Those of you who have picked up a copy of Need for Speed: Shift, you may have high hopes for NITRO. However, Shift and NITRO are two completely different experiences. Where Shift was in the vein of a racing simulator, NITRO returns to Need for Speed’s Arcade roots. You drag race through the city while trying to beat other racers and avoid the police. The more damage you do while driving, combined with your position in the race, will draw more police attention. So if you’re in first place and causing a large amount of damage to your surroundings, watch out. The challenge makes the game interesting and makes it feel like you’re racing in the Fast and the Furious (not an opinion everyone may share).

The game play is definitely designed for casual racers instead of hardcore racing fanatics, so this game will probably not appeal to racers who enjoy realistic racing. The racing itself is very cartoonish, which doesn’t take away from the game, but makes it rather endearing. You drive with acceleration and braking and also use Nitrous to speed up the car for a competitive edge. The difficulty levels are just right so that it’s not insultingly easy but not soul crushingly hard (sorry to disappoint all you masochists out there). You play in either Arcade or Career mode and use the Wii remote to drive. However, you’re not limited to using only the Wii remote – you can also use the classic controller (a personal favorite), the Wii Wheel from Mario Kart and even a Gamecube controller! That was a great relief for when I tried out multiplayer with my friends and found that all four worked on the game.

There are 30 cars that are available to use but you have the ability to customize them however you wish. The 30 cars are separated into three tiers: Supercars, Balanced Performance and Commercial vehicles. Supercars are fast racing cars while Commercial vehicles are slower but sturdier. You can paint your cars in whatever way you like in order to make it more interesting. While you can drive around, you can’t total your car. That doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for reckless driving. If you crash too many times, you end up losing your nitro meters, which can cost you the race.

Visually, the game is very cartoonish and animated in a way which makes it interesting to look up. Unfortunately, the game’s variety limits its potential. The game has very few levels and only 30 cars. Even if you increase the difficulty of the levels, there’s little incentive to keep playing when you know what the tracks are like. This incredibly repetitive game play is a big disappointment of a fun game to kill time with. This is surprising given the fact that the game’s simplicity would have seemed like the biggest letdown.

Blast Factor: Need for Speed: NITRO is a fun arcade racer which suffers from a very repetitive set up. The cars are interesting, as are the visuals, but that doesn’t really improve the lack of courses to race through and the fact that there are only 30 cars. This isn’t a bad game, and it is perfect for fans of casual arcade racing games but it isn’t something which would appeal to hardcore racers. If you want something silly for the kids this is definitely a game for you to pick up.

Need for Speed: Nitro is available on the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, and retails for $49.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for review purposes.

I won’t ask why the evil enemy’s robots are capable of being shot down by foam darts and soft balls, but we’ll just use video game logic here to say that it works and you best not question why. Regardless of what they are using for ammo, the four friends team up to take down this evil-doer, and they pick up loads of blasters along the way, blasters that they can customize to their liking. You purchase upgrades with items you find scattered around levels and hiding inside your enemies, just waiting to burst out when you blow them up. This adds to the replay value significantly–light gun games like House of the Dead and Time Crisis suffer on occasion from not having enough incentive to replay them, but when you’re given a reason (like this spring’s House of the Dead: Overkill, with its achievement and upgrade systems) then you’ve got yourself a keeper, as playing through it again isn’t painful.

To add to that, you can also play with another person, even if they don’t have their own Nerf blaster. They can just use the Wii Remote (or another peripheral like the Wii Zapper or Nyko Perfect Shot) in order to play along–some areas are only available to you if you are playing co-op, so there’s good reason for Little Timmy to invite Little Billy over to blast some robots.

Outside of blasting everything in sight, the big hook for N-Strike Elite is the Red Reveal–there’s an attachment for the Nerf blaster that you look through at certain parts of the game, in order to reveal secret codes that you can use in various places. The places where you need Red Reveal could not be anymore obvious if they had signs with fingers pointing surrounding them, but it’s hard to read the text without the Red Reveal, and it is the sort of thing that your little pre-teen adventurer will eat up due to it’s undercover, secret agent mystique.

The one knock the game has is that it’s very non-violent, but that may also be a selling point to many parents who want their kids to be able to enjoy video games, but don’t exactly want them sawing off aliens heads with a chainsaw bayonet just yet. The kids don’t die; the game just sort of stops and you get the chance to restart from your last checkpoint. Foam darts and balls will also not be mistaken for bullets anytime soon; it’s not like they go inside the robots, they just sort of bounce off, but then again, that would happen if you turned and blasted your co-op buddy with the fully functional Nerf blaster you’re playing with anyways, so it makes sense.

The Nerf blaster is a better product than the Wii Zapper, though I would put it a step below the Nyko Perfect Shot; the grip on the handle is not long enough for comfort if you’ve got big hands, but otherwise it’s well-made and works perfectly for its intended Wii related purposes. Considering you’re getting it with a game without too much of a price hike, it’s not a bad accessory to have around for other games.

Blast Factor: Nerf N-Strike Elite made a great design change from the original, going for more of a light-gun adventure than an arena-based series of challenges. It makes for gameplay that immerses the player into the experience more, and with the loads of customization options and many blasters to collect (and don’t forget co-op) there are plenty of reasons to come back to this title. It’s $60, but it comes packaged with a peripheral that works better than most similar products on the market alongside a quality game.

Nerf N-Strike Elite is available exclusively on the Wii for $59.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

My confusion stems from the feel of the story and plot, which is strictly low-quality, Saturday morning cartoon level filler.� You play as a youth who, uh, loves this card battling game that features creatures popping out of balls.� Think Pokemon, but with a bit of a technological and alien bent as opposed to animals.� Your youth is plucky, with a whole cast of stereotypes to help you out � A super cool dude who serves as a tag team partner, an obvious bully and a lackey to fight against, several girls that are cute but have no personalities of their own, and a nerdy kid who is obviously very nerdy because of his nerdy kid glasses.

Although all of the characters are definitely stock, straight from central casting, the voiceover work is done pretty well.� Likewise, the graphics are Saturday morning cartoon, but in the good way � Crisp, colorful backgrounds and good animation on the actual battlefields.� While the voiceover and graphics aren’t selling points, they do not actively take away from the experience.

If you are reading this and under the age of 18, then the above characters and presentation might appeal to you greatly.� If you are not, then you will have to rely on the gameplay, which is so-so.� While there are some fun aspects here and there, the basic gameplay is rather unrefined.

Bakugan is essentially a �monster battling� game, similar to the aforementioned Pokemon.� You create a deck of cards, compromised of three attacking monsters, three base cards and three power-up cards.� At the start of combat, you are transported to an arena, and you have to place down a base card.� You then use the Wiimote to �throw� a ball � one of your attacking monsters � on to one of the base cards placed by you or your opponent.� The control pad can be used to �steer� the ball in the air, and also after it lands.� You opponent then throws, followed by you again.

The goal is to win three gate cards.� If you can land two of your monsters on a single gate card, then you can claim it.� However, the main combat occurs when you and an enemy land on the card, which initiates a battle.� Each monster has a �power� level � think hit points � that can be amplified depending on the base card the fight takes place on.� For example, a Holy powered monster might get an extra 50 points for fighting on a Holy battlefield.

There are a few other wrinkles from here.� First, you can use power-up cards to give yourself some extra points.� And second, each battle features one of three mini-games � a rhythm timing game, a shooting game with the Wiimote pointer or a masturbatory shaking � in order to further increase the power level. Whoever has the higher number wins.� There are also power-ups your monster can collect while rolling around the arena as well, to raise or increase the power level, and to debilitate your opponents with annoying status effects.

It’s simpler than it seems, and unfortunately, you don’t need a lot of the extra options, like the movement or even doing well on the mini-games.� For the most part, I was able to accurately throw the balls on to cards with little trouble, with the computer’s success rate was about 50 percent.� I was able to win most of the game’s battles within three to five turns.

This lack of challenge and generally unoriginal gameplay creates a sense of �meh� while playing Bakugan.� It is kind of fun, but my old fogey mind kept thinking back to Pokemon, and how much better that was, even though its prevalent color was an odd sort of green and I played it on the original, chunky Game Boy that now doubles as a paperweight for me.

There are some attempts here and there to prolong the Bakugan experience.� For example, you can purchase new monsters at a store, and like every game of this type, there is an emphasis on collecting every monster, gate card and power-up card.� This will probably only appeal to the few ensnared enough by the game to continue with it though, and it’s not really a drawing point if you don’t like the basic gameplay.� Likewise, tag team, battle royal and multiplayer matches are available, but they’re all just more of the same.

Blast Factor: Bakugan has a very narrow niche in my mind � Boys who aren’t trying to get laid yet.� If you have one of these in your household, then this is a good game to forestall that hellish part of their life (also known medically as �The Rest of Their Life�) for another month or so.� If you don’t fall into this group though, Bakugan isn’t worth its price tag.� Just plow through the game in a quick renting if you think it’s your cup of tea.

Bakugan is available on the Wii, DS, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Playstation 2. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Anyway, don’t let my horribly corny jokes dissuade you from checking out Van Halen’s edition of Guitar Hero.  It offers much more depth than you’d expect from an installment of Guitar Hero that is more of a side project, and it totally shames the Rock Band offering of The Beatles, at least in this humble reviewer’s opinion.  While it clearly isn’t as polished or as much of a value as Guitar Hero 5, if you love Van Halen or need more Guitar Hero fun, it is a clear “must buy” for you.

As you can imagine from the premise of the title, Guitar Hero: Van Halen focuses primarily on the band.  Almost every significant single is included, from the pure arena rock nature of “Jump” to the… uh, other arena rock songs, like “Hot For Teacher” and “Jamie’s Crying.”  Happily though, some deeper tracks are included, such as the ultimate shredding song, “Eruption,” which is as ridiculously difficult as you would expect.

A note right up front about the song selection – The game only features songs and avatars of the current  lineup of Van Halen.  Given the band’s notoriously challenged relationship with past contributors, this probably isn’t shocking to most of you reading that actually enjoy Van Halen.  Almost every David Lee Roth song of significance is included in the 25 Van Halen tracks, and the avatars are of Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen and Wolfgang Van Halen.

When it comes to the other 19 tracks, they were picked out by the 18-year-old Wolfgang, the son of Eddie, and it shows.  Weezer, Foo Fighters, Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World and Fountains of Wayne are artists you would normally associate more with modern rock, but I’d argue that they have more in common with Van Halen than, say, Twisted Sister, or some other hair band from Van Halen’s era.  Case in point – While era contemporary The Clash have a song on the game, “Safe European Home” is more gritty punk than the refined, arena rock sound of Van Halen.

The difficulty of Guitar Hero: Van Halen is definitely a tick up from the most recent rhythm game releases, Guitar Hero 5 and Rock Band: The Beatles.  Then again, that is probably to be expected with the tracks featured.  The guitar and bass portions feature lots and lots of notes, especially if you’re trying to segue from The Beatles, who feature fairly simple transitions and chords.

However, while the game is incredible at its core goal – Roth-era Van Halen excellence – it doesn’t incorporate some of the features from Guitar Hero 5.  I suspect that development on this game began far before the completion of Guitar Hero 5, which might explain why some of the new tweaks weren’t incorporated.  (It might also explain why there is a Foo Fighters song present, even though Dave Grohl got pissed that his former band mate was a playable character in Guitar Hero 5.)  For example, there is no drop-in play, and while you can chose or create an avatar to play as, you can’t swap out other members of the band.  On the plus side, the crowd sings along during certain choruses.

One other sticking point is the price – $50 for the Wii edition.  Eech.  For practically the same amount, Guitar Hero 5 is a much better bargain, since it provides almost double the amount of songs: 85 to 45.  Although Guitar Hero: Van Halen was a throw-in for purchasing Guitar Hero 5 early and features half the songs, this is not reflected in the price at all.

Blast Factor: Your enjoyment of this game though, as with any of these band-specific rhythm games, hinges on your enjoyment of the track list.  I love Van Halen, so I loved this game.  If you love Van Halen, the higher price tag will probably not dissuade.  In addition, if you love modern rock and alternative, this is definitely the best track list next to Guitar Hero: Modern Hits for the Nintendo DS.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen is available on the Wii, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 systems, at a cost of $49.99 and $59.99 respectively. This review concerns the Wii version. A copy of this game was redeemed via the Guitar Hero 5 offer for review purposes; the official retail version is not available until December 22.

The game is a bit light on story, but here’s the short of it: the Blob lands on Earth, and he needs help to save his planet of Blobolonia. The titular boy finds him, and they set out on a journey full of danger, puzzles, jellybeans and hugs. Yes, there’s a button specifically used to hug Blob, and it’s as adorable as it sounds. Don’t laugh, you’ll catch yourself using it.

The game is presented via beautiful handrawn artwork in a 2D style. It’s 2D, but it isn’t simple–think of Wario Land: Shake It! as this game’s closest kin, presentation wise. The game animates very well, and the real star of the show is Blob, as he morphs into loads of different shapes throughout the game, fluidly and impressively. This morphing process occurs when you feed him jellybeans–different beans give you different abilities, like the jack, for lifting objects and enemies, a trampoline, a bowling ball, a rocket–the list goes on and on.

In the original game, you had a limited number of jellybeans, and the game was a bit more open-ended. In this update, you have unlimited jellybeans, and the game is broken into levels–there are 40 of them, plus 40 bonus levels. You are given a few specific jellybeans for each level, which is basically simple platforming combined with puzzles that grow in difficulty the further you proceed in the game. There are also three treasure chests in each level–they are easy to spot and pick up at first, but this grows more difficult as time goes on as well. You will not find all of the treasures on your first playthrough unless you scour the game world for each and every one, but you can return to a level at any time to replay it as well. Picking up all three treasures in a level unlocks a challenge level for you to visit (more on that later).

These puzzles are very satisfying to complete, especially as you progress through the game. Eventually you will need quick reflexes and to do more than just toss a jellybean anywhere in order to proceed. You can throw jellybeans by holding the B button and checking the angle at which it will land and bounce, and Blob will give chase. You can call Blob back if you miss too, using the C button. This also works if Blob is stuck off screen; the Blob’s AI works most of the time, but for the odd time when he (she?) doesn’t follow you when they are supposed to, you can press the C button a few times to start an automatic return process.

Just because you have a specific set of jellybeans for each level does not mean there is just one way through many of the game’s puzzles or enemies, either. Lots of enemies charge at you from a distance–you could try to peg them with the bowling ball if it’s available, drop an anvil on their head if there’s a ledge above them, drop a hole in the ground, or jump over them as they charge with the trampoline. Oftentimes your jellybean inventory will be full or close to it, so these options are close at hand assuming the environment cooperates.

Even boss fights are puzzles, kind of like in Braid. Once you figure out what to do, it’s very simple, but until you do you may have a bit of a problem. It’s nice to combine action with the puzzle every now and then, so these are satisfying moments in the gameplay.

This slow-paced, puzzle-based gameplay is something you need to be aware of before you throw money down on this game. If you’re looking for a fast-paced platformer where you can run and jump around, then this isn’t the game you’re looking for. The boy is basically helpless without the Blob–he doesn’t run very fast, doesn’t jump very high, and needs the Blob to get around even some of the most basic looking levels. That’s not to say it isn’t a great experience, because it is, you just need to be aware that this is, first and foremost, a puzzle game with platforming elements, not the other way around. My one complaint with this setup is that the hint system–signs with painted Blob objects on them–detracts from some of the satisfaction of solving the puzzles. There are fewer of them as you play, but an option to turn off hints would have been nice.

Then again, Wayforward may have just been saving the bigger challenge for the post-game play. When you complete the initial 40 levels, which takes more time than you think it will–levels extend in length as the game goes on, and as they rise in difficulty the amount of time you spend completing them will also rise–you can play 40 challenge levels, assuming you’ve been discovering the treasures in each level along the way. If you’re unfamiliar with Wayforward games, let me tell you that they don’t kid around when they say “challenge”. These levels will require your reflexes and quick thinking in order to complete them, but once you do, you can unlock concept art and storyboards–this is a great looking game, and you get what you put into the story, so those are two fun additions outside of bragging rights. I played through some of the challenge levels for this review, and they are aptly named–I’ll be happy to pick up the rest of the treasures and complete as many challenge levels as my brain and thumbs can handle now that this review is done.

Blast Factor: Wayforward and Majesco’s A Boy and His Blob is what a remake or re-imagining should be–it keeps the core concept of the original, but improves on enough that the game feels fresh and new. The artwork is gorgeous, and shows off just what the Wii can do with inspired art direction and capable artists, and the gameplay is worthy of the excellent concept of shape-shifting puzzle solving, something the original game has a harder time claiming.

A Boy and His Blob is available exclusively on the Wii, and retails for $39.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Meant to be played with a full living room, of the ten games represented in Deca Sports 2, none of them are any of the sports showcased in the previous Deca Sports.  Some draw similarities like figure skating to synchronized swimming, but in an attempt to make everything fresh, Hudson offers:  Darts, Petanque, Synchronized Swimming, Mogul Skiing, Road Racing, Tennis, Kendo, Speed Skating, Ice Hockey and Dodgeball.

