Posted by Andrea Campton in Featured, Nintendo DSi, Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: Maestro! Green Groove Review (DSiWare)

A little birdie flew over my head and told me that this quaint rhythm game is worth a look.

Posted by Jim Avery in Featured, Nintendo Wii, Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (Wii)

The “punishment” part is certainly correct…

Posted by n00b in Featured, Nintendo DS, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (DS)

Guest reviewer n00b follows the Yellow Brick road.  See if he made it to speak with the Wizard or not.

Posted by Jim Avery in Featured, Nintendo DS, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Pokémon SoulSilver Version (DS)

Is this remake worth another trip to the game store?

Posted by Andrea Campton in Featured, Nintendo DS, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Tetris Party Deluxe (DS)

Another version of Tetris hits the Nintendo DS and it may be on par with the last version put on the system.

Posted by Jake Bellissimo in Featured, Nintendo DS, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Dragon Ball: Origins 2

Can the Dragon Ball franchise entertain gamers once again?

Posted by Jim Avery in Featured, Nintendo Wii, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

Does Nintendo make lightning strike twice with this sequel?

Posted by David Craig in General News, Nintendo Wii, Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: Green Day Rock Band

I hope you like Dookie.

Posted by Andrea Campton in Featured, Nintendo DS, Reviews | Comments Off

Review In Action: America’s Test Kitchen Let’s Get Cooking (DS)

My mother who claims knowledge of baking, checks out this interactive cookbook with me.

Posted by Andrea Campton in Featured, General News, Reviews | Comments Off

Nintendo Fan Network At Safeco Field 2010

Another year, another visit to Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, to check out the Nintendo Fan Network.

Posted by Jake Bellissimo in Featured, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Alice In Wonderland (DS)

Is the trip down the rabbit hole worth it?

Posted by Josh Beebe in Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Dementium II

Renegade Kid delivers yet another great FPS title for DS.

Posted by Jim Avery in Featured, Nintendo DS, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS)

Does the critically-acclaimed series still hold up with a new style of gameplay?

Posted by Jake Bellissimo in Featured, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

For fans of the Zelda franchise (and just casual gamers), this title does not disappoint.

Posted by Jim Avery in Featured, Nintendo DS, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Picross 3D (DS)

Does the addictive puzzle game survive the jump to three dimensions?

Posted by David Craig in Featured, Nintendo DSi, Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: Photo Dojo (DSiWare)

Is fighting as yourself and your friends really as fun as it sounds on paper? In a word: kinda!

Posted by Andrea Campton in Featured, Nintendo DS, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Easy Piano (DS)

If you’ve ever been curious about playing the piano then Easy Piano hopes to help you out.  Although it is small in size, it offers those who may not have the means to play on a full sized keyboard a sample of what it’s like to play.

Posted by Andrea Campton in Featured, Nintendo Wii, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Rage of the Gladiator (WiiWare)

Although I haven’t played Punch-Out!! for the Wii, I can see where the appeal is.  Rage of the Gladiator is much in the same vein as the Nintendo boxing title, except with fantasy medieval spin.  Is it worth the 1000 Wii Points though?

Posted by Jake Bellissimo in Featured, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Disney’s Stitch Jam! (DS)

The Lilo and Stitch franchise may be recognized for animated movies, but Disney takes the series to  a rhythm platformer, which offers an enjoyable but brief experience.

Posted by Andrea Campton in Featured, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Reviews | Comments Off

Gear Review: LapDawg X4

Although the LapDawg X4 may appear to simply be a laptop desk, I found other usages for it in my review!

Posted by Chad Fleming in Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Dead Space: Extraction

I have to admit; when I heard EA was bringing Dead Space to the Wii I was skeptical. When I heard it would be an on-rails shooter I was doubly so. But, as they say, you should not judge a book by its cover, and those who do so with Dead Space: Extraction would be doing themselves  a serious disservice. Recently publishers have been trying to avoid the term “on-rails shooter”, namely because of the negative connotations it has these days. Instead most developers have opted to call the genre a “guided experience”. Sure it sounds campy, but this phrase almost perfectly describes Extraction. It is an experience. This game is not so much about the individual parts as it is about the great experience it provides players with.

The basic premise is that (after a brief prologue chapter) you play the role of Nathan McNeill, a detective who is part of a mining colony, with the USG Ishimura in orbit. Anyone who has played Dead Space knows all about the Ishimura, and it’s not long before things start going very badly down on the colony. You and a group of survivors are tasked with escaping to safety. If you haven’t played the first Dead Space, you’ll still be fine as far as the story is concerned. Extraction is only tangentially tied to the original game. That said, playing one first will definitely affect your experience with the other.

The escape takes place from the first-person perspective. Everything that happens is seen through the eyes of Nathan, not once do you leave that viewpoint. Even the “cutscenes” are all done in real time, using the in-game engine. That decision helps you develop a feeling of continuity; it allows you to take over the character’s role and be completely pulled in to the story. While the story itself certainly won’t break break any survival horror conventions, and is almost completely predictable, it’s the characters that really make the story work. While they all initially appear as pretty blatant stereotypes, the game does a good job of building their character throughout the experience.

Just like the original Dead Space, this game is very focussed on delivering a deep atmosphere. At no point does it become flat-out scary, but it is almost constantly creepy and tense. There wasn’t anything that made me jump out of my chair, and I’m notorious for being easily scared. The music is ethereal, it’s almost as though you hear it without quite realizing that you’re hearing it at all. The game also makes excellent use of lighting, or rather lack of lighting. Enemies often spawn in areas of little-to-no light, becoming illuminated as they get closer to you. Knowing there are creatures hovering just outside your vision increases the intensity you experience. Developing a keen eye that can spot these enemies in the darkness is essential to success, especially at the higher difficulty levels. Of course, you could just as easily turn up the brightness setting, but that’s not fun, now is it?

The atmosphere is even creepier because of the graphical fidelity of the game. Visceral has shown that it’s possible to create impressive graphics on the Wii. The character models look great, and the environments are nicely detailed. This can, in part, be explained by the on-rails nature of the game, as well as the heavy shadowing that occurs. Even more impressive is that this fidelity is attained without much of a hit in performance. This is definitely one of the best looking games on the Wii.

Of course, the gameplay is limited. Apart from brief soldering and welding minigames you spend the whole game just shooting. So, when shooting is the only mechanic it had better be good. Luckily Extraction is superb in this area. The aiming feels fluid and accurate, and there’s a fairly diverse range of enemies. There is also a wide range of weapons, most of which will be instantly recognized by anyone who has played the original game. These weapons can be upgraded by picking up upgrade kits from the environment. Each weapon also has an “alt fire” mode that can be activated by twisting the Wii remote sideways, adding even more strategy to the battles. Speaking of strategy, this game has more than your average on-rails shooter. Each enemy has a certain weakness, as well as a spot on their body where they’re vulnerable. Exploiting these weaknesses is a key part of the experience.

If you’re not into playing scary games on your own, Extraction has