Archive for the “Wii Reviews” Category

Console game development takes time,
but action-platformer The Kore Game: Outvasion From Inner Earth has taken more
than most. In the works for nearly a decade and having passed through the hands
of three publishers and three developers, it has the potential to be absurdly
polished or a colossal dud. While the actual result isn’t exactly the
interactive equivalent of the Hope Diamond, it is filled with enough
bizarre humor and creative level design to easily avoid Dudsville…

How do you make a videogame franchise out of a 36-year-old movie shark whose entire film career is built on lurking in dark water and turning swimmers into shredded corpses? If you’re publisher Majesco, you shove him into increasingly ridiculous confrontations with evil corporations and giant monsters, and - in the Wii version of Jaws: Ultimate Predator, at least - you do so in as bloodless and insane a way as possible…

Tintin is a Belgian boy who somehow manages to be a
journalist without ever writing a word, who knocks out grown men twice his size
with a single fling of his fist, and who lives in a world where the only woman
is a jolly opera singer who exists only to make us laugh. In short, his life
plays out like a little boy’s dream – or at least the type of boy who juggles
ambitions of winning the science fair with fantasies of clobbering the local
bully. The good news is that it’s not a disagreeable dream, and while it
suffers from excessively easy gameplay and forced variety, The Adventures of
Tintin is a bit more rewarding than its movie franchise origins might suggest…

It’s not usually a good sign when a game wears its “influences” too plainly on its sleeve. Usually, it means that the experience is creatively bankrupt, and hopes to rely on good will towards the game it’s copying instead of coming up with good ideas of its own. It’s not always the case, but it’s infrequent that a game that can legitimately be called a “clone” will ever end up being any good. We really hoped that this wasn’t the case with Punch Time Explosion, and we had visions of playing Smash Bros. with our favorite Cartoon Network characters and having a grand old time. Sadly, that wasn’t exactly what we got…

Get ready for excitement because scales are gonna fly! No,
that’s not right – fishing isn’t just
like MMA, we forgot. Programmer Yuji Naka is known mainly for being the
co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, which he knows fast action, which further
means we had hopes he could bring some excitement to… fishing. Since 2006, Naka
and his company Prope have been the prime movers behind such family-friendly
games as Let’s Tap. With Fishing Resort, Prope takes us on a sometimes-fun,
frequently tiresome excursion in an adventure-slash-fishing game for the
Nintendo Wii…

Early as it is, sports lovers are already abuzz about next
year’s Summer Olympic Games. With tickets harder to come by than a tea-time
chat with the Queen, the closest most of us will ever get to the event is
Sega’s newest title, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Unfortunately for us, this half-inspired, half-humdrum sequel offers an
experience of the Games that’s more bronze than gold-medal-worthy…

After
enjoying two decades of success in its native Japan, the Fortune Street series has
finally made its way west in its first outing on Wii. To put it briefly, it’s
like a beefed-up, more strategic version of Monopoly with a Mario and Dragon
Quest theme. If you love any of these things, Fortune Street is worthy of being
your new go-to party game…

If you have
played any of the other LEGO games you already know what to expect with LEGO
Harry Potter: Years 5-7. Set in the LEGOfied wizarding world, the newest
iteration never delivers on moving the series beyond what has already been
done, but it does provide solid gameplay, plenty of fan service, and the charm
the LEGO games have become known for…

These days,
it’s generally inadvisable to purchase a game sight unseen without checking
reviews first, but if there’s any series that merits complete trust based on
its track record, it’s Zelda. So it’s no surprise that The Legend of Zelda:
Skyward Sword is a must-play not only for all Zelda fans, but all Wii owners in
general. In nearly every way, it upholds the high standard of the series and is
a worthy entry to mark Zelda’s 25th anniversary…