Archive for the “Wii Reviews” Category

Toy Story 3 doesn’t introduce you to the characters, or catch you up to speed. Instead of starting the game in a tutorial, you assume Woody’s position jumping from train car to train car, while fighting off Evil Dr. Porkchop’s alien henchmen. Controls are simple enough, with buttons allotted to jump, hold Z to ender aiming mode, and the cursed “shake to attack” command. Besides that, the only help you’ll get are hints scattered around the level in little toy machine capsules. You don’t have to pick them up or ever see what they have to say. It’s a breath of fresh air in the three-hour tutorial kind of world we live in… …

If we could’ve laid odds in Vegas some time between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year against a new Tiger Woods game appearing in 2010, we would’ve jumped on it. Considering the fact that Tiger barely played in ’09, then had a little scandal you may have heard about, we were prepared for EA to pull out of the Tiger business for a summer… …

Before you start up Bit.Trip Runner, grab a sticky note and jot down this very important instruction.  “DO NOT FORGET TO BLINK.” Take the aforementioned note, and place it somewhere visible on your television screen, because you will forget… …

The Wii is a joke, or at least that’s how it often feels. In the past, we’ve gotten lots of mileage out of mocking the system and its mega-hits, like Wii Play, Game Party and (sigh) Just Dance. We still turn on our Wii every now and then, mostly just to play the rare “real” games that get put on disc or come to WiiWare, like Cave Story did. But give us more Mario Galaxy and we hurriedly dust off the white wonder, install new batteries and get to waggling, no questions asked, as all the cynicism and bad feelings wash away.

And why not? The first Galaxy has remained the best game for the system in the two-and-a-half years since its release. Once Super Mario Galaxy 2 was announced, we were filled with high hopes that at least something would be coming to the system that could keep up with competition, instead of merely side-stepping it with casual hits and exercise plans. But is Galaxy 2 what we hoped for? Or is it just microwaved leftovers from the brilliant first outing? …

The Prince finds himself hanging onto critical acclaim by his fingertips with The Forgotten Sands. The Scampering Sovereign, normally so impeccable with his timing, has well and truly fudged up his leap onto the game shelves this time around. To his left, his right and from above, the juggernaut that is Mario Galaxy 2 is closing in on him, like a spinning pillar of doom, ready to knock this pretender to the platforming throne off its perch… …

It’s difficult to imagine Tony Stark, genius tech-development maverick and everyone’s favorite man of iron, endorsing a version of his “biography” on the Wii. With the Wii’s track record of patchwork controls and second-tier graphics, we imagine Mr. Stark would demand a higher end console to host his life’s story, perhaps even one he designed himself.

In this case, his instincts would be right… …

Using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as virtual scalpels, syringes, and other tools of the medical trade felt so right in Wii launch title Trauma Center: Second Opinion, and follow-up New Blood only sweetened the pot with the advent of co-op play. Now Trauma Team takes the series along a much broader path, splitting up the cutting and curing into different specialties, and infusing adventure elements into the experience with surgical precision — all without losing what made the original entries so worthwhile and unique… …

Using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as virtual scalpels, syringes, and other tools of the medical trade felt so right in Wii launch title Trauma Center: Second Opinion, and follow-up New Blood only sweetened the pot with the advent of co-op play. Now Trauma Team takes the series along a much broader path, splitting up the cutting and curing into different specialties, and infusing adventure elements into the experience with surgical precision — all without losing what made the original entries so worthwhile and unique… …

Bango! A 50-yard belter from Stevie G. Blam! A 30-yarder fizzed in from Rooney. Thwack! A stunning bicycle kick from the goal machine that is Emile Heskey. We’re only 12 minutes into our opening World Cup match and already we’ve netted three of the finalists for the Goal of the Tournament competition. And there we were worrying that our love affair with FIFA might be stretched thin by this mid-year release… …

Monster Hunter fights last up to 50 minutes; 50 minutes of full-on claw-evading, potion-swigging, monster-cleaving concentration. Fingers Riverdance over buttons, rolling and leaping. Eyes dart for safe ground, hungrily searching for the five seconds needed to sharpen a dulled blade… …