Crossing timing mini-games with accuracy, most of the games in the collection are fun for ten minutes.  Petanque, a game very similar to bowling in Wii Sports or shuffle board, was one of the only games in the set to offer some depth.  Kendo is a random flail victory, and road racing is as exciting as it is in Mario kart minus weapons and Mario.  It’s hard to really replicate the experience of running around in gym class on a dodgeball court but that is exactly why it shouldn’t be in a mini-game compilation.

Dodgeball is an intense sport with strategy and timing, but in Deca Sports 2 it’s overly simple where one button throws to the people outside the court and another makes you catch the ball flying at your face but that’s all there is to it.  Shaking the Wii-mote sometimes has your whole team dodge the ball, which in Deca Sports 2 the whole team is controlled by one player therefore everyone moves together making the court look silly instead of like a battlefield, hurting any ability to get into the game when it’s all luck and two buttons.When you get down to your last player though, it works better, since that feeling of silliness is gone and it’s more about timing than luck.

We’ve all heard about the Wii by this point and considering the Wii is packaged with Wii Sports, we’ve all had the chance to play one of the five games on it.  While a solid game, there is always room for improvement.  Deca Sports 2 does it’s best to improve upon the one crossover Wii Sports game, tennis, by allowing the character the ability to miss-time a serve as well as run in towards the net or away.  A huge complaint in Wii Sports, the fact you can’t control where the character moves, was seen and fixed by the people at Hudson.  I’m trying not to draw many comparisons to Wii Sports but it is very hard not to, giving the natural similarities.

The game itself isn’t all bad.  The fact that you can customize your team using their  Mii-esque character creator like it does in Wii Sports is still fun.  It’s nice to play a league tournament with five characters you made yourself.  The body size of the characters you make also affect what their skills are.  If you pick a small character they may be quicker than a bigger guy, but the bigger guy packs more of a punch for games like tennis and petanque, therefore you have options for who you want to play for which sport your team is up to compete in.

Overall, there are some moments of fun here.  Also, don’t be afraid to play synchronized swimming because, surprisingly enough, the timing and motions they ask you to do are somewhat rewarding.  When I watched my hairy large white man with a beard twirls his shaved legs out of the water to music, I got a kick out of it.

Blast Factor: If you’re craving more mini-games that will keep your kids glued to the Wii or you’re in need of simple games, than this is the game for you.  Otherwise, you’re probably safe with Wii Sports, or maybe even picking up Wii Sports Resort for its Motion Plus games.

Deca Sports 2 is available exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $29.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Wii Fit Plus is an extension of Wii Fit, meant as an upgrade to replace the original. The question here is whether those who have already purchased Wii Fit can find anything worthwhile in this version, or if there is now enough included to bring in some of the skeptics from the past.

The short answer: Wii Fit Plus is a better exercise tool than the original, and a better game. There’s more emphasis on the game portion this time around, with 15 new activities–many of which are mini-games exclusive to Wii Fit Plus–and more attention paid to multiplayer and competition. Sure, they aren’t the most strenuous exercises around, but the key thing with them is that you have fun while you’re exercising–anything that keeps you from noticing you’re doing something healthy is good by me. Think of Wii Fit Plus as a Fitness Ninja that gets the job done without you ever noticing while it’s happening.

The new games are meant as a fun diversion though, and not as a replacement for strength training and aerobics–don’t expect to lose weight by replaying Rhythm Kung Fu or golf over and over again, even if they are fun and working modes. There are plenty of other enhancements to Wii Fit Plus that make it a better workout tool. It’s more family oriented now–you can weigh your pets and babies if you want, which is fun in its own way even if it isn’t necessary. There’s a calorie counter, which tracks how many calories you have burned during your workout. This is done by using METS (metabolic equivalent of task) which basically measures the amount of time you work out by the METS number for said workout to give you an idea of what you’ve accomplished. To give the calories some context, you can also compare the total to different food items within Wii Fit Plus, or pick a food item equivalent worth of calories you plan to burn each day. Have a need for a soft serve ice cream every day, but don’t want to put on extra weight? Make that your workout goal and burn those roughly 200 calories. This also serves as a wonderful reminder of how awful fast food can be for you–see how willing you are to shove two cheeseburgers from your favorite drive thru into you after you see that it will take you half a day of exercise to work it all off.

Have a certain area you want to work on? Maybe you have a schedule of workouts you want to rotate if you use Wii Fit Plus all the time? Thankfully, you can now create custom routines or use ones that the game has in mind for you, rather than just mindlessly choosing exercises and programs like in the original. This is something I enjoyed, as I don’t mind doing the aerobic exercises daily, but like to switch up yoga and strength training so I don’t overdo it. This is also good for those of us who may not want to use the mini-games very often, but prefer using this for a legitimate workout tool.

I’m not a fan of the Wii Fit Age setup. It worked well for Brain Age, but when you just do a few of these per day and at random–and I, like many others, probably do this early in the morning when their body is awake but their brain is still napping–the results are going to be negatively skewed. I already have tools to measure my brain’s age, so let’s stick with how my body is doing in the future instead of linking them up. Thankfully, you can always skip these and just get your updated weight and progress.

For those of you who do not work out everyday, you can install the Wii Fit Channel on to your Wii Menu, and check your daily weight from there. This is also nice since you don’t have to switch discs a bunch of times if you want to play a game right after your workout. With SD card support, you also have no excuse to not have room for the channel.

Another issue with Wii Fit Plus is that it uses BMI still. The weights it estimates for many users, including myself, are not always as healthy as the game thinks they are thanks to BMI. I’ve been at the weight the game suggests before, and it’s a good 5-7 pounds below my own personal comfort level. That being said, you can make the mental adjustment–like I just said, I know I should be about 5-7 pounds above what Wii Fit told me–and still appreciate the software for what it does right rather than focusing on what it doesn’t do.

If you already own Wii Fit and have a Balance Board, Nintendo has not forgotten about you. Wii Fit Plus is available in standalone form for $20, which is a great deal considering that it is the superior software and has loads more to do than the original.If you are sans Balance Board, you can pick this up for $100, $10 more than the original. I’m not pleased with that price increase, but it’s also much less expensive than workout equipment or a gym membership, as previously stated, and worth the money.

Blast Factor: Wii Fit has shown itself to be much more than a passing fad, and it now has an updated version that fixes many of the original’s issues. The calorie counter, the food comparisons, the customizable workouts, and the emphasis on making this more of a game help the Plus version of Wii Fit stay true to its name. If you already own Wii Fit, you should pick this updated version up, and if you haven’t jumped in yet but need an excuse to get off the couch, then Wii Fit Plus is the answer for you as well.

Wii Fit Plus is available exclusively for the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $19.99 by itself and for $99.99 with a Balance Board peripheral. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for review purposes.

… Wait, actually, that never happened.  But somewhat unfortunately, Spyborgs did.  If you lust for the days of mowing through thousands of enemies, then this game is kind of okay.  I mean, on a primal level, it is fun to just repeatedly jam on a button to beat things into a pulp of mechanical gadgetry, completely oblivious to the block and jump buttons because you don’t really need them anyway.  However, Spyborgs has several nagging features that make this seemingly simple goal harder to accomplish.

For starters, they do not believe in lights in the future.  Apparently, they live in a despotic world run by Al Gore, and all light sources have been eliminated in order to fight global warming.  This might be a slight exaggeration on my part, but only slightly so – Half the time I was playing Spyborgs, I had trouble discerning the character I was controlling from the enemies I was fighting, especially since everyone looks weird and robotic.

I could talk about the characters, but really, they’re just an excuse to hit the button to attack the other characters who are attacking you.  There is a bit of a plot in place, the type that would be enjoyable if you were still a kid and watching Saturday morning cartoons.  Basically, your female robot ninja, machine gunner and robot must fight through these creatures because, uh… Well, they’re trying to kill you.  Oh, and at some point, some evil organization double-crossed you, so of course you have to get revenge against them.  The female ninja is kind of hot, so you’ll probably want to fight with her most of the time.

Anyway – Smushing stuff talk.  The enemies come after you, wave after wave, with a typical stage having in upwards of 50.  You and a buddy, or you and a computer-controlled buddy, have to attack them, while you also bust open crates and boxes for health and power boosters scattered inexplicably throughout the stage.  The primary goal is to string together attacks to create combos – The more hits, the better the combo rating, and the more points you get at the end of the stage to upgrade your characters.

Like every game of this type released since God of War, and similar to Madworld, you can fill up a power gauge to perform super combo attacks with your buddy or the computer-controlled character.  These are kind of neat to watch, except that using them almost always kills the enemy you’re currently attacking.  For point-harvesting purposes, it’s normally better to just beat them up yourself as opposed to relying on the combos.  They are somewhat neat looking though, and their application – slashing the Wiimote, or pounding down with it and the nunchuk – are one of the few productive uses of motion controls in Spyborgs.

That doesn’t mean that the combo attacks are the only motion controls used, just that they’re the only production controls.  I would have scored this game a half-point higher if it weren’t for the frustrating method used to discover “hidden” items.

Basically, by pointing the Wiimote at the screen, a little blue circle floats around.  Certain parts of the background look transparent, and pointing the circle at them will reveal hidden crates, kind of.  You actually have to point the Wiimote at it, then press A, and then yank up with the Wiimote, in order to reveal whatever you’ve found.

This sounds kind of neat, but its actual application is a nightmare.  There is a “ping” noise each time your Wiimote comes across a hidden crate, which would be fine if it was an occasional thing.  It’s not, as there are dozens of crates hidden in every god damn stage, all of which must be “uncovered” to be broken open.  Even worse, in later stages enemies are cloaked, so you have to manage this feat while they jump around like idiots, shooting green laser blasts at you.  By the way, the “hidden” crates are also placed right next to existing crates in the majority of stages, meaning you would have to be an idiot not to find them.

Blast Factor: I constantly felt like I was about 10 years old while I was playing Spyborgs, so I guess that the hidden crates next to existing crates was the right move.  If you have a small kid, they might enjoy this game.  But if you’re no longer stuck in a Saturday morning cartoon mindset, you’re better off playing the ultra-violent Madworld, a classic like Final Fight or checking out some of the more “epic” mash games like Lord of the Rings and Dynasty Warriors.  There really isn’t anything new in terms of gameplay to recommend here, and the cloaked items and enemies detract from an otherwise average experience.

Spyborgs is available exclusively on the Wii, and retails for $39.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for review purposes.

Extraction is, as EA puts it, a “guided first-person experience.” While many people scoffed at the notion, and claimed that EA was just dressing up the term on-rails shooter so that the opinion of this Wii prequel would be higher, those who have now played through Extraction will have to admit that EA was not full of it, and the game is much, much more than your standard on-rails shooter. The first-person perspective, the focus on action and atmosphere and the constant dialogue from your characters makes this game much more Aliens than Alien, but it’s still Dead Space in every way.

In order to make this feel like it belonged in the Dead Space universe, Visceral needed to accomplish a few goals. First, they needed to nail the atmosphere. The original took its cues from games like Resident Evil 4, Doom 3 and the Metroid Prime series to create a sci-fi world where you would feel isolated, helpless, and very, very scared, and these feelings permeated the entire experience. With ammunition at a premium, every battle with the Necromorphs was a struggle as you tried to dismember their limbs and push on through the halls of the Ishimura. Visually, the game was stunning, with attention to detail in things like shadows and lighting that helped you scare yourself when the game wasn’t busy doing it for you. The audio was also fantastic, and helped to keep the mood thick with tension that you couldn’t get over even when the coast appeared clear.

While Extraction is not as much of a horror game as Dead Space, it still managed to meet the expectations for atmosphere–enemies attack you in large numbers from all directions,  you need to keep an eye on your ammunition, and, despite the stop and go nature of an on-rails title, there are plenty of surprises thrown your way thanks to the developer’s control over the action. The sound is also excellent, with text logs and reloading effects coming through the Wii Remote speaker and plenty of bumps and thuds in the dark to keep you on edge. I’m also happy to report that this game is a visual stunner–there was not a single moment in my entire playtime of Extraction where I wished the game was on more powerful hardware, because Visceral Games did a fantastic job recreating the visuals. Remember–this is a game that places place in the same exact areas as the original Dead Space, so the fact that Visceral was able recreate those areas and environments without forcing the player to think negatively about them in a negative sense is a huge achievement. Seeing the same rooms also helps shed some light on how certain areas ended up covered completely in the bodies of the dead, or destroyed by blasts and so forth. For those who have played the original, it’s a very nice, subtle bit of fan service and story expansion.

Besides that, Visceral also would need a compelling narrative; while the characters themselves fall into horror movie stereotypes–the calm, collected leader figure, the veteran soldier, the helpless girl, the shady, self-important guy that won’t reveal his past–the story itself is right up there with the action as far as being compelling goes. You’ll keep playing Extraction to learn what happened to the Ishimura and its crew, as well as those people from the colony you’re in control of,  not just because blowing the limbs off of mindless creatures is exhilarating. (though that has its merits as well!)

The game is broken up into 10 chapters, and you’ll control a slew of different characters throughout depending on what needs to be done and who has been separated from who. To keep you on your toes, many characters you travel with or are controlling are killed off without warning as part of the story–you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next, which helps build the tension. You’ve got loads of Dead Space standbys at your disposal, like the Plasma Cutter, the Flame Thrower, the Ripper–which by the way, works much more effectively in Extraction than in the original thanks to pushing and pulling on the Wii Remote to aim the spinning blades–as well as a few new weapons, like the Rivet Gun. The Rivet Gun is used for its tool purposes–you’ll seal off barricades by riveting them into place–but also as your basic “pistol” type weapon that does not run out of ammo but is clearly weaker than your other options. Secondary fire modes are enabled by twisting the Wii Remote, and the only motion you’ll deal with is intuitive: to enable the flashlight-esque Glow Worm, you’ll shake the Wii Remote–this will often need to be done while in dark hallways in the middle of battles, so keep an eye on it and feel that tension build–and in order to throw a Necromorph off of you as it tries to devour your face.

You have recharging stasis shots that come in handy for environmental puzzles as well as slowing down faster enemies or dangerous ones in your peripheral vision. You’re able to grab ammunition, weapons, health, audio and text logs from afar using Kinesis; you can also grab projectiles from enemies and explosive canisters that can be fired off with the B button. You can do all of this in single-player, or pair up with a buddy anytime with drop-in co-op–on the harder difficulty levels, some people may find co-op a necessity just so you can fire twice as often and at different targets. Even on Normal, the second half of the game is challenging. You’ll most likely live through it, probably without dying even, but it will get hairy on occasion. Given the game has four difficulty levels, you’ll be able to test for yourself just how good you are at Extraction. It’s a good thing too, because the game may run a little short. It’s long for an on-rails title, clocking in at 7-8 hours, but still short as far as a shooter goes.

Besides the difficulty modes, there are a few more extras that will help you get your money’s worth out of the title though. You’re graded on each level you complete, and you unlock additional health and weapon upgrades by achieving higher scores. Challenge modes unlock as you complete the story; the title is not misleading, as you face wave after wave of Necromorphs as they try to tear you limb from limb in order to make you like them. You can also check out some Dead Space comics in motion comic form, which is a neat extra, especially for those that are very much into the Dead Space universe and all of the non-game content.

Blast Factor: Dead Space: Extraction had a lot to live up to in order to be a worthy entry in the Dead Space series, but it succeeded in many huge ways while only failing in minor, negligible forms. It has more depth than any on-rails title you’ve ever played, a great and engaging story, and many reasons to come back; namely, more difficulties, the Challenge modes, and the motion comics. I hope this is the start of a companion series for the Wii used to flesh out details of the Dead Space universe, but even if it is not, this game stands up on its own as a great Wii title and one of the system’s better releases in 2009.

Dead Space: Extraction is available exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $49.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for review purposes.

I can’t name many young children I’ve met in my life that would understand what setting up a fake branch of the government to requisition flowers means, or why it’s a funny scenario, but MySims Agents does that and more throughout the title, and even has nods to more mature EA titles like Dead Space–who wouldn’t want to wear an Isaac Clarke suit as they uncover clues for the next mystery?–as well as some subtle pop culture references to things like the X-Files. MySims Agents takes the series in a direction that, while feeling slightly less like a MySims title than previous efforts, feels more like a game that anyone can enjoy, despite being aimed more specifically at the younger gamer.

With that out of the way, let’s focus on the game. You play as a character that you create, the guy or gal trying to become a special agent. Very quickly you are handed your own agency thanks to solving your big break of a case, and you are able to hire new agents to help with side missions while you’re off saving the world from Morcubus, the MySim villain who loves nothing more than to cause needless issues for other residents of the MySims universe. Having a legitimate plot this time around keeps the game interesting and gives you a reason to come back, since you’ll want to continue to solve mysteries in order to see how everything is connected and what Morcubus is up to.

In the main missions, you have a set of tool that you use–you start with a crowbar, wrench and magnifying glass–and you have to find clues hidden in boxes, trash cans, dumpsters, rooftops, indoors, or on the ground by following tracks or footprints. There are mini games for putting together broken machinery that have you putting spare parts where they belong, as well as games for analyzing evidence and hacking into computers and the like. It’s a lot like a point-and-click adventure in many ways, and the IR and Nunchuk combination make all of your moving around simple and fast.

