or other targets is the name of the game. Great visuals and nice degree of polish complement some fun gameplay. The only big negatives are a difficulty curve that climbs sharply at Level 3 and controls that are definitely marmite. Negative reviews lambast the use of pointer to steer and B button to thrust, but I actually find it works quite well. Of course if you suffer from some kind of palsy you’re going to need to recalibrate your remote, but I had no real issue with it and the controls helped maintain a good level of challenge. At 1000pts. it might be a bit on the high side though; I think it would have done better with a price point of 800. Definitely worth checking out if you have a North American or Japanese Wii.

Groovin’ Blocks (WiiWare)

A nice little falling block game with a musical twist. The goal is to assemble connecting groups of four, but in order to complete the stage you need to drop the blocks in time to the beat of the background music enough times to earn stars which unlock further stages. Each stage has a different techno track and there are several on offer. There have been reports of the disc release (which includes a few extra levels and presumably higher-quality audio) coming to Europe, but it has yet to materialise as of this writing. The gameplay is decent, though it can be distracting attempting to both plan ahead and time the block pair drop, but the music is ace. You might not be able to get the game in Europe at the moment, but the soundtrack can be found for download at Amazon.co.uk.

Gyrostarr (WiiWare)

The graphics in this half-pipe shooter (resembling a marriage of Atari’s vector classic Tempest and futuristic racers like Wipeout and F-Zero) are quite impressive for a WiiWare title. The soundtrack moves along nicely and the sensation of speed is terrific. You’re trying to blast enemy ships and pick up the “warp energy” released in sufficient quantities to enable you to travel through the warp gates you’re speeding towards inexorably. Fail to pick up these luminous blobs and your ship will be mercilessly destroyed. Enemies shoot back as well, so you need to keep on your toes – though the first five levels aren’t terribly tough. The first level you can unlock is number 6 which proves to be quite the challenge. Between levels is a bonus round where hitting the gate without the required number of energy just takes you to the next level and whilst there’s no shooting, it still gets blisteringly fast. There’s a four-player multiplayer option in which everyone needs to work together to get the warp energy required or everyone dies. A nice game at a good price for 800points. Someday it might even be seen outside of North America!

Cursed Mountain

People may write off the Wii as the home of shovelware, but there are a decent number of games on the system that tell a good story and this is one of them. The game plays out like a really long film and is sort of a cross between an adventure game and a 3rd-person action title. Combat with enemies sees the character controlled Resident-Evil 4 style, but the pacing of the game is a bit slower. Given your weapon consists of blessed artifacts affixed to your ice axe, it’s not the bullet-fest many “survival horror” games have become.

Cursed Moutain tells the story of Eric Simmons who goes to the Himalayas to try to save his younger brother Frank. Their relationship is troubled by a long-time rivalry and Frank has been impulsive and gone for glory only to find himself lost in the formless void of the Tibetan Bhuddist purgatory called the Bardo.

The game does have it’s share of frights with ghosts jumping up at you, but mostly the atmosphere is morose and foreboding. The chilling setting is ably maintained by excellent atmospheric music and sound effects which include chanting monks, drums and blowing winds.

The visuals are quality and it’s worthwhile stopping to use free look at observation points where you can check out the scenery – clearly the developers wanted to show off their handiwork and this is a game any graphic designer would be rightly proud of. Cut scenes are sometimes rendered using the game engine, but more often enacted story-book style with moving panels of hand-drawn art coupled with audio dialogue.

It’s definitely not perfect, however, with the imitation of Resident Evil 4’s controls extending to the tank-like steering of your character using the Nunchuk control stick to rotate in place then pushing forward or backward to move in the chosen direction. It’s awkward and annoying – especially if you’re surrounded by angry ghosts! Motion controls are also a mixed bag. There are sections requiring balancing whilst walking across narrow beams where anything less than rapid tilting of the Remote to correct off-balance moves results in death. The developers deserve a lot of credit for having frequent auto-saves, though – specifically right before these balancing sections, to reduce frustration.

The motions required to pull off mystic wards to dispel ghosts or unlock magically sealed areas largely work well, but detection of vertical movements of the remote and nunchuk is very poor. Thankfully these aren’t game-breaking and ensuring your gestures aren’t too sharp and chained moves are separated by a second or two works a treat. Of course you can also use mystic energies to blast ghosts to oblivion instead – if you don’t need the health restored by banishing them gesturally (though using the gestures is quite satisfying – when they work). Note to developers (which bears repeating endlessly): please please please, if you’re going to use gestures ensure there’s a setting to control sensitivity!

Replay value is down to whether or not you want to experience the story again, but don’t let that hold you back. After playing the game for 10 hours you’ll truly felt you’ve gone on a journey with Eric Simmons aided by some first-rate voice acting. The game never drags and the writing is excellent. Well worth a look!

Baraduke (Virtual Console Arcade)

Another classic arcade game from Namco, this one features the first female sci-fi gaming protagonist, beating Metroid’s Samus Aran by a year. It’s a 2D action title which sees players controlling “Kissy” (Mr. Driller’s mum!) as she invades the Octi base and lays waste to all the alien baddies in sight. Some may find the visuals a little creaky and the action a bit on the slow side, but I think it’s brilliant!

Bakutotsu Kijuutei (Virtual Console Arcade)

The sequel to Baraduke is a little more linear (strictly left-to-right; without the vertical bits from the other), though it does have better graphical polish. It’s not as charming as the first game, but it’s still a good bit of fun and worth a look for fans.

Dead Space Extraction

People who played the original 3rd-person action game on other platforms were moaning about this as were Wii-owners who didn’t want yet another “rails shooter,” but let me tell you this is one of very few titles that actually lives up to the promise of games as a viable storytelling media. Extraction plays out like a sci-fi horror film without a lot of edits and features some outstanding animation and creepy atmosphere.

The decision to move to a first person perspective, but take away camera control makes for a more cinematic feel without making the game more difficult to play (see Resident Evil with its cinematic camera angles that actively interfere in gameplay in its earliest incarnations). There’s only a few jump-out-of-your-seat moments, but Dead Space Extraction oozes tension because you never know when you’ll need to act against a new onslaught of horrors.

Use of technology that gives you the ability to remotely manipulate objects is a good way to logically justify grabbing pick-ups and provides a little help when ammo is low and there’s only crates to throw at the baddies. The use of mining tools to put up barricades as well as guns to blast everything in sight diversifies the action. Finally there are free-look moments in the game to find pick-ups – but often you’ll still need quick reflexes to get that weapon upgrade – and zero-g environments spice up affairs.

It’s a got a lot of variety for a gun game and not being able to move around freely never feels like a limitation due to the quality story on display. The action jumps between several characters – not all of whom have rosy futures. The closest thing in movie-land is Event Horizon, but that disappointing film falls far short of the story presented here. The world feels real and the dialogue and characterisations are quite good. The characters and relationships are developed to a degree rarely seen in modern film (there’s actually a first act!) and it’s this that really makes the game shine. It’s all carried forward by an excellent cast of voice actors whose emotions are conveyed by some fantastic facial animation. The visuals are certainly among the best on the Wii.

Replay value is ample with numerous branching paths to explore in the 10 chapters as well as three difficulty levels on top of the default Normal (which provides a decent level of challenge on its own). In addition to the story mode there are challenge modes to unlock where you’re trying to mow-down as many enemies as possible, and a bonus multi-part virtual comic book (complete with excellent voice-over) that tells the story before and surrounding events in the game.

There’s some language as you would expect in a Certificate 16 film, but the violence gives this an 18 so it’s not for the kiddies by any means. If you like horror games (or a good horror yarn), it’s a must-have. Personally I cannot wait for a sequel and as long as the quality of story and presentation is maintained I’d be thrilled if EA continued this series in the same format – it’s really that good.

New Rally-X (Virtual Console Arcade)

Another classic game from Namco. This is an update to the original Rally-X and is noticeably superior by virtue of having a more accessible difficulty curve. Like other Namco VCA titles you can remap the joypad layout (although there is only one button) and change the screen settings – though Namco still doesn’t have adjustable difficulty in its VCA titles outside of the scores required to earn extra lives. Racing around trying to get the flags before being rammed by the red cars is still good fun and the emulation is quality, though experienced players will find the difficulty a little on the easy side. If you’re a fan (and have a Japanese Wii) it’s definitely worth it!