You’ll talk to people to collect clues and discover leads, and you’ll be able to check all of this information just by pressing the Plus button. One other nice touch is that the game can intentionally mislead you; all of the things you can learn are not necessarily pointing at the person in the wrong. Older gamers playing the game should be able to pick up on things easily, but there appears to be enough challenge there for the younger crowd.

Eventually you receive more advanced tools that any special agent would be envious of, and you’ve got your own lady in distress in a dress to attend to as well–James Bond would approve, for sure. You aren’t the only one solving cases though, as said before; you hire new agents after meeting up with them in the real world and solving cases. By using them in teams where their specific skills can work in concert, you can pass the 50 dispatch missions, earning yourself more rewards (costumes, items, etc.) and unlocking an additional ending. There’s a lot of game here for a younger player, especially with all of the traditional MySims player customization in place. Maybe you want to wear a trench coat and sunglasses around town, but a tux or a Yeti costume while you’re up in the mountains. It’s your call, as per usual, but it’s nice that you can create your own special agent and toy with him or her as you like throughout the game.

The game has the same kinds of sound effects that past MySims titles have, with the Sims speaking their own language, so if it bothered you in the past it’s still here. Like I said though, the dialogue is worth reading for the most part, so there’s always that to focus on. Graphically the  game looks decent enough as well. There aren’t much for special graphical effects or anything like that, but everything looks smooth, colorful and the title is bereft of technical issues. My one complaint may be that the camera occasionally gets in your way, but for the most part if you’re hanging out somewhere where it is difficult to see what you’re doing, you probably don’t even need to be there.

Blast Factor: MySims Agents might be the best of the traditional MySims titles, despite feeling the least like one. The customization options and MySims universe that has become so popular is still there, but this time there’s a legitimate plot and gameplay suited for those outside of EA’s normal demographic, instead of just the specific audience they historically shoot for with the series. Younger gamers will enjoy this game for the gameplay and the MySims features, while older gamers no longer have to be embarrassed about picking up the controller to play along with their little siblings thanks to the dialogue and nods to the more core crowd you’ll discover along the way.

MySims Agents is available on the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $49.95

In You, Me and the Cubes, you throw Fallos–men and women that you create in pairs by shaking the Wii Remote up and down once–onto cubes that are on the screen. It’s an easy process, too: simply point the IR at the two areas you want a Fallos to land on, press A to confirm, then flick the Wii Remote. You won’t fling them harder or softer based on your motion, so you don’t need to overdo it either, which is nice. Flinging Fallos onto a cube sounds easy though, and it is; the challenge comes from throwing them into places that will not upset the natural balance of the cube or cubes. If you succeed at this, the Fallos will stand there triumphantly for a time and the cubes will not move, but if you throw them into a place that upsets this balance, the cubes will shift accordingly, and your Fallos may fall.

There’s a little more personality and even humanity in these Fallos that make you want to do this right. First of all, they scream as they plunge to their death below if they fall off of a cube. Second, if there are two Fallos on a cube, and one begins to falter or is slipping off of the edge, the other Fallos will do their best to save them, lifting them back on to the cube. These Fallos have their own AI that you will see on display, but that AI makes them look like compassionate creatures that are trying to survive your flinging. It gives this puzzle game a bit more character and personality, and maybe even a little bit of a gamer conscience.

There are six stages, each with six levels, and each of those levels has six cubes that you must complete, one at a time. The first section will have one cube, the second two, and so on. You will need to place a certain number of Fallos on the structure for each section, and also at least one Fallos per cube, which gets tougher as you add cubes given the shapes created by the merging. There are also different types of cubes, such as the Freezing Cube, which freezes the entire structure when hit and keeps the balance of the cubes where it is, which is a big help to the next batch of Fallos if you can move quickly enough.

The game is also very difficult. While you may breeze through the first set of stages no problem, mastering them is another story, as the game keeps track of how many Fallos survived each round–if the Fallos is off-balance when you complete a round, they fall off as the next cube is added, deducting from your overall score despite your advancement. You will also start to have trouble when you create Pale Fallos in your Wii Remote; you’re basically throwing a playful imp onto the screen, one that likes to bully your other Fallos and push them off of ledges, though no worries, you can do away with Pale Fallos once they land as well by tossing another Fallos onto their head, which also adds 10 seconds to your timer.

That’s You, Me and the Cubes gameplay in a nutshell, but there is also a two-player mode that is markedly different. You have the same basic gameplay structure, except now instead of you tossing out two Fallos, you throw one while player two flings the other. You can synchronize your throws so that you both land your Fallos at the same time, which is a skill you will need to work on when playing multiplayer. If you pull off this synchronized toss, the two Fallos will not slip or fall for a short period of time, which will allow you to throw more Fallos before the cube’s balance becomes a problem.

That’s helpful, but it isn’t why you need the skill. You need it to repel the enemies found in the multiplayer mode. Shade Fallos appear when one of your Fallos falls off of the cubes, and they are very heavy, enough that they disrupt the balance of your cubes and start sending other Fallos falling to their doom. You can lock him in place with the A button just like the Pale Fallos–except this time as a team–then synchronize your flinging in order to take the Shade down. These additions make multiplayer the preferred mode, and gives this game loads of replayability.

Blast Factor: You, Me and the Cubes is a fascinating puzzler, given its physics-based gameplay and its very human puzzle “pieces”, the Fallos. The single-player alone would have made this a fun title, but the addition of multiplayer that forces you to work in concert in order to advance makes this one of the better WiiWare releases from 2009. If you’re into puzzle titles and quirkiness, then You, Me and the Cubes is a great place to invest your $10.

You, Me and the Cubes is exclusive to Nintendo Wii’s WiiWare services, and is available for 1000 Nintendo Points.

There are two separate stories you can play through. You can use either Kisuke, a ninja who has forgotten the crime he is being pursued for, or Momohime, who has had her body possessed by the spirit of a master swordsman. Each storyline has different bosses and weapons you can use, and by playing both of them you can unlock additional swords and endings for each character, giving the title some replay value. The stories in this are solid enough, but they are not the strong suit of the game.

That distinction would go to, well, everything else. Graphically, the game is stunning. The hand-drawn, animated backgrounds are some of the most stylistic and graphically superior sets in the entire system’s catalog, and look great for any game, not just a Wii one. We’ve noted many times from the trailers that this game looks even better in motion than it does in the screenshots that capture its beauty, but playing the game and seeing it all unfold in front of you is something else. The soundtrack that accompanies this art is fitting; it was created by the same sound team that worked on Odin Sphere, and is made up mostly of atmospheric, Japanese music that occasionally takes it up a notch and introduces newer, faster-paced instrumentation depending on what’s going on in the game world at that time.

Vanillaware cranked the presentation up to 11, but they didn’t spare any expense when it came to gameplay either. You control your character on a 2D plane, fighting enemies that attack and surround you on the ground and in the air. You perform attacks with the A button and special attacks using the B trigger, while jumping is executed by moving the analog stick upward–press it twice to double jump. There are plenty of secrets hidden high up in the levels, so you will want to explore vertically as well as horizontally. Exploration is encouraged in fact, thanks to the game’s design–it’s like a more RPG oriented Metroidvania title, with much faster-paced action. Think Ryu Hayabusa in 2D traversing feudal Japan rather than Transylvania, and you would be close. While there is a lot of backtracking, there are also loads of areas to explore that are off the main path, and many of these areas bring you extra battles (and therefore experience and money) as well as additional items and secret challenge rooms that you can open up only after acquiring the blade specific to that area. These rooms don’t fool around either, as they present you with challenges such as defeating 100 armed monks, or wave after wave of ninja.

On easy, the game is not that difficult. Leveling up and creating swords is your focus here, as well as progressing the story. When you play on the harder difficulty though, the game is significantly different. You can’t just spam the A and B buttons here until everyone on screen is defeated, as you will need to block accordingly and use your special attacks in a more strategic manner; enemies also take much more damage in this mode, so battles will not be as quick. You earn experience and money with each battle, and you can earn bonus experience by avoiding damage, repelling attacks, using Quick Draw attacks–performed by switching blades in the midst of battle to unleash a powerful attack on all enemies in view–and various other objectives. This encourages you to learn the ins and outs of Muramasa’s fighting, as you will progress much faster once you master battling and pick up more experience.

Besides leveling up, there’s another area to progression to pay attention to, and that’s forging swords. There are over 100 blades in total in the game, and you will need to create progressively more powerful ones in order to succeed. The lifespan of a blade is pretty short, as you will unlock the ability to make new ones each time you defeat a boss, and will most likely have created all of the new ones available to you by the time you unlock another major blade. Special attacks often repeat in more powerful swords though, so don’t feel like you need to hold on to an inferior blade just because you’re partial to its special feature. You will also use all of the blades you acquire, sometimes within the same battles, as blades break from taking too much damage, using special attacks, or from blocking incoming attacks. They repair themselves when in your sheath, so they aren’t broken forever, but the best strategy is to sheathe a blade prior to its breaking point–this unleashes the Quick Draw attacks mentioned above–and move on to the next one. Blades are broken up into Long and normal types, with the smaller ones better for quick attacks or aerial fighting, while the longer blades work well for cutting through swaths of enemies at once.

There are three difficulties in Muramasa, and the third is even more intense than the original hard, and is only unlocked by completing the story mode. In Shigurui difficulty, the game plays much like it did on easy, but with one major caveat: no matter your level, you have one hit point the entire game. Now that, my friends, is a challenge mode. Combine this with the multiple endings for each character and the two separate stories, each of which should take you 6-8 hours to complete, and you’ve got yourself a game well worth the price of admission.

Blast Factor: There has not been a better looking game on the Wii this year, and it’s also one of the better playing titles on the system in 2009. Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a must-have for any gamer, as the game’s easier settings allow even those not accustomed to action games to enjoy the story, gameplay and gorgeous graphics, while those looking for a challenge are sure to find it on the two more difficult modes. Highly recommended.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade is available exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $49.99

Cursed Mountain is a creepy game, thanks to its atmosphere, its setting, and the nature of your enemies. Ghosts are an entirely different breed of enemies than something like a zombie, which has become the go-to horror game opponent. Ghosts can disappear, they can move through walls, and they possess things, while a zombie just kind of lumbers at you. When you combine ghosts and their abilities with a mountain setting, one that, despite its massive scale and open space, feels claustrophobic, then you’ve developed a creepy atmosphere that will keep your gamers uneasy throughout. While the game isn’t outright scary, it does a great job of leaving you feeling unsettled and uncomfortable with your situation, and it does try to mess with your head in a psychological manner that keeps both you and the main character, Eric Simmons, guessing about what’s going on.

The setting is also successful in replicating the area it represents. Deep Silver went to great lengths to research Buddhist and Tibetan ideas and beliefs, as well as the region they lived in; this shows up in the villages, the insides of houses, the monasteries, and the mountain paths. One nifty item is that you can see the game world from anywhere in Cursed Mountain. If you’re at the bottom of the mountain in the village, you can see your destinations alongside the mountain, and as you climb up, you can see where you used to travel getting smaller and smaller as it moves further away. You get a sense of your accomplishment as well as the scale of your undertaking and the mountain this way; it’s a unique item that adds to the game experience, especially when you look back or forward to take it in.

Not everything works this well though. It’s a bit annoying when there are doors you can’t open though–not locked ones either, just ones you can’t interact with–and also when a path that appears open is unable to be accessed by your character–invisible walls, of sorts–and these moments do break up the atmosphere and remind you that you’re in the middle of a game. The controls also need some work, though this is a common complaint for this type of game–in fact, it has the same tank-like movement issues that plagues most survival horror. Eric Simmons might be a normal person, but he should be able to turn around faster than he does, and he walks and jogs a bit slow for my liking–the game suffers from some pacing issues already, and this doesn’t help. The motion controls work pretty well though–you use them to banish ghosts, releasing them from their prison in this world. Deep Silver wanted to use Wii Remote and Nunchuk gestures to perform a ritual for removing these ghosts, and you do this by moving both controllers side to side, diagonally or up and down, depending on the markers on-screen. There’s one Nunchuk motion that sometimes gives me trouble, and I have to do it 2-3 times before it works, but it’s never a game-breaking issue. The IR implementation is probably the smoothest portion of the control scheme, as you can fire bursts of energy at these ghosts or throw a sort of capture net around them so you can banish them quicker.

Even if the controls or pacing frustrate you a bit, the story will more than make up for it. Simmons is trying to locate his lost brother, who was scaling the mountain in order to find a sacred and secret item. Things are not what they seem from afar, as Eric finds the village empty save for one person, with ghosts coming at him from all sides. From there, he searches for clues about both the appearance of the ghosts and the disappearance of his brother, sometimes finding help along the way, but often finding himself outnumbered and the object of scorn for both the living and dead. I don’t want to spoil any plot details, just know that the story is worth your attention.

Graphically, Cursed Mountain looks pretty good. There’s a lot of detail in the setting, and as stated, viewing the entire game world at once is a wonderful trick that the game benefits from. Eric’s animations are sometimes stiff though, and I feel like a lot of the game looks dark in places it doesn’t need to. Overall though, it’s well above-average for a Wii game, especially a third-party one, and does a far better job than most of the realistic-styled titles on the system.

Blast Factor: Story, setting and atmosphere are the keys to Cursed Mountain. The gameplay works but has its issues, and the pacing is sometimes a little too slow, but there’s more than enough good to make up for those minor problems. Here’s a quality, realistic, mature title for the Wii that wants nothing more than to creep you out while it tells you a fine story, and that’s good enough for me.

Cursed Mountain is available exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $49.99

A collector’s edition with just the two original games packaged together with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption would be neat enough at a $50 price point–Corruption’s MSRP is still in that area after all–but Retro more than went the extra mile in putting this together, and has come away with a deal that challenges the Orange Box in terms of sheer value as well as content. Let’s go over the basics, and then cover the changes made to the games. The original Metroid Prime, as stated, was the top game of last generation–you would be hard pressed to find games for which the press has that much glowing adoration for, and the use of the word “perfect” in describing it was commonplace. While its sequel, Echoes, did not draw the same amount of attention–Retro kept some parts of the formula firmly in place, making it a very familiar feeling sequel in some ways–it was a wonderful game in its own right, the Majora’s Mask to Prime’s Ocarina of Time.

You had a darker storyline in a much more difficult experience that could punish even the most seasoned Metroid fan, and for that Echoes earned its stripes. The final portion of the trilogy is probably the best title on the system behind Super Mario Galaxy, but you would find people to argue it’s the best as well. Besides bringing Metroid into the next generation, the game also managed to enhance the series’ control scheme and produce one of the best console setups for a first-person shooter that I have ever used- It doesn’t have the customization of The Conduit, but the default setup is amazing on its own.

So what’s different? The major change to the first two games comes in the form of the controls. Now those controls that you know and love from Corruption work in both Prime and Echoes, which makes playing through those titles again (or for the first time) a more satisfying experience. I recommend the advanced controls, as they allow you to lock on to one enemy but shoot freely on screen, as if you were playing on a PC. Besides implementing the controls, there were also some graphical updates. Both titles run in 16:9 widescreen now, and the original Prime also has new bloom lightning effects that Retro was able to stick in. There are upgraded textures and enhanced visual effects as well, which hides a bit of the age of those games. It’s not an insult to the Wii’s catalog when you say that both Metroid Prime and its sequel Echoes look better than a significant portion of the competition; Retro’s art direction and artists were and are just that good at what they do, which is why Metroid Prime Corruption is far and away the best looking realistic title on the Wii as well.

One other change to the actual gameplay that you may notice is that the loading times have been decreased; Metroid’s loads were never that noticeable to begin with, as each door that opened loaded the next room as it was opening, or had you in a quick elevator ride where you got to check out the enhancements to Samus’ suit, but those have been tightened up in all three titles, and they run off of the disc much faster than their previous ones, even in Corruption which has not changed platforms like the other two.

All three titles run off of one dual-layer disc. You can access single-player mode for Prime 1-3 all from one screen, and the multiplayer from Echoes from the main hub, rather than from Echoes itself. While Echoes’ multiplayer was a bit boring given you button mashed and had to deal with controls that, while suited to exploration and the idea of Metroid, were not ideal for frenetic competition, it gets a second life here on Trilogy. The enhanced control scheme makes this a much better test of skill, and playing in 16:9 widescreen also helps with the four-player local visuals and view. There’s still no online, but it’s a much more worthwhile experience when you just want to see which of your friends is the better Samus Aran than in its original form.

Besides the gameplay, an achievement system was put into place in Prime and Echoes, similar to the one employed in Corruption when it was first released. You get tokens for clearing certain areas, defeating bosses and mini-bosses and the like, and these tokens can be used to unlock loads of fan service such as music and artwork. This extends the replay value of the titles–and helps gives you an excuse to go through the first two titles again, not that you wouldn’t anyways with the other changes–but also fits very well into a collector’s edition package given the nature of it.

Blast Factor: Three of the most important games in Nintendo’s history and one of the best trilogies in all of gaming, together in one package for the price of a single game. You get a collector’s edition case, special artwork, the definitive version of each game in the Prime trilogy, and worthwhile multiplayer for the first time in the series’ history, in addition to the loads of art and music you can unlock with the tokens from the achievement system. The one negative you could point out about these titles is that you have played them before, but given how well they hold up and how they lend themselves to replayability, that’s not much of a negative argument and certainly not a reason to avoid 80 hours of Retro’s masterpiece.

Metroid Prime Trilogy is available exclusively for the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $49.99

If you have been following our coverage, you know about the changes to the look of Madden on Wii. The art director, Tim Spangler, spoke with us at length about the new, arcade looking style, and the reasons why EA Tiburon went that route. Many people may not like the new direction, but if you give it a chance, you will see that there is a lot to love about it. It’s arcadey, sure, but there isn’t any of that out there right now either, and that style helps to make things like Big Hits (the Wii Remote version of a Hit Stick tackle) that much more fun and satisfying. Most importantly, the menus and fields got a makeover, not just the players. The stadiums and fans fit well with the art style, and act as an extension of the direction they were going for with the players redesigns. The menus are also much more polished and are well-presented, thanks to IR support.

Madden NFL 10 Wii also has plenty of its own exclusive game modes. There is Madden Showdown, which lets you play 5-on-5 or classic 11-on-11 in customizable games. It’s a 1-4 player tournament, so it’s great for a quick run of games by yourself of if you want to see which one of your friends is the best at Madden. There are a few things EA Tiburon did that change things up a bit in this mode. First up is Game Changers, which are basically extreme rule changes. There’s Tug of War, which gives you a single down before the ball is turned over, meaning you have to score fast. Fumblitis makes you much more prone to fumbles, All Passing Plays and All Running Plays are self-explanatory, as well as many others including a Random mode that will keep you on your toes. These are a lot of fun if you want to have some laughs while you play, or if you’re just tired of the standard gameplay. Within the games themselves you may come up on spotlight moments, which are dramatic, game-changing moments. A mini-game (much like the fumble pile in the 360/PS3 versions) will come up, and you’ll fight for things like breaking a tackle for a big gain, fighting for the ball, sprinting to the endzone, or avoiding defenders trying to sack you in the pocket.

This mode is fun, but the other new mode that I prefer is Road to the Super Bowl. It’s a season mode with a few new twists. You can keep the 5-on5 gameplay here if you would like, which makes things interesting enough to begin with, but you can also choose a differing season length, or start off right in the playoffs. This mode is 1-4 players and features co-op, but there’s a catch. Completing a pass, catching the ball, running successfully, picking the ball off , sacking the QB, and basically anything else you can think of are worth points, which are tallied at the bottom of the screen. You need to earn points to stay in the game–if you fall below a certain threshold, you will be benched, and your partner will have to buy you back into the game using some of his points. If you’re playing single-player, you will lose, so you need to make sure you pay attention and try to keep your production consistent and avoid costly mistakes. This makes Road to the Superbowl loads of fun if you’re playing with a group of friends, especially if you want to pass controllers around every time one of your buddies gets himself kicked to the curb. In 5-on-5 mode you’re also guaranteed some action, since there are so few offensive options on the field at any time, so you won’t be bored playing co-op.

As for actual gameplay, the best new addition is that of Point-and-Pass. Simply point the IR at the player you want to throw to, and hit A. No more complicated motions that you need to remember to perform specific actions, just point and press A harder or softer depending on whether you want to rifle it in there or lob it over the defenders. The IR usage goes deeper than that though, with Call Your Shots returning on offense–this allows you to write new routes for your players and take advantage of holes or mismatches in the defense–and for the first time appearing on defense. This helps you keep your best defenders where and on who you want them to be, and is much more rewarding than simply calling an audible.

EA Tiburon has also added All Player defense this year, so for those inexperienced or younger players, you now have things a bit easier on both sides of the ball. There’s also a Huddle Up mode which can work for father/son or boyfriend/girlfriend duos, since one player uses the IR remote rather than a player to change things on the field. If dad’s tossing a pass but he’s going to get smoked by a lineman, Little Timmy can use his IR pointer to knock that guy right over and give dad some space in the pocket. It works for opening up holes in running lanes, clearing pass routes and anything else you can think of. Obviously this makes the game a bit easier, but it’s good for people who want to introduce the game to inexperienced and young players that may not be able to enjoy the full version of Madden yet.

The last major change to All-Play also benefits more hardcore Madden devotees. There is now Skill Level Play Calling, which lets you choose from All Play, Intermediate and Advanced play calling menus. Ask Madden is still around as well and as useful as ever if you’re in a pinch, though he’s a lot less chatty than he used to be.

You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned any of the traditional modes yet, like Franchise and Superstar. They are in the game under the Classic Modes section, and they received the same gameplay and visual updates to the players, stadiums and fans that the brand new modes received, but there is a little something amiss with them presentation wise. They still have the bland, boring menus from the 2009 version of Madden, and lack the polish that the new menus do; even the way you select things changes, as the IR function no longer works. While this does not affect the gameplay experience, it’s just kind of odd to see, given the attention to detail everywhere else. Hopefully this will be changed in the 2011 version of Madden, and hopefully they won’t be modes you have to unlock either.

Blast Factor: The new Wii exclusive modes are great, and make this more of a “party” Madden than any other. It accomplishes this without sacrificing the gameplay you love either, and in fact makes it easier for even those who aren’t familiar with Madden–or even football–to play and play well. The new visual style won’t work for everyone, but trust me when I say it will grow on you as you see it in motion. It’s a shame that the classic modes weren’t given the same attention as the new ones, but given Madden Wii is in a transition phase, we can give it a pass on that and hope for better things next year.

Madden NFL 10 is available on the Nintendo Wii, and retails for $49.99

There is very little to complain about in NyxQuest; it’s quite the looker, it plays very smoothly, and even though the game clocks in at roughly 3-4 hours, it is packed full of diverse puzzles and levels that require you to think and think quickly in order to progress. Before anyone complains about the game length, remember that it (A) costs $10 and (B) other platformers of this length have released at retail for three times the price this year (and not necessarily with the same level of quality either). You’re going to love every second of however much time you invest in NyxQuest, so there’s nothing to worry about.

You play as Nyx, who has herself a little crush on a human named Icarus. Icarus (and his famous wings) used to visit Nyx during the day and disappear at night so she could attend to her duties as a goddess. One day, Helios, a powerful Titan, decides that he doesn’t like humanity very much, and wants to wipe it off the planet and begin anew. The once beautiful and lively Greece becomes a ruined desert filled with a scorching heat, one you must avoid as you traverse the land looking for your lost love.

To find him, you will need to move through famous areas of ancient Greece that you will recognize in name alone, as the famous monuments and buildings are for the most part toppled and buried under the sand. You control Nyx through the environment by using the analog stick on the Nunchuk, and you fly (although briefly, with a recharging number of wing flaps) by pressing the A button. You can glide with Z, and you will need to become very good at timing all of these flaps and glides in order to reach the higher areas of the levels. You learn new skills every few levels–like the ability to use the wind to guide you through certain portions of levels, or the ability to carry around fire and fireballs in order to open up rooms and vanquish enemies–and you also see brand new puzzles that are always more difficult than the ones you previously finished.

The game stacks ideas and puzzles together, and by the last few levels you will find yourself doing three or four things at a time, trying to stave off enemies, fly over gaps, avoid spikes by gliding and control blocks or fireballs in order to move further. The game preps you for this very well though, by gradually bumping up the difficulty and intelligently introducing these ideas the way they have, so you will never feel helpless; rather, you will feel like the game is a very smooth and flowing experience, despite the somewhat slow pace. In short, the gameplay is wonderful. The pace is slow at first, but it’s because of the way puzzles are presented to you, so that you can figure things out on your own and for yourself. Methodical, rather than plodding, is one way to think of it.

As for how this game looks…well, you can see it in the screens we’ve included, can’t you? The 2.5D backgrounds are epic in their appearance, and Nyx is this tiny creature facing off against both the environment in addition to the enemies in her path. They are stunning to look at, and I’m not sure what magic of the Greek gods Over the Top Games employed to make all of those assets fit under the file size limit, but they did, and WiiWare now has a new competitor for top graphics on the service because of it. The music is also very fitting and improves the experience–it reminds me of the music from the Diablo series, in that it blends in with the background and then storms out at certain points just to remind you how good it sounds.

NyxQuest problems are small ones: there isn’t much variety in the enemies, and there is never any kind of large-scale boss fight, even at the end (though there are mini-bosses scattered amongst the levels, and a final confrontation is included). It’s more of a puzzle based platformer than a pure action title though, so it doesn’t bother you as much as you think it would. If the game was constantly throwing enemies at you, it would be different, but the environment is your biggest foe throughout. The levels themselves also stay very similar at least in appearance (never in gameplay) with a few exceptions. Neither of these issues is a game-breaker though, and the good far, far outweighs any bad you may encounter in NyxQuest.

Blast Factor: Over the Top Games’ first WiiWare outing is one of the service’s best. The pacing is fantastic, the platforming is some of the best from the 2D realm this generation, and the use of the Wii Remote’s IR function in conjunction with the Nunchuk makes Nyx easy and satisfying to use. Let’s not forget that it looks just as good as it plays, either. If you haven’t already sunk your $10 into NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits, it better be the first thing you do when you finish reading this paragraph.

Rather than building towers along a path to slow monsters down and guide them away from your home base or an exit, you instead build inside of a tower. At the top is the dark crystal, which you have to keep the opposition away from. You do this by placing floors in the way that the adventurers will have to stop and fight on. You have multiple kinds of floors that you unlock through the game–some offensively oriented, some defensive, some support–and they each have their own positives and negatives. You then place monsters on each floor–again, each with their own strengths and weaknesses–in the hopes of defeating the waves of adventurers before they reach the dark crystal.

Damage is done in rock-paper-scissors form, with ranged attackers besting magic, magic beating melee, and melee hurting ranged. There are also generic monsters that do the same amount of damage to all classes, which is useful if you’re unsure of just what you will be facing when. Be warned though: the adventurers can destroy your monsters, but can also damage and take out your floors too, meaning they can move up through the tower quicker than you anticipate. You get some healing monsters to alleviate this later in the game, but you still need to be aware of it or it will make winning difficult. Thankfully you can retry at any point, and even keep some of the karma points–which is used to upgrade monsters and your tower–when you do so.

You build with Negative Points, which are accumulated by defeating adventurers. You can increase your starting amount by collecting items that you find after finishing levels, some on the main path and others from optional side missions. The game warns you when you are running low, which will happen often, given you need to build new floors, add monsters and then level them up over the course of a match.

The game is very difficult at times, but it’s also very rewarding. You can retry as many times as you would like, and since you gain karma even in your failed attempts, none of your efforts are wasted. You can also replay levels you have beaten in order to beef up your tower or units, though the karma output will be lower the second time around.

The title has the charm and polish we have come to expect from Square Enix and the Crystal Chronicles series. Graphically, it’s pretty good looking for a WiiWare title, though it is basic at times–units don’t change appearance when you upgrade them, and Mira, the Darklord, is strangely static in her facial expressions much like the King in the first of these spinoffs. The music is catchy and well done though, and even if there is a bit of slowdown at times when the on-screen action is chaotic, it’s nothing that affects the gameplay.

There’s a bunch of DLC planned for this title, in addition to the initial $10 price tag. While a lot of it is meant to be for costumes and items, new stages will be available at some point in the future. Not all of the DLC may be for you, but it is optional, and there is plenty of game here for $10 to begin with.

Blast Factor: My Life as a Darklord is a worthwhile entry in the tower defense genre, one that takes its namesake literally by placing you in control of a tower in a vertically-based game. It’s polished, charming, and both difficult and rewarding. You can’t ask for much more than that for $10, but if you insist, Square Enix also has DLC available and more–including new stages–on the way.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord is available exclusively on Nintendo’s WiiWare service for $10, or 1000 Nintendo Points

The short answer is “absolutely”, though this review will present that answer in much more detail. There are 12 games included with Wii Sports Resort after all, and while a few of them are questionable, most of them succeed, and a few of them are great fun that you will want to return to often. You can also think of the inclusion of the peripheral in two ways, depending on which helps you sleep at night in regards to your purchase: either you bought a $30 game with a $20 peripheral, or you bought a $50 game with a free one. I think that Wii Sports Resort has enough meat that it warrants the latter title, even if there are some issues that should have been ironed out.

Before diving into the games, let’s talk about the features. Wii Sports Resort features gameplay for 1-4 players, depending on the game, and covers a variety of sports and a few other activities as well. There’s a built-in achievement system, though you can only view these on your Wii Message Board–an achievement hub like the one used in Metroid Prime 3 or House of the Dead: Overkill would have been preferred, but this is the first Nintendo developed game with an achievement system as well, so at least it’s a step in the right direction. There are 12 games, but there are also various versions of those games; for example, when you beat the standard sword fighting, you can another two modes, or when you finish bowling there are also another two modes. This gives the game much more depth than its predecessor, and also presents some challenging play options for your more core players. This is a title that all but the most soulless of gamers should be able to at the least appreciate, though the inclusion of online play would have helped back that statement up further. If there is a Wii Sports 3, there needs to be online play.

Most of the games included in Wii Sports Resort are worth your continued time. Swordplay, Frisbee, Archery, Basketball, Table Tennis, the re-designed Golf and Bowling games, and Air Sports are all fun and have more depth than you may initially think they do to them. The clunkers are the ones that bring water into the equation, which is disappointing given how impressive the water physics and effects are–Wakeboarding, Power Cruising and Canoeing are all either boring or feel somewhat uninspired or unexplored. The only land sport that lacks in the fun factor is cycling.

Swordplay has almost true 1:1 motion controls, and if you swing the sword harder it will hit the object or opponent harder as well. You can attack from whatever angle you can move the Wii Remote in in reality, and blocking is as simple as pressing B and choosing a direction to block your opponent’s attacks from. It seems like a wagglefest, but the system has a lot of depth to it, as you will learn in the later stages of the game. The first is a simple one-on-one fight mode, American Gladiators style. Completing this allows you to play Speed Slice, which is a challenge where objects and food are thrown at you and your opponent, and whoever slices first in the correct direction earns a point. This is a fun diversion, but the best part of Sword Play has to be the Showdown mode, where you have 10 stages that increase in difficulty. You are on rails, fighting waves of opponents, some with more health than others, better tactics and armor. You can take three hits, so you can’t just run around flailing; you need to pick your spots for attacks, and make sure that they are aimed at vulnerable points. You also need to be sure to block to throw your opponents off balance and open up these vulnerable spots. While this mode can turn into somewhat of a workout, it’s very satisfying to reproduce 1:1 motions with a sword, and just makes you realize how much LucasArts needs to jump on this MotionPlus bandwagon to bring us a proper lightsaber experience.

Frisbee has two modes, one where you toss a frisbee to a dog on the beach, trying to score within a target range, and another where you play frisbee golf. Resort’s Frisbee Golf is a bit more forgiving than Tiger Woods’, but I would prefer to play that mode over the actual golf included in this game as well. This is a great multiplayer mode, but also showcases just how much MotionPlus can enhance your motions and movements. You can get some very fine tuned motions out of frisbee in order to boost your accuracy and distance.

Archery has you using the nunchuk as the hand that pulls back the arrow, and uses the Wii Remote as the bow. It’s satisfying to have this much control over where the shot goes, and as you practice you will see that your movements matter a great deal; lots of practice means much more accurate shooting, and you will need that when you tackle the more difficult stages. You can also pull off shoots quickly once you get used to it; I wouldn’t mind seeing a slightly modified version of this in the next Zelda, rather than straight IR pointing.

The thing is, I’m not a Harry Potter fan. I haven’t read any of the books or seen any of the movies, which is hard to do, I’ve been told. Should this matter? I’ve never seen Goldeneye either, but it’s still my favorite Nintendo 64 game, and I never even liked football before falling in love with the game based on my experience with Tecmo Super Bowl as a seven-year-old in 1991.

Most of the other reviews I’ve read give the game an extra few points for appealing to fans of the book and movie series, except that I’m not entirely sure if this is true. My friend Danielle is one of those nuts who dresses up for premieres, and when her and I played this, she was bored by the end of the hour.

She’s only a casual gamer, but again, should this matter? Harry Potter seems like something that should be ideally suited for a casual gamer — wander around Hogwarts and cast spells by shaking the Wii-mote like a wand! Fly around on a broom from time-to-time! Mix liquids in a cauldron to create spells and magic! Duel with other wizards and friends in a two-player mode!

Don’t get me wrong, these things don’t totally suck. I mean, they’re not great or anything. But the experience doesn’t suck. That is kind of a good way to describe the entire experience of The Half-Blood Prince, although “doesn’t suck!” makes for a rather poor ad campaign.

I’ve been told that the book series does take a rather dark turn around this installment, so the tone of the game fits the book and movie well. Hogwarts is dark, moody, and gothic, with a constant gloom hanging over your every movement. Urgency, not so much — characters don’t shut up, and you can’t skip dialogue. Sigh.

If I seem a bit dispirited and somber myself, I blame the dreary tone of the game and an existential crisis on my part. The one question that was constantly on my mind while playing The Half-Blood Prince was, “Why bother making this crap?”

Now, the game isn’t crap; it is solidly average. The 21 reviews cataloged on GameStats are between 4.0 and 8.0. Take out the two highest scores and the lowest, and the remaining 18 professional reviews all fall between 4.9 and 7.2. The average critic score is 6.0. Since my score is a 5.0, I am united in the cartel labeling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as average. It is a bit dull, but no major deficiencies or outstanding moments, which are the biggest problems.

As a member of the Harry Potter universe, the Wii version of The Half-Blood Prince reminds me of a paint-by-numbers coloring book. It follows the source material so faithfully that it makes no attempts to really excel past it. Hey, this is a video game, so you know what would be cool? If I could chose to join up with Voldemort or Severus Snape or deviate from the plot of the book and movie. Of course, you can’t do any of this, so the whole experience feels like an on-the-rails, no-risk ride. At least if everything about the game sucked, it would be interesting material for the Angry Video Game Nerd or Internet trolls, but there is a base level of competence throughout. So really, what’s the point?

If you are a die-hard fan of everything Harry Potter, then you’d probably rather see the movie multiple times than play a watered-down version of wizard dueling and potion-making, even if they do use Wii controls. If you’re not a fan of Harry Potter, then you probably have zero interest in playing this when there are so many better games out there competing for your time. Young kids might be able to handle this, but the dark tone and acres of text and dialogue don’t make it as engaging as it could be. And heck, if you have young kids, make them read the freakin’ books instead.

Blast Factor: I can’t really justify anyone spending $50 on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Just go see the movie four times, and save a 10-spot to buy the DVD when it comes out. Or, just rent it, or wait until it inevitably gets shipped to the $20 and less bargain bin. I can’t really fathom anybody who would be completely satisfied with this game, or who would completely hate this game. This is a satisfactory but ultimately unimaginative product that exists solely to cash-in on the Harry Potter trademark a bit more.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is available for the Nintendo Wii at a suggested retail price of $49.99

Eduardo plays like any other run-and-gun side-scroller, with your basic power-ups (a shotgun blast, a rapid fire gun, a homing cannon, etc.) but the difference is that rather than firing bullets, your rounds are pastries. You use these pastries to take out other pastries, as well as carrots throwing spears at you, or flying fruit that drop fuzzy, exploding pits on your head, and…that’s about it. Before you are even one-third of the way through the game’s 13 stages, you will have seen the entirety of your opposition.

Eduardo lacks actual boss fights, instead ending every level with a battle against more pastries, peaches and carrots than you faced on the previous few screens. The final fight of the game is a lot like the first major skirmish, except there is just more to deal with. This hurts your sense of accomplishment upon completing a stage, something already lacking given that the game simply boots up the next in a line of similar levels without a hint of story, progress or reasons given as to why our ponytail sporting kitchen appliance is on the attack.

What little game there is plays well, as the controls are very tight. If you own a Classic Controller, you will want to use that rather than the NES-style Wii Remote, as the fatter D-pad makes for easier eight-direction shooting. Eduardo moves fluidly, automatically unleashing his melee attack—a swipe with his power cord—when enemies are within range. You can also grab enemies and throw them, as in the aforementioned Gunstar Heroes. You can block incoming attacks while taking out large groups of enemies simply by jumping around and timing your shots, thrown enemies and melee attacks, which is the most satisfying aspect of gameplay.

You have a choice of four difficulty levels, and can also adjust how many lives you start with. This last part is somewhat meaningless, as the penalty for running out of lives is a trip back to the beginning of your current stage. There are no continues, and you can begin a game from any level once you have reached it. Truth be told, due to the sameness of it all, there isn’t much variance in the levels outside of which splendid background you enjoyed looking at while you fired off Pop Tarts from your head.

When you do finish, there are few reasons to go back and replay the game. You could crank the difficulty to 11 and invite up to three friends over to see if you can survive, but there is one major component missing from Eduardo that hinders the replay value of both the single and multiplayer campaigns: scores. There are no scores in this run-and-gun title, which is an odd decision given the genre. People do not play these games for story (though Metal Slug comes off like Shakespeare when compared to Eduardo’s nonexistent tale) so not giving them something as obvious as a scoreboard to work with is just strange. Gamers would be more inclined to go back and replay the game if they had some gauge of how well they did, and it would also be a great way to earn bragging rights amongst friends, making the multiplayer that much more enjoyable. Online leaderboards are a must for this genre, especially on a service that already has games with them, but Eduardo doesn’t even have local ones to browse.

Blast Factor: It is a shame that Eduardo the Samurai Toaster is not a great game, because Semnat Studios has a lot of talent on display in the audio and visual departments, and they also made it control as well as any of its predecessors in the genre. While those things on the periphery are in place, the core game itself is lacking. At just $8, it is not painful to your wallet, but you would be better served with the established classics in the field that are available for the same price on the same system.

Eduardo the Samurai Toaster is available exclusively on WiiWare for 800 Nintendo Points

The concept is simple enough. You sit in the middle of the screen as this D-pad shaped object that takes aim and fires at bits as they come at you from all directions. You can shoot up, down, left and right by pressing the corresponding direction on the D-pad as well as the 2 button, and if things get a little too hectic you can fire off a bomb with the 1 button. The bits move directly in front of your team, or around you in circles, or diagonally, or back and forth quickly, sometimes with tons of them coming at once from all different angles. The game keeps you guessing, and putting the levels into muscle memory will go a long ways towards your successfully completing them.

If you can hit lots of these bits in a row, then the music and graphics will become enhanced. There are different levels that indicate this, like Hyper and Mega, and the corresponding word flashes on the screen as you approach it and eventually get there. Missing too many in a row sends you in the other direction, making the music and backgrounds basic until eventually you end up in a screen that looks as basic as Asteroids or Pong, with no music. Miss too many there, and it’s Game Over for you. You should get used to seeing that screen, because this game is difficult, but if you’re willing to play each of the three levels a few times, you will learn its secrets and master it, just like say, Punch-Out!!!, or various space shooters.

One thing to notice is that the HUD is much better organized in CORE than it was in BEAT. You have an easier time figuring out how far along in each level you are, and where you rank as far as Nether/Hyper/Mega/etc. go. This also helps you when you realize how close you were to finishing a level, and gives you that “One more time” feeling.

There are a few wrinkles in the gameplay that also make Bit.Trip CORE a good time, like the challenge beam, which forces you to turn your Wii Remote in a different direction since your D-pad has now been twisted in a different way. You end up holding the controller like it’s a joystick, pressing the 2 down at the bottom (or at the top, depending on what challenge you get) while pressing what used to be left for up, or what used to be up for right. You get bonus points depending on how successful you were during the challenge too, which is a good way to shoot up your leaderboard.

Which brings me to the only major complaint I have with Bit.Trip CORE, and that’s the lack of online leaderboards. It’s a shame the first two games don’t utilize that feature, but Gaijin Games has also told us that they are looking into it for future releases. Here’s hoping that we get them in time for the third entry, because there’s nothing I love more than thinking I’m great at a game and then seeing myself ranked far lower than I ever imagined. It’s great for motivation and replay value, even if it is a bit depressing at first.

Blast Factor: Bit.Trip CORE is every bit as good as its predecessor, and puts enough new spins on the retro design to warrant a purchase. Even if the basic universe is the same, the gameplay is different enough that it rightfully feels like a brand new game. If you like your games old-school and challenging, then Bit.Trip CORE is perfect for you, especially with the great, foot-tapping music and colorful visuals.

Bit.Trip CORE is available exclusvely on the Nintendo Wii’s WiiWare service, and costs 600 Nintendo Points

There’s something else to consider. The MotionPlus accessory, bundled with this year’s game, makes the title a lot more realistic. Every arm and wrist movement can drastically alter the course of the ball. A swing that would have cut it in Tiger Woods 09 is in the trees in 10. Then you realize it…

Golf is a lot harder than we’re been led to believe all these years.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Grand Slam Tennis and Red Steel 2 are the first major third party tests of the MotionPlus for us, and it gets a thumbs up so far. Tiger Woods 10 is a far reach harder than Tiger Woods 09, which is good considering nearly everything else about the two games are exactly the same — endlessly upgrading your clubs, picking corny celebratory animations, regretting setting your majors to four agonizing rounds, etc. etc. etc.

One thing we don’t like in Woods 10 right off the bat (or the club…) is the sheer lack of Scottish play-by-play announcers. It’s one of the few things that makes televised golf enjoyable. And, I’m sorry ESPN, but Scott Van Pelt saying “useful shot that” just doesn’t do it for me.

There are, ethnicity aside, some very nice new features in 10 besides MotionPlus, including actual live weather conditions and a mini game called Disc Golf played with a Frisbee that is exclusive to the Wii version. But the best new feature is the online live tournaments. You can challenge friends, play in EA tournaments, and match up with the pros with online tournaments during actual PGA events.

There are plenty of real courses in the game and plenty of tournaments but this series is missing things like The Masters and the US Open and some of the other “real majors” in golf. Because of that, career mode is that much less invigorating. You’ll spend a few weeks as an amateur, playing boring tournaments against idiotic computer characters just to get to the PGA TOUR where there’s really no reward — no green jackets or “Superbowls” of golf. You just play, get money, buy stuff, and play more. It’s a real problem with sports games.

You will get addicted though, and we highly recommend getting a golfing buddy, either at your home or online, because it’s kinda depressing to make an eagle and just stand there with the cat licking himself.

Just keep your wrists straight and follow through with your swing. This isn’t Wii Sports. You don’t just flick your wrist and five it 300 yards. Once you get used to it, you’ll be fading and punch shooting your way through the Fedex Cup. One thing about a harder game is that you really feel like you’ve accomplished something when you finally get good at it.

There are 28 courses and Wii’s “All Play” mode just in case you really, really can’t get used to the new controls. If you’re in a bad mood, turn on All Play and select Pebble Beach. In our tests, I shot two double eagles, two aces, and five eagles. But the announcing still sucks. I made a double eagle on 18 from about 200 yards, and all Van Pelt had to say was that my putting had been fantastic today.

Blast Factor: It’s Nerf or nothing. Tiger Woods is the only sim golf game out there, much like EA’s Madden franchise. It’s not the old days of six brands of computer golf that you play with your mouse. You actually have to get off the couch this time and swing the club like you mean it. The good thing is that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is simply great. The verbose online options give you plenty to do, even for the most finicky video game golfer.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is available on the Nintendo Wii bundled with MotionPlus for $59.99, or without for $49.99

We have seen the tech demos, the gameplay videos, the sharp looking screens with graphical effects rarely seen on the Wii — it’s clear that High Voltage Software knows how to develop for the little white console and squeeze some power out of it. Did they do enough with the gameplay to warrant a purchase of their first retail Wii title though? The answer will take some time, but that’s why we review these things.

In The Conduit, you play as Michael Ford, an agent that has been betrayed by the organization that hired him. Your goal is to get to the bottom of the conspiracy that surrounds you and the city of Washington D.C., and exact revenge on the man that put you in this tough spot before his army of drones and alien Drudge soldiers can take you out. It’s pretty standard conspiracy fare with a few twists and turns, but it’s not a bad story, and the voice acting of Kevin Sorbo and Mark Sheppard helps to move it along, even if occasionally it sounds a little over the top and campy. The story doesn’t overstay its welcome, but you could also say that it leaves abruptly, setting the game up for an obvious sequel, a la Gears of War 2.

The Conduit looks great on Wii, most of the time. It’s a little inconsistent graphically, which is a disappointment given how good it looks sometimes. As you can see in the screens, the insides of buildings, guns, aliens, and the lighting effects all look well detailed and smooth. Objects and places off in the distance do not look anywhere near as good though — they don’t look blurry or representative of something off in the distance, they just look a little muddy. Some of the backgrounds ruin a lot of what’s going on in the foreground too. If you’re running through a corridor, do yourself a favor and don’t look out the windows, as everything looks choppy and box-like in that strange, outdoor world. Occasionally the sky also looks terrible, particularly when the clouds have an orange hue to them. Hopefully these details are polished in the sequel — a background that stretches all around you is not exactly a minor detail — as they take away from a lot of what was accomplished graphically in The Conduit.

Another problem for The Conduit is that the technical achievements outshine the art. Sure, the inside of the Pentagon and White House look good, but the design is somewhat boring. For the most part you’re just running through hallways and offices that could be from any building; I would have liked to see a bit more detail here, in regards to the invasion at hand, just to keep things looking interesting. There’s only one real “wow” moment in the game in regards to level design, when you first realize you have been tricked and that alien forces are invading Washington D.C. Enemies are designed well, but there are not enough different types, and you start to wish there were different challenges as you play for six to nine hours through single player.

All in all, the campaign is very standard run-and-gun, and doesn’t do anything innovative. It’s not bad, but it is bland, despite solid presentation and the graphics. There are two things that stand out from single-player that bear mentioning though, and that’s the All Seeing Eye (ASE) and the alien guns.The ASE lets you see hidden messages, unlock underground rooms with advanced weaponry in them, collect the Trust’s secret data discs, disable mines, hack into computers, and lower the shields on a specific, invisible member of the Drudge’s alien forces. It’s a shame it wasn’t used more often, but as a start of something and as an innovation, it’s welcome. High Voltage Software obviously had fun making the guns, and you will have fun using them. There are plenty of different enemy weapons, from alien assault rifles with charged beam shots, pistols with charged explosive rounds, a heat-seeking grenade launcher of sorts, de-atomizing weapons that, when charged, do exactly what their name implies to the enemies they strike, and even grenades that use radiation to take out opponents. They look good, they play well, and Ford reloading them with balls of bio mass is something you need to see in action.

First off, Grand Slam Tennis is not your mother’s tennis game. You’ll be as animated as the characters on screen when you miss a forehand or when you cannot believe your opponent smacked that passing shot perfectly, painting the baseline. The learning curve is painfully substantial but ultimately redeeming when given the time and effort needed to master such a sport, albeit in video game form.

Character creation is where the fun begins. The create-a-dude mode enables you to choose from a limited, but deep enough assortment of face, hair, clothing, and interestingly play-style options. For my guy, I chose “Offensive Baseliner,” the type skilled at long rallies and offensive power strokes from the baseline, but a significant number of options are also at your fingertips, including “Net Master,” “Defensive Baseliner,” and others. I would have loved to see a personality type modifier, so when I missed a shot on screen my character would either take the fault in stride or smash his racket and scream expletives at the chair umpire, but maybe that’s asking too much.

There are a number of ways to play Grand Slam Tennis from a control standpoint, including Wii-remote only, Wii-remote and Nunchuck, Wii-remote with MotionPlus, and Wii-remote with MotionPlus and Nunchuck. Phew, I know that sounds like a lot, but there is only one way that you should play, and that is with the MotionPlus enabled Wii-remote and Nunchuck. Careful now, you’re holding an $85 racket in your hand, make sure you don’t let go!

With the Nunchuck attached to the Wii-remote you’ll have to manually guide your athlete around the lines of the court, but believe me, through exhaustive and frustrating first tries with only the Nunchuck, this in the only way to play Grand Slam Tennis if you don’t want to rip your hair out. See, if you play using only the Nunchuck, your mini-me will often, and painfully, run around a forehand to hit a backhand,  get stuck somewhere in the middle and force an off-balance shot, or will plain miss the shot. And in tennis, a point for point competition, the slightest mistake can make all the difference.

Now that we know how to play the game let’s find out why you want to play tennis in the living room instead of outside, under the sun, on the court.

The first thing you’ll notice about Grand Slam Tennis is the clear stylized approach to the game’s assorted environments and character models. EA didn’t go for realism in terms of presentation, but that mark does the game no damage and is a good decision, if I am to throw my opinion in the mix. Why strive for what the Wii cannot achieve graphically? Players’ heads are too large, legs too skinny, and the glowing yellow tennis ball is the size of a softball, but none of these factors are detrimental to the tennis feel of the game. The game’s 12 courts at four different locations are accurately presented even in the cartoon style. Anyone who has ever watched tennis on television or been to a live event can attest to the simplicity of the sport. A rectangular court, adorned with white lines, two poles, a net, and seating all around is all you need, and EA did a remarkable job replicating the game’s real world locations. That said, advertising is a HUGE part of the sport of tennis commercially, and when you play Grand Slam Tennis you’ll be inundated with ads at every turn.

The secret is in the name, and Grand Slam Tennis is ALL about completing a Grand Slam, or for tennis noobs, winning all four major championships: The Australian Open, The French Open, Wimbledon, and The U.S. Open. To do this in Grand Slam Tennis you’ll begin your to-be illustrious career as many role-playing games do, as a lowly kid off the street vying to become a pro, and will quickly be thrown into the fray whether you’re ready or not.

This particular review deals with the Wii version, which was developed by Red Fly Studios rather than Terminal Reality–they handled the Xbox 360, PC and PS3 versions of the title. Red Fly is also the developer of Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, which was noted for its atmosphere, art style and mood, set by the graphical style and the music. Those very same elements permeate your Ghostbusters experience, and help make this game plenty of fun on its own, even sans the photo-realistic graphics of its console cousins.

Rather than port the game over, Red Fly built the game from the ground up for Wii. While the story remains the same, and the game retains the fantastic voice acting of the original cast (Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson, among others, all return to play the parts they made famous), the graphical style is more cartoony in nature. This isn’t a bad thing though–the Ghostbusters have been done in cartoon form before, and this style fits the Ghostbusters universe very well. Look no further than some of the creatures you will face, or the environments you will visit, or the highly-stylized caricatures of the men in beige, and you will see what I mean. The Wii does stylized very well, and Red Fly and Ghostbusters nailed that.

Gl33k, who so successfully created the music in Mushroom Men along with Les Claypool, return to help with Ghostbusters, and even without the metronome-based tunes, the sounds and music do much to add to the experience. It’s not quite survival horror fare, but it fits the mood and helps immerse you in the experience of chasing down ghosts through abandoned buildings, cemetaries and haunted hotels. The pace picks up when you start to wrangle ghosts, which serves to build tension and keep you in the moment. It’s all very effective, and a welcome addition.

So Ghostbusters Wii has a nifty look, and it sounds great, both musically and in its more movie-oriented moments. How does it play? Well, if you’ve ever wanted to strap on a proton pack, but can’t cart around 100 lbs. for very long–or you know, aren’t well versed in creating proton-powered beams capable of capturing the paranormal–then the Wii Remote is the closest you are going to get. Ghostbusters basically plays as a third-person shooter where you fire at ghosts to weaken them until you can capture them. When you hit that point, a capture cage automatically envelops them, and then you have to slam them around the room using motion-based quick time events. As with many other games that utilize motion QTE, they work well, and feel more satisfying than the twitch, button based variety. While this mechanic could become repetitive, there is enough variation in the types of enemies you will face and the ways you have to approach them that the wrangling retains its fun factor throughout, especially as the ghosts become more powerful and your allied ‘Busters start to drop like flies around you. Catching ghosts is a cinch too, as you just press Z and make a bowling motion with the nunchuk; if you don’t feel like throwing a trap out, don’t worry, as the other Ghostbusters almost always throw you out a few to make your life easier.

One reason for its success is because it took a nod from the established and successful Mario Kart in terms of the tight controls, the frantic gameplay, the grandiose level design, the back-and-forth item battles… it’s like Mario Kart Jr., in many ways, but that isn’t a bad thing. MySims has its own personality and charm, and also does some things that the more established kart racer does not (but should).

Starting from the top: the controls are best when you use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination. While the Wii Wheel works, it does not seem to replicate an analog stick as well, in this title as in some others on the system. You have the option of accelerating, braking, drifting, using items, looking in your rear view mirror… standard kart stuff. Drifting is a little different in MySims Racing, but it is enjoyable. Drifting helps you get around corners tighter, but you initiate it by tapping the brake. If you overdo it, you will slow down, but if you do it just right you’ll whip around that corner and back onto a straightaway with satisfying ease and fluidity. Drifting helps you build up a boost meter, which can be used at any time. Knowing when to boost is important, and can change the dynamics of a race if you plan it right. For instance, using a boost while on a jump throws your kart into superboost momentarily, which is much faster than your standard one.

Items are for the most part borrowed from other kart racers, but given new forms here. You have your soccer balls (green shells), your heat-seeking watermelon (red shell), your UFO that brings you through levels quickly to catch up (Bullet Bill), as well as a few others, but the game also has its own imagination and comes up with some classic ideas for torturing your friends. My favorite is the twisty tornado that turns your foe’s screen upside down and reverses their controls; this is a great way to send them flying into a wall so you can catch up and pass them, and the AI even reacts to it in your favor sometimes. Another goody is the acorn that you throw in front of or behind you that sprouts a tree soon after landing, making an impromptu impediment on the road.

The tracks start out simple enough, but soon evolve into tracks with three to four minute laps overflowing with obstacles and treacherous turns. My main complaint with the tracks is that there are not enough of them in the game; I understand MySims can’t just pull back the curtain on history and roll out classic tracks remade for the current generation, but including the DS-specific tracks on the Wii version of the game would have given the title some much needed variety.

MySims Racing has your standard championship modes, with three to choose from. One of them has two tracks — both simple — another has three, with slightly tougher courses, and another has five. After playing through the game, there’s no need to play anything except for the latter two (mostly the large one though) which is one reason the game could have used additional courses. Besides this mode, there is also the Beat the Clock (race through as many gates/checkpoints as possible to score a medal), or run a single race against your friends or the AI.

The game has local four-player, but does not have online play. While I at first thought that this was due to the audience — maybe eight to 12-year-olds don’t need to go online and play — it turns out that the DS version of MySims Racing does utilize the Nintendo WiFi connection for multiplayer. What gives? Why in one but not the other? It’s a shame too, because this is the superior version of MySims Racing, and it’s the one that lacks that added bit of replay value.

Before you dive into racing against your friends, you are going to want to play the story mode of MySims Racing. This is where the game sets itself apart from Mario Kart, and in a good way. You create a MySim’s character, and also customize a car from a set of basic parts. You then start to play through the story mode, which involves you making friends with townsfolk by running races and completing challenges (collecting items on the race track in under a set amount of time, or impressing people by passing through a certain number of gates before the clock runs out) and eventually bringing championship racing back to the area. You also collect crystals on the track, called essence coins, that are used to build the parts that you find blueprints for (there is one hidden set of blueprints on every track) or from the ones the people in town give you for helping them or racing them. This means that by the end of the story, you have made a pretty awesome car (or three, as you can customize a light, medium and heavy vehicle for yourself all at once) that you can use in races against your friends and the computer. Not just that, but you can export your favorite car to your Wii Remote and take it to a friend’s Wii for use there.

The controls are tight, the gameplay is fun, and car customization is a neat aspect that hasn’t had enough play in the world of kart racers yet. It’s a shame the game lacks more tracks and online play, but what is here is worth playing. This is easily one of the top kids titles of the year on Wii, and the kind of game that parents (and 20-something game reviewers) don’t need to be ashamed of enjoying.

MySims Racing is available on the Nintendo Wii for $39.99

Around the web, I’ve seen Swords & Soldiers described as a side-scrolling real-time strategy game, but I’d argue that the better term would be as a tower offense game.  True, you harvest gold, farm mana and pay for upgrades, but the majority of the game involves buying units that march from left to right, defeating anything in their way or being defeated themselves.  Like a tower defense game, you do not control your units, but rather try to build up waves that will eventually overrun your opponent.  Unlike a tower defense, your side is almost always the one on the offensive, sending waves to conquer your opponent’s base.

In terms of personality and just general gameplay, Swords & Soldiers reminds me of a more offense-orientated Ninjatown, an enchanting tower defense game for the DS.  You control one of three factions: the Vikings, the Aztecs and the Chinese.  All are caricatures, as the Vikings are obsessed with having the best BBQ ever, the Aztecs growing the greatest hot pepper, and the Chinese ruler must have the latest toys, even as the expense of his empire.  The dialogue is snappy and has a fun sort of brevity to it, regardless of what side is being played.

The actual gameplay, well, it’s so simple that I pretty much already summarized it.  Taking full advantage of the Wii Remote, all the actions your faction can do – building units, upgrading, casting spells – are accessible from a single screen.  What little menus the game features expand from a bar at the top of the screen, and there is almost no text except for the dialogue screens between stages and short bursts of text from characters.

If anything, there is a lack of information in Swords & Soldiers that can be frustrating at times.  For example, in a normal RTS or tower defense game, you would be able to see each character’s max hit point level, and attack and defensive ratings.  As far as I can tell, this is kept intentionally vague in Swords & Soldiers.  I know that the big, brutish golems of the Aztecs obviously have more strength and hit points than the archer-like dart shooters, but how do they compare to jaguar warriors?  Outside of trial and error, it’s hard to tell the “best” units for each faction.

This is a somewhat minor quibble though, more of a complaint about not being able to see how the sausage is made.  Most of Swords & Soldiers’ 30 campaign stages, 10 for each faction, are balanced well and allow you to get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of each.  Generally, the first five or six stages of each campaign introduce you to the units you’ll use and suggest tactics, and the final couple of stages are maddeningly difficult.  In particular, the last two Aztec missions took me more than an hour each to beat.

However, the colorful graphics, good animation and robust sound effects keep things fresh, even if you’re trying for the fifth time to beat a specific stage.  Swords and Soldiers looks crisp, like the best of 1990s Saturday morning animation; the art style is reminiscent of SNES and Genesis puzzler The Lost Vikings.  All the characters have their own sound effects, and the leader of your faction barks out orders as units spawn and confront enemies.

Swords & Soldiers is available exclusively on WiiWare for 1000 Nintendo Points

It’s tough to explain Boom Blox simply, given there are so many different game types within the game, but if you forced me too, I would tell you it’s a physics-based game where you knock down blocks (or blox, given the game) with a variety of throwable objects. It’s like reverse Jenga, with explosions and combos.

It’s more than just throwing baseballs and bowling balls though, as there are also virus balls that infect other blox to break them down, chemical blox that explode on contact with other chemical blox, vanishing blox that — you guessed it — vanish when you hit them, explosive blox, and even character blox, that you can use as part of the environment or as an outside-the-box way of solving the puzzle.

There are also levels where the point is not to knock as much down as you can, but instead to play it safe, Jenga style, only taking out your own colored blocks while trying to leave the structure intact. There are levels where you paint the blox with paint balls, in order to match colors and score points from combos. It’s amazing how much strategic destruction there is in this title, and how many different options you have at your disposal.

There were a few problems with the original that needed some work in the sequel, but it looks as if EA addressed them. The most glaring was that the multiplayer portion was much more fun than the single player, but the effort put into a vast array of multiplayer levels was nonexistent. This time around, EA has bulked up both the single and multiplayer levels — there are around 400 of them — so that you can play for hours and hours by yourself or with friends. The single player is actually deep enough — and rewarding enough, thanks to the medal/achievement system in place — that you could sit around just playing that with your friends, with everyone who isn’t holding a controller playing the role of backseat gamer until it’s their turn to show you how it’s done. The amount of replay value in this title, thanks to it’s deep single and multiplayer experiences along with the achievement and reward system, is staggering.

Don’t think that this is just Boom Blox 2: Now With More Levels, though. EA also created underwater levels where you are trying to make the blocks rise to the surface, as well as space levels where the laws of gravity come into play much differently than they do in standard, Earth-based levels. These are welcome additions to the franchise, and I love that EA did not just settle for more of the same. When you combine this with the new shapes and tools you need to take into account, it’s actually like a completely different game than the first, despite both being similar in so many ways.

We’ll start with the controls, as these could make or break the Punch-Out!! experience, given the game is built on timing and memorization. There are standard controls, set up just like the original NES version of Punch-Out!! that is available on the Virtual Console. Press 1 and 2 to punch, left, right and down on the D-pad to dodge and duck, and up plus the punch buttons to throw a punch at your opponent’s face. These are simple and time-tested, and it was a good idea to include them with the release. This is because it is the preferred method of control as you delve deeper into the Punch-Out!! experience, as they are the quickest route for consecutive actions. This is not to say that the motion controls do not work — in fact, you could use the motion controls through the entire game if you would like, as they are responsive, accurate and immersive, but you will reach a point where pressing a button is faster than throwing a faux punch, and you will need that extra speed. Balance board controls are also included, though if you don’t think that the regular motion controls are fast enough those definitely will not work the way you want them to.

Graphically, Punch-Out!! is a looker. The cartoony style is welcome, and Next Level did a wonderful job of bringing characters from the 8-bit and 16-bit era into this generation. The attention to detail in fights is wonderful, from character’s reactions to getting hit, blocking a punch, or the smirk on their face when they are about to lay into you with a flurry of hooks. You can also see the result of your punches (as well as the ones you take) in damage on Little Mac and your opponent’s bodies and faces. The crowds all look active and alive, and though you can’t see their faces due to the way the lighting outside of the ring works, they still look like a real crowd (drawn in Punch-Out!! style of course). The game looks as good in motion — if not a little bit better — as it does in screens. The sound is another high point, as the classic Punch-Out!! music is remixed multiple times, giving you variations of that catchy tune. The sound effects are a mix of new and old, but all are well done and will bring a smile to your face; nothing is more satisfying than sending a boxer to the canvas and hearing the classic knock down sound effect.

As for actual gameplay, Next Level Games made sure you had reason to pick this up for $50 other than a graphical update. There is your basic career mode, where Little Mac takes on 13 fighters (12 returning and one new opponent) in order to become champion of the World Video Boxing Association. Fans familiar with the series should get through this portion of the game in just a few hours, but for those who are first acquainting themselves with Punch-Out!!, the task won’t be so easy. You learn how to beat the opposition by memorizing their attack patterns and exploiting their weaknesses, so you need to see them before you can beat them most of the time. If you hit them at just the right moment, you can earn a star — use a star punch with the A button to level your opponent. Star punches range in power from one to three stars, but be careful, as getting hit causes you to lose your stars.

Luckily, there is more to career mode than just your first romp through the 13. After you become champion, it’s time to defend your title, and you will fight each of the characters once more. The twist is that they have learned from the mistakes they made (wouldn’t you do some soul-searching after losing a boxing match to a 5′7″, 107 pounder?) and covered up for their weaknesses. Glass Joe now wears a helmet so you can’t just knock him in the head and start counting. King Hippo has covered his bandaged belly with a manhole cover (ouch?). I don’t want to give too much away, but the opposition is much more difficult the second time around, which should please longtime fans of the series looking for something new to keep them coming back.

At this point, there is a certain “paint by numbers” feeling to each new game released by Infinite Interactive. There are slight tweaks, such as switching from the Bejeweled-style of the past games to a new system that compares more to a hybrid of Bejeweled and the classic board game Labyrinth, but the same engine hums underneath. Specifically, a challenging early-game experience leads to easy, mind-numbing repetition as you gain levels, and this is a monumental issue when there are no enchanting visuals or sound to fall back on.

Puzzle Kingdoms starts promisingly enough, as your tongue-in-cheek hero is a bit plucky about his assignment to save kingdoms from famine by securing the Box Of Evil in each. Apparently, these were planted at some point by a Skeletor-looking figure. Keeping with the comparison to 1990s cartoons, after you save each kingdom, Skeletor essentially shakes his fist and chastises a minion, similar to Dr. Claw from “Inspector Gadget.” Unfortunately, outside of the overall goal of saving the world, there is no story continuity from kingdom to kingdom.

When you swim past the initial sea of text to open the game, you finally get to the relatively simple puzzle dynamics. You control a hero who commands a group of up to four soldiers. Sliding rows of colored symbols on a board up, down, left or right, you try to match three or more. Do so, and you either fill up your magic meter or the attack gauge of your troops. Each of your troops has attack and defense statistics — when they take too much damage, they die. If you lose all of your troops, and you don’t have a hero in reserve, it’s game over.

As previously mentioned, Puzzle Kingdoms is challenging in its initial stages. The beginning units — peasant, swordsman and archer — all have very low default stats. As your hero gains a few levels, his or her stats stack with the troops; i.e. if your hero has a defensive rating of three, then all the troops under their command automatically gain three more hit points. Equipment, spells and new troop types are all unlocked via timed and “solve this puzzle within X moves” mini-games after you conquer kingdoms.

Unfortunately, this initial challenge is negated within a few hours. Once you survive the first pair of kingdoms, you get access to the knight unit, which can soak up damage for the rest of your troops. Another acquirable item gives a five-point boost to the defense of all your units, making it easy to win battles even if you have four peasants. You are technically limited to carrying 100 “points” in each kingdom — for example, a high level hero costs far more points than a level one hero, and the knight costs 13 points to the peasant’s five — but as long as you carry a few items, you are practically invulnerable.

If one feeling permeates Puzzle Kingdoms, it is this lack of caring and balance. I suppose it is nice of me to save the ogres from resorting to cannibalism, but meh, I don’t really care if I don’t. I mean, the main character is kind of entertaining, but nobody he interacts with is. The game also froze on me several times, invalidating an hour of work. And even though it is an untimed puzzle game for the most part, you have to use the Wii-mote to play it, which leads to input errors, because of a generally sloppy interface. How much can a company really care about a game if it recycles the exact same perspective, style and mechanics from a game released on the PS2 several years ago? Or if they make idiotic decisions like using a minuscule font for all of the dialogue? If they don’t give an S, why should I?

Unless you feel like lining the pockets of the developers a bit more, there isn’t any real reason for me to recommend Puzzle Kingdoms. The original of the series, Puzzle Quest, is still the superior game of the trio — stick to that if you need a puzzler on the Wii. Kingdoms is only worth playing if you’re absolutely desperate for a new puzzler fix.

The first wave of Wii-makes included Pikmin, with its improved control scheme and enhanced graphical presentation, and Mario Power Tennis, which was somewhat of a disappointment given its transition to motion controls. The best release during the young lifespan of this line is the latest though, and that’s Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. This platformer was developed by the same studio that made Super Mario Galaxy, and you can see the similarities as far as attention to detail goes — whether it be graphical, sound, or in the superb level design.

There are two things that make this game a worthwhile entry in the New Play Control! series. First, the original was a critically acclaimed success, and one of the finer titles from GameCube’s diverse lineup — this title was part of that peak of creativity seen from Nintendo that saw them develop a few new IP (Pikmin, the Skip-developed Chibi Robo), as well as give completely different takes on old ones such as Metroid (moving it to first person). Second, and this matches up with the creativity, the game is controlled with a pair of bongos. You did everything with the bongos, from jumping, to attacking, to simply walking left or right. If you used a standard controller, the analog stick simply mimicked the action of the bongos.

While this can be seen as a stroke of creative awesome by some — you were banging on bongos to beat people up, after all — others were turned off from what turned out to be an excellent platformer because of the controller alternative, and sales were dismal given how well it scored across the board. The New Play Control! version of the game scraps those bongo controls for an analog stick and the A button, while keeping some of the bongo moves (attacking, fighting bosses) linked up with the motion to simulate the bongos. Very little is lost in the translation, and what is lost is not missed given how improved the simple things like walking around are with an analog stick rather than the bongos. Yes, there were times against bosses where I would have liked to slam down on bongos to pummel them rather than use my dual controllers like large drumsticks, but the precision given to you by an analog stick — especially in a platformer that requires the level of precision DK Jungle Beat does — is more than worth the trade-off.

There’s no real story in this title; Donkey Kong simply wants to prove he’s the best in the Jungle, and he’s going to bust the head of anyone who thinks otherwise. This turns out to be fine in the end though, as there is no shortage of quality gameplay in this title. Donkey Kong runs, jumps, swings, floats, pounds his fists, punches enemies, attacks them with waves of sound to stun them… all of the things you expect Kong to do, he does. Keeping up with the tradition begun by Rare back in the days of Donkey Kong Country, this game looks incredible, but uses a different style than those classic platformers.

Now, Monster Games has developed an unofficial sequel of sorts, and the first thing they did was to inject personality and character into the vehicles and the game. Because of this, we now have Excitebots: Trick Racing, and we should all be thankful for that, whether you enjoyed Excite Truck or never played it. As good as Excite Truck was, Excitebots is the superior title in almost every way.

Here’s the premise behind Excitebots: just like Excite Truck before it, you drive around courses set in the real world, like Fiji, or Kilimanjaro, or Egypt. You can’t always tell where you are driving-there isn’t something obvious like a pyramid in every level, after all-but you’re also driving around so fast at times that scenery isn’t something you’re paying attention to, unless you’re about to crash into it. Finishing first is of less importance than it is in other racing titles; you get stars for finishing in a better position, but it’s not required to pass the course.

These stars are the core of Excitebots. You perform tricks, like catching extra air on a jump, drifting on a turn, or spinning mid-jump, in order to earn stars. The more stars you earn, the higher your grade, but you have to do that within a time limit-you can’t just hang out on a course, punt a good finish in the standings, and rack up stars forever. You are graded on these course, and need a minimum of B to unlock the next track. In addition, to unlock Super Excite difficulty, you need a grade of S on every course on Excite difficulty; Excitebots does not fool around.

You will want to replay these courses until you master them though anyways, as stars are the currency with which you unlock new vehicles, paint jobs, and collectables. You can also bet stars in online play, against either strangers or your friends, in order to exponentially increase your winnings and ability to unlock everything there is in the game.

Outside of the online play, that was the core gameplay of Excite Truck as well, but there are plenty of other changes that make this game worthwhile. First of all, the problem of generic trucks has been taken care of with animal and insect shaped robot cars. They drive, but can also run on robo-legs, and at even faster speeds than those you drive at with a turbo boost. Second, Monster Games end product gives me the impression that their meetings to determine what went in the game and what didn’t saw very few votes against for any idea.

For example, here are a few of the things you can do within the courses in order to earn stars and speed boosts, and on occasion, a nifty shortcut. There are red and yellow bars found throughout the courses that you latch on to with your robot arm and then spin around repeatedly, eventually shooting off back on to the course with a speed boost and time for aerial tricks. You move the Wii Wheel or Wii Remote in a circular motion, towards and away from you to mimic the onscreen movement until you blast off. That’s new, and the tamest of the ideas. Besides that, you can throw a pie in the face of a clown to change the landscape in front of you, opening up a shortcut or jump. You can crash through 10 bowling pins, earning a star for each pin you drive over. You can kick a soccer ball into a net, or a football for a field goal, or swing a bat at an incoming baseball, or make a sandwich on a zip line. Yes, make a sandwich with your robot car attached to a zipline. Monster Games had me at sandwich.

For a game that moves as fast as it does, and requires you to focus on the task at hand-namely, staying on course and focusing on the track-Excitebots does all it can to get you to look at anything but the course, and instead wants you to deal with all of these games in front of you. It’s a wonderful feeling, and more than makes up for the fact that the tracks are all still somewhat generic in their presentation. You don’t have time or the desire to focus on your surroundings, unless there happens to be a soccer net in front of you that you need to line up with.

Besides the main game, of which there are five cups of increasing difficulty and two distinct difficulty levels, there are also other ways to play. First is Poker, which has your bot making poker hands as you drive around, cashing in those hands for stars. You start with four cards, and drive through a group of five to pick up another you would like to make a hand, then cash in that hand, replacing all of your cards and giving you four more. It’s a fun and different way to play the game that relies less on speed and more on your reflexes and quick-thinking as you try to crash into the card you need.

There is also a mini-game gallery that allows you to earn some bonus stars by playing things like soccer, baseball, football, etc., independent of the courses they are in. My favorite is the one with the giant gloved hand that attempts to smash you as you take the stars found underneath it. It’s like racing against a violent Hamburger Helper mascot, which is a level of ridiculousness that I wish more games aspired to.

Online play works, and works well. You can play with your friends after exchanging Friend Codes, but you can also play with up to five strangers online. There were no connection or lag issues in my time testing online, which is a good sign, and there were always people available to play against, which is also a positive. Sadly, Wii Speak is not utilized, which is somewhat surprising given Nintendo released it in November and has barely supported it. For those who do not want to play online, or just want to challenge a friend, there is split-screen competitive mode as well.

Also on the negative side, custom soundtracks from your SD card are no longer an option like they were in Excite Truck. Again though, the generic rock music from the first title has been replaced by over-the-top fast-paced music with more of a techno feel to it that fit the game’s setting well. It may not be for everyone, but it’s an improvement. Still, I wish custom soundtrack were there, especially given that the Wii supports larger SD cards than it used to.

Despite those minor flaws, this is still a wonderful and unique racing game, and easily worthwhile even for those who have Mario Kart Wii in their collection (and continue to play it, like I do). It’s a different experience than that, and even different than Excite Truck-as well as superior. Despite explaining what this game is about for over 1,000 words, it’s something that needs to be seen in action. Make sure to check out the video for more information on Excitebots: Trick Racing.

I have never played the original Ready 2 Rumble, but I had heard it was a decent Dreamcast brawler.  Whenever I received this copy of R2R:  Revolution, I assumed it would be a solid boxing sequel to a franchise that already had experience in the fighting game genre.  With the motion censored controllers on the Wii, a boxing game seemed like an ideal candidate for the console.  Wii Sports did it already.  Every time I see someone playing the Wii they always look like they’re making left and right jabs when they are really just fishing or playing tennis or pretending to strum along on guitars.

From every angle, a Boxing game using motion censored controls (think MoCap Boxing) put on a home console should be a hit.

There are a myriad number of modes to pick from depending on how you want to play R2R:  Revolution from the start.  The arcade mode and the training modes are where you’re likely to spend most of your time.  But the arcade mode won’t be as rewarding as you’d expect it to be.  Instead of the gradual progression of weaker to stronger enemies, almost all the boxers are equally difficult to fight.  And by difficult, I mean nearly impossible to beat.

The tutorial at the start of the game isn’t as thorough as it should be.  While it does show you how to specifically do all the moves available to every boxer, the fact that it takes at least three or four tries just to shake the Wii-mote in several directions to land any blow better than a jab is difficult.  It may be the sensor on the Wii, but the moves are so hard to pull off that after a few matches, the enemies won’t be lenient by letting you attempt to dodge an attack two or three times only to accidentally throw a right or left jab, and instead the cpu will pummel you to death without hesitation.

Even when I set the difficulty down to the easiest level, I had to ask a friend of mine to help me beat the game.

All of the characters are satirical representations of celebrates.  Simon Cowl and Sylvester Stalone and David Beckham all make appearances alongside other celebrities.  All of the characters have different pluses and minuses.  Some characters have higher amounts of speed at the sacrifice of power.  Others have the opposite.  But what all this really means is that you can’t swing relentlessly throughout a bout due to a meter of energy that each boxer has.  The meter is good; it helps to vary the pacing of the bout so you can tell who’s got skill and who doesn’t.  But almost all the skill in R2R:  Revolution is based in luck.  If the game doesn’t recognize the way in which you shake the Wii-mote and nunchuck, you’re probably going to be pummeled.

That occurs to often causing confusion and defeat.  Even on the easiest difficulty, I had to plug a good half-hour into it just to beat the game.  And on top of that, winning doesn’t even feel that good because I was never sure if I won or just got lucky.

The character creation is a little silly and it is incredibly difficult to increase the skills of the characters you have created.  The clothing items are dull and don’t show me that the creators of the game really cared about that section.  The game has a cartoony vibe where all the characters are silly and nasty, like Ren & Stimpy but not as good.

Each character has a special move that they can only utilize when they’ve filled up their Rumble meter at the top of the screen.  There are a few ways to fill this meter up.  Either through silly taunting or by dodging/ducking/weaving your opponents attacks.  Once the meter is filled and you activate it, the round will inevitably take a pause due to the fact that after three successful swings, you will for sure knock your opponent to the ground.  Then they’ll have to frantically shake the controller up and down to get up.  The fact that this is so predictable, it becomes more of a fight of who can keep the opponent from filling up their bar.

Ready 2 Rumble:  Revolution is an overall disappointing attempt at creating a Wii boxing game due to the fact that the characters are unoriginal, the controls are based on luck, and the game is far to difficult (which is in parts due to the awful controls).  I don’t know who Atari planned on marketing this game for, but it surely isn’t anyone who likes to play video games.  I recommend they rethink this approach, make it easier and more responsive, and eliminate the silly character design.

But, past all of that, the power meter is a good inclusion to a boxing game.  None of that relentless punching.  And the game is hard, so if you like a challenge that you can’t really improve upon but merely become better at randomly flailing the controller around, this game is for you.

While the original utilized a complicated (but worthwhile) combination of the GameCube along with Game Boy Advances as controllers and a place for the game’s menus and maps to show up during multiplayer, the second entry in the series came on the Nintendo DS in the form of Ring of Fates. While impressive in the sense that you had a multiplayer, Diablo/Gauntlet style action RPG on the DS, it seemed a bit unfocused at times. The game was not sure of whether it should be a single player adventure or a multiplayer one, and this hampered the experience of both. The fact that online play was a no-go and multiplayer was limited to local play was also a huge disappointment, given the DS can handle that sort of thing.

Enter Echoes of Time, the latest entry in the Crystal Chronicles series. This game brings with it online play as well as local multiplayer, once again boasts four player multiplayer, a brand new story, and tons of replay value in the forms of quests, loot collecting, item and gear creation, and the ability to jump in and out of single and multiplayer through the use of save points at any time. Rather than just release the game on the DS alone though, Square Enix also ported the game over to Wii in a way that attempts to replicate the DS experience. In this review, we will take a look at how successful each iteration of the game was, and which one you should pick up (if not both).

Let’s start with the DS version of Echoes of Time. For a DS game, this looks good, with detailed (and varied) environments, loads of enemies, impressive looking spell casting, and customizable characters that reflect your changes in gear on screen. The art style is basically what Final Fantasy Tactics A2 would look like, were it in 3D and an action RPG rather than a strategy based one. There is some voice acting, cutscenes that help to tell the story, and a long quest that can be replayed multiple times thanks to the four different classes of characters, all with their own strengths, weaknesses, and exclusive equipment. Square often charges more for their DS games than other publishers, even Nintendo, but it’s tough to argue with the practice given the level of quality and production they put into the cartridge titles. Echoes of Time is an example of that, as it’s worth the $40 price tag given everything it includes as well as the care Square Enix put into developing the game world.

Fighting is basic, as you attack with the press of a button, or hold that button and release it to use a special attack. Magic is used by selecting one of your available elemental (or healing spells) on the touch screen, and then moving a circle underneath the enemy or area you want to cast it. Rather than learn new spells, you gain the ability to stack magic; move one ring of Fire onto an enemy, then lock it there and move a second ring. Cast, and you’ve now performed Fira rather than the simple Fire. You can also combine your spells with the spells of those you are playing with, which can help to make quick work of enemies and even some bosses when done right. Square Enix thankfully did away with the tiresome magic orb system, and has instead given you access to all of the spells immediately, and for use as often as you want assuming you have magic points.

In order to upgrade your spells attack or healing power, you need to collect tokens from defeated enemies. These appear with a small avatar in the center that represent certain spells or attacks, and they boost the power of that spell when you collect enough of them. You can also earn these by completing quests, and it’s a great way to make your attacks more powerful in addition to leveling.

There are plenty of weapons and items to buy outright, but you pick up tons of material that can be used to create those same things for a cheaper price, and there are also some weapons and armors that you may be able to create before you can buy them. You need a scroll to create an item, but you can find these in chests, by defeating enemies, or by purchasing them. If you’re playing with friends, you can also drop items, materials and money for your friends to use, if you happen to have need of each other’s inventory in order to create things.

You can also upgrade equipment you buy or create before you wear it by infusing it with jewels. These jewels can be found or created, and increase the power of your equipment. You create jewels by trading in your leveled up equipment for them-equipment has its own leveling system and level cap, and when it’s full it’s best to turn them into jewels and find something new. This keeps your inventory fresh and also gives you customizable equipment and various play styles, as jewels can do something as simple as cause healing items to give you back more HP, or they can make you impervious to certain elements or attacks.

The DS version of the game is a must own title, and even at $40 it’s easy to be amazed at just how much there is for you to do in this game. The addition of online multiplayer is a huge boost to the series, as you no longer need to get a bunch of friends together in one place in order to play multiplayer; the ability to drop in and out of single player at save points is also much better than the two separate save files you needed in Ring of Fates.

While they could have been forgiven for simply making Trivial Pursuit a digital experience rather than one you play on your coffee or kitchen table with friends, there was more work put into it than that, and to the benefit of the player. Rather than just re-create the classic style of gameplay and call it a day, two new game modes were introduced, as well as a few other nifty features that fans of stat tracking and leaderboards are sure to enjoy.

The classic game mode is here, and it works very well. Up to three friends can play along with you, just like you are playing the actual board game, only now everything is done on your television. You can waggle the Wii Remote to roll the dice, or you can just press A to accomplish the same goal. Moving your puck is performed with the IR pointer of the Wii Remote, which is efficient; it also helps that the game board only highlights the spaces you can move to with each roll, so you don’t have to count and can make quick decisions about your next move. The only part of the experience that is grating is the announcer, who has a variety of things to say, but repeats very often. Luckily he’s pushed to the background on a volume level, so he’s easily ignored.

If you’re looking for something a little different from Trivial Pursuit than the classic gameplay, you have the Facts & Friends mode. This is also with up to four players, but there is a twist. First of all, you do not need to land on the wedge space in order to acquire the piece; instead, you can answer a certain number of questions to earn points for each category, which in turn leads to a wedge. There are also bonus spaces where the roll again spaces used to be, and these can earn you wedges if you’re lucky enough to roll that option. When a wedge is acquired in this mode, either through points or  bonuses, that category disappears from the board; those two things help to speed the game up considerably.

This isn’t the only change to the core game though. Now, your friends can bet on whether you know the answer to a question or not, and can also back up their confidence by saying they know the answer. If you answer in the way they bet you would, they get points, but they can also steal the points by guessing correctly if they claimed they knew. This hurts people who get through Trivial Pursuit by randomly guessing, but should make just about everyone else who actually knows trivia well happy.

There is a single-player mode, so you can enjoy the core experience of Trivial Pursuit with some added twists that make it worth your while, and give the game plenty of replay value even outside of playing with buddies. This mode is called “Clear the Board”, and the objective is to land on spaces in order to “clear” them from the board. You don’t need to answer the question correctly in order to clear the space, but you add to your multiplier and overall score if you do. Each correct question for a category gives the wedge space a boost to its multiplier (up to 10 times), and there is no penalty for answering a question on a regular space wrong, outside of losing the chance to score points on it. If you answer incorrectly on a wedge space though, you lose a multiplier for each response.

Each time you answer a wedge space question correctly, it erases all of that category from the board, making it smaller and easier to navigate. Once you have all of the wedges, you are asked a random final bonus question, the winning point total of which is multiplied by the total multiplier you have remaining. Each incorrect response here also takes off a multiplier point. You can replay this game just for the fun of some trivia, or to achieve a high score or fastest completion time. There are also objectives to complete, which are awarded based on how well you do in different categories, which gives you the ability to try to tackle the game different ways in order to clear them all.

I’m a big fan of trivia games, and though there are many different options out there in both the digital and board game worlds, Trivial Pursuit has been a longtime favorite. This edition is both a nod to the classic board game as well as loaded with options that should make even the most die-hard board game enthusiast intrigued. Let’s not forget that this game costs just $40, which is less than your standard retail game and also about the same price as the actual board game, despite having more options and game modes.If you’re looking for something to play with your friends or family that doesn’t involve exploding zombies or headshots, then Trivial Pursuit will more than fill that need.

For some reason, Sega seems content to churn out a bunch mediocre Sonic games to keep the franchise alive long enough to get its characters into Smash Brothers while it could put the same amount of time and manpower behind an actual quality endeavor you would be proud to put on the shelf next to Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess. With Sonic and the Black Knight, exclusive to the Wii, Sega continues this fairly disappointing trend, using the beloved blue speedster in titles that are, frankly, beneath him.

Thankfully, Black Knight is on the higher quality end of the spectrum, but it is a far cry from the quality gameplay and genre that made Sonic a landmark franchise. It’s mostly  hack-and-slash game with a few speed-based and platforming elements at odd intervals, featuring a sword wielding Sonic in the kingdom of Camelot. For purists of the Sonic franchise (and scholars of Arthurian legend), the very idea of this might seem offensive, but when you put those details aside, and accept the fairly high level of ridiculousness as just entertaining, it makes for a pretty decent game.

The game opens with Merlina, granddaughter of Merlin, being chased by a huge scary looking King Arthur, who is the titular Black Knight. Merlina, being a wizard like her grandfather, casts a summon spell when faced with an army of dark soldiers from the underworld. A hole is torn in the sky, and out falls a blue hedgehog and two chili dogs. Sonic rescues Merlina, but can’t defeat Arthur because he is in possession of the scabbard of Excalibur, which grants the bearer the power of immortality. Sonic and Merlina go off to find the lady of the lake (who is Amy acting in that role) and Arthur dispatches his Knights (Knuckles, Shadow, and Blaze), and from there on out the very basic objective is to run fast and smash stuff with your talking sword, Caliburn. Yes, there is a talking sword.

Once you take the plunge and accept that you are playing an Arthurian legend game with a hedgehog protagonist, the game actually starts to get fun. The principle mode of gameplay is running in a mostly straight line, steered occasionally with the nunchuck, and hacking with the Wiimote to swing your sword. The combat elements are a little repetitive, but the fun comes in at fighting at as high a speed as possible. The sword swinging graphics aren’t great if you slow down and really scrutinize them, but you shouldn’t be doing that because you’re Sonic; RUN! When combat is at its height, you are charging into thick groups of enemies, sword swinging, and you can barely see anything but the crush of soldiers and demons until the dust settles and Sonic moves on to the next battle. The combination of speed and swordplay is a fairly novel one, and, I think, worth a lot more exploration, though it’s done fairly well in this game.

At its worst, which occurs in the somewhat-to-very awkward boss battles, the combat expects an aggravating amount of precision timing in your Wiimote swings: swing half a second too late, you get hit, swing half a second too early, you get hit (yes, there are instances where this Sonic game will punish you for being too fast). However, the satisfaction of leveling an entire phalanx of underworld soldiers makes the frustrating bits worth enduring, and ensures a strong replay value.

Unfortunately, the other aspects of the game do not play out as well as the combat. If you’re looking for a Sonic-style speed platformer, you will not find it with Black Knight. There are definitely platforming elements, and some of them are very cool (near the game’s end you run across the back of a beam of lightning), but they are few and far between, though the levels in which they are most prevalent are definitely the most satisfying to complete. These platform-intensive volcanoes and dragon’s caves are, unfortunately, mostly towards the end of the game, and don’t completely make up for the bland environments of the castles and villages. Sure, there’s lots of jumping from one stone structure to the next, but most of it is just progression down a line of enemies and can quickly get repetitive if that’s not why you invested in the game.

The game also has a few, very weird glitches. There was one instance in a boss battle where, as Sonic was running towards a fire-breathing dragon, he came to an abrupt halt and attacked a stone pillar on the side of the battlefield for no apparent reason; it had no bearing on defeating the boss, and Sonic’s attacks seemed to do nothing more than waste time and attract fire balls.

There was also the instance where I was somehow able to completely bypass a story-relevant cut-scene, where Sonic and his new wise-cracking sword go visit Amy, the Lady of the Lake. I know this scene exists because I saw my roommate play through it, but I somehow just played around it, and was surprised to find myself completing the mission Amy would have otherwise have set before me. It wasn’t really detrimental to the game overall, but just keep it in mind if parts of the story don’t seem to flow together the way they should.

Definitely the strangest thing about the game-yes, even stranger than Knuckles, the flying echidna in knight’s armor-is that after you defeat the knights of the round table and find a way to bypass King Arthur’s Scabbard of immortality, the credits roll. What makes this strange, and this is crucial to your gaming experience, is that the game is only half way over at this point. There is only about 3 hours of gameplay up to that point (it’s a short game), and there are at least 3 more much, much better hours afterwards, but there is also a full credit sequence dividing the two. There’s a chance I would not have caught it and gone on thinking I had just finished the shortest game ever. If your gaming experience does not sync completely with the rest of this review, check your game status: you may have only just started.

Sonic and the Black Knight gets off to a rocky and somewhat ridiculous start, and is likely not what a lot of us are looking for in a Sonic game, but give it time and it will grow on you. It definitely picks up in the later levels, and without giving too much away, there is the requisite Super Sonic level, which is one of the better boss battles. The story and the characters aren’t subtle, and the world isn’t particularly imaginative or worth exploring, but the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, and can provide several hours of good solid fun. It’s probably not worth the full $49.99 price tag, but it’s definitely worth playing if you get the chance. It’s by no stretch the corner stone game the franchise really needs to stay afloat into future generations of gaming, but it’s more fun than not, and in the end not a bad game. It just doesn’t live up to the expectations attached to the name Sonic the Hedgehog.

Enter Platinum Games. This new company is not one lacking in experience, as it is made up of former members of Clover and Capcom, responsible for creating mainstream successes (Devil May Cry, Resident Evil) as well as cult classics that deserve a place in your games library (Okami, Viewtiful Joe, Godhand). Leave it to a studio with this kind of pedigree to try their hand at 2009’s version of No More Heroes with MadWorld, a game that is more violent, more over-the-top, and just as stylistic as last year’s gem.

MadWorld is presented in black and white, much like the Sin City comic books. It’s a wonderful style that works on the Wii; the Wii doesn’t have the horsepower for the realistic graphics output of its two console cousins, but the Wii can do stylized, and do it well. Besides the black and white, there is lots and lots of red. If the blood you spilled pooled in Varrigan City, there would be flash flood warnings for days. The violence is completely ridiculous as well, and you will catch yourself giggling like a school girl at some of the destruction you cause-it’s probably best for our mental health that this game eschews realism for a distinct art style, or else we would feel worse about what we are doing.

Varrigan City has been overrun by terrorists and made into the stage for a game show called “Death Watch”. Think of something like The Running Man, with countless thugs and warriors battling it out until just one survives as champion of the games. Your (anti) hero, Jack, has been sent to the island to compete, but he also has some motives you are not privy to until later in the game. You may be surprised considering this is a brawler, but the story is solid and adds to the game. It has a few twists and turns along the way that will keep you interested in between the nonstop bouts of vicious rampaging.

Gameplay consists of running up to the assorted baddies picking fights around town, and basically showing them that you are more of a badass than they are through the use of a variety of punches, weapons, and environmental objects. You can string together short combos of punches that can be concluded with a finisher, easily controlled with a downward or sideways swipe of the Wii Remote. Not only is this system intuitive-you don’t have to waggle for every punch, just make a quick flick for a serious uppercut or hook to stun a baddy-but it works, and works well.

There are also finishing moves that are performed by holding down the A button once the prompt appears, and then you will be shown a variety of different motion controlled actions. Grab a guy by the legs and swing him around until you find something to throw him on or at, or use him to bowl over a group of enemies-this is controlled by swinging the Wii Remote. Knock a guy to the floor and cut his face right down the middle to the floor-this is controlled with a single quick, downward thrust of the Wii Remote. Platinum Games’ choices all make sense for the Wii Remote, and are not just thrown in there because it’s on the Wii. Given the nature of the game, the finishers are actually more satisfying because of the motion controls.

If you don’t want to off the competition with a hard punch and finisher combo, you also have a chainsaw attachment on your arm, which is accessed by holding the B button. You can swipe downward or side to side, and the results for the basic enemies is instant death. This would be a boring way to go through the game though, and would make each level take forever; points for kills are based on how creative you are, so the more thought you put into stringing out someone’s death as long as you can, the more of a reward you get. Given each level has a time limit, you’re going to need to unleash some bloody artistry on those remaining in Varrigan City.

How creative can you get with your kills? Let’s take for instance one of my kills that stands out. After punching a thug a few times and stunning him with an uppercut, I grabbed a nearby tire (hold down the A button to grab and continue holding an object) and slammed it down on the dazed man with a downward motion of the Wii Remote. While he stumbled around with his arms trapped, I grabbed a signpost off the road and then slammed it through his head; again, with a single (admittedly satisfying) motion of the Wii Remote. I then picked him up, dumped him into a nearby barrel, and picked up the barrel, and slammed him repeatedly into a giant spiked wall known as a “rose bush”. Repeatedly.

It’s not a surprise that Nintendo would choose to release this game as one of its New Play Control! Titles, as motion controlled tennis is something we know works on the system just from all of our initial experiences with Wii Sports’ Tennis. What may come as a surprise to you though is that at times, the controls do not work as well as their GameCube counterparts. That seems to go against one of the key points of reintroducing the game.

That’s not to say that the Wii version of Mario Power Tennis is a bad game. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a better tennis game on the system if you were to walk into a store today, but that also says a lot about the competition-Sega Superstars Tennis tried to be the Sega version of Mario Power Tennis, but it failed to execute on a level that would satisfy anyone but the younger crowd due to poor mini-games and iffy controls.

Let’s get to the basics of Mario Power Tennis: it is both a hyperbolic representation of tennis and a realistic tennis experience, depending on how you configure the settings. Using characters from the Mario video games and spin-offs, as well as courts designed after many well-known locations from those games, you can play exhibition matches, tournaments, or mini-games that are meant to enhance your skill and lengthen the game experience. You can play alone or with up to four players in two-on-two doubles matches.

There are four different control schemes available for you in this new version of the game, with Easy having your power shot and lunging towards the ball done automatically, while Manual has you control everything on your own. Normal and Technical fall somewhere in between the other two settings as far as how much you have to do and how much is done for you automatically. In order to get used to the controls, you can start with easy to figure out the basics, and then change these options anytime before a match. The four control schemes work well, though Manual can be a hassle when the Wii Mote controls are not being as responsive as you would like them to be.

In addition to the different control types, you also have four levels of difficulty to set the AI at. This allows you to have a more challenging experience, and unlike the aforementioned Sega Superstars Tennis, the AI is at times pretty good in this game, and will avoid falling for simple tricks, requiring you to put a bit of strategy into your shots instead of just wailing on the ball as hard as you can.

As for what you can do, if you swing the remote diagonally upward you get a hard hit forehand shot, diagonally downward gets you a backhand, you swing straight across for a regular shot, straight up for a lob, and straight down for a drop shot right over the net. If a star appears under your feet, you can swing up to get a smash shot. Going back and forth with your opponent will charge up your power gauge, which when full will allow you to perform your power shot. This leads to an animation of your character performing one of the two moves they have; these shots add a level of strategy, as you need to defend against them (or defend against them occurring in the first place) but if you would like to play without them, you can set that option in the pre-match menu.

One of the first of these is Pikmin, a real-time strategy game that released early in the GameCube’s life-cycle and eventually saw a sequel. The brainchild of Shigeru Miyamoto, Pikmin was created based on Miyamoto’s daydreams in his own garden (while our daydreams involve skipping out on work or imagining that the pretty waitress is actually interested in us, Miyamoto daydreams million sellers. If only, huh?).

The game revolves around Captain Olimar, who has crash-landed on a strange, alien planet. The air is full of poisonous oxygen, so Olimar has just 30 days to collect his ship’s missing parts and escape before the unimaginable happens to the adorable space pilot.

Olimar stumbles upon an “Onion”, which sprouts a small bud. When he plucks the bud from the ground, a red creature, which he names a Pikmin thanks to its resemblance to a food on his home world, appears. Olimar goes about learning just what the Pikmin can do, and begins to sprout more of these creatures by feeding the onion certain objects and fallen creatures from the environment. You eventually discover two other colors of Pikmin (yellow and blue) and have to use them to fend off enemy creatures, explore further into each region, and eventually discover all of your ship’s parts to Olimar can head back home before time runs out.

Each Pikmin type has different abilities. Red ones are the best fighters, and they are also impervious to fire. Yellow ones jump very high, and can also use powerful bombs on both walls and enemies. The Blue Pikmin have gills, and therefore can breathe underwater, and are also capable of saving your other Pikmin from drowning. In addition, there are three stages to each Pikmin as well. When they are first planted, they have a leaf on their heads, and are basic Pikmin. Either by staying in the ground for a certain amount of time or by acquiring yellow nectar upgrades hidden in the grass and held by certain enemies, your leaf Pikmin can upgrade to have a bud or a flower on their heads. Those with buds and flowers move faster and attack more powerfully than the lower level Pikmin, and will be the first ones jettisoned from their respective Onions at your base when you call for them.

The controls are incredibly simple now that you have use of the Wii Remote. This is a real-time strategy game after all, and there’s a reason those are most effective on the PC rather than on a console with a standard controller. The IR pointer acts in place of a mouse in this updated version of the game, and it does the job well. You can control your army of Pikmin with a speed you could not attain on the standard controller, and you can also aim much more effectively with your throws of the creatures than you could before, making battling more effective and efficient.

You point at the screen with the Wii Remote and press A to throw your Pikmin there. You can wrangle them up with the B button (and at a further range than in the original version of the game, thanks to the IR function of the Wii Remote). Pressing Z will realign the camera, but you can also rotate it like you would on a PC by combining the Z button with the pointer functions of the Wii Remote, giving you a thorough and fast view of the area around you at any time. Disperse your Pikmin into separate groups with the C button, change the camera (there are three separate views: the normal view as well as both zoomed in and zoomed out versions) with the left and right buttons on the Directional Pad, and manually direct your Pikmin in a line with down on the D-pad while pressing C on the Nunchuk.

House of the Dead: Overkill, developed by London-based Headstrong Games (formerly Kuju, the minds behind Battalion Wars) and published by Sega, is one of those reminders. As you blast your way through levels infested with mutants and abominations of science, listening to your partner spew forth obscenities like he’s paid by the curse while catchy music plays in the background, you will realize that you are having an obscene amount of fun.

Obscenity is the name of the game in Overkill, the latest entry in the House of the Dead series that was built from the ground up for the Wii. This isn’t a port, like House of the Dead 2 & 3 Returns was, as Headstrong went into this wanting to utilize the IR functions of the Wii Remote while also delivering the mature-starved Wii audience the hardcore game they had been waiting for. Overkill doesn’t break its promise either, as it’s so over-the-top in every way that you’ll find yourself glued to the television enjoying everything it has to offer for hours.

You play as Agent G in this prequel to the House of the Dead series, and your partner, who you just met as shown by the first cutscene, is Detective Isaac Washington. Agent G is out to find Papa Caesar as a member of the AMS, as he needs to be arrested for his crimes, while Isaac Washington wants to find Caesar in order to exact revenge for the murder of his father. Things get a bit tricky once they kill the brother of the voluptuous Varla Guns, who had been forced to help Caesar in his scientific experiments. The three develop an odd relationship that develops as the story unfolds, and it’s entertaining to watch and listen to the chemistry (or blatant lack of it) amongst the trio.

The three characters have plenty of dialogue throughout the levels and during cutscenes, and instead of being hilarious for being terrible like much of the dialogue in the past arcade titles, the one-liners and quips are funny because they are well-written and perfectly reflect and parody that grindhouse style. For those of you who aren’t aware, Headstrong was inspired by grindhouse movies (think the recently released tribute to grindhouse, Planet Terror), and their tribute perfectly captures that vibe.

Each level begins with a movie trailer that is meant to unveil more of the story and also set you up for the next area you are visiting; each of these levels also has a grindhouse style movie poster that I wish were available in a form outside of the game, because they are absolutely wall-worthy. It’s clear Headstrong had fun making this game, at least as much fun as you will have playing through it.

Visually, Overkill also captures that grindhouse aesthetic. There’s a filter running that makes the game look as if you’re watching it on grainy film with burn marks and holes in it, and it adds to the feel of the game. This is also a gory affair, with gallons of blood and puss spewing from the holes you make in the mutants with your weaponry. You will make holes in your adversaries as well, because the enemies react to where you shoot them; blow off an arm, and watch the mutant stumble back, or kneecap him and when he or she hits the ground, blow their head off with a well placed shot. You will want to string together shots like this too rather than just trying to kill everything that moves with a headshot, as the more consecutive hits you put together, the higher your combo and point totals go, until you reach “Goregasm”, a statistic that tracks how long you can go without missing a shot.

Your weapons start out weak, but by putting together higher scores, clearing levels and reaching certain achievements (finish a level without dying in the more difficult Director’s Cut mode for instance, or kill 50 mutants in a level “gangsta style”, with your gun cocked sideways as you fire) you earn cash that helps you pimp out your weapons, giving you more time and firepower to clear a level more successfully. There are plenty of weapons to choose from as well, with various forms of pistols, shotguns, machine guns, rifles and the like at your disposal, just waiting for you to purchase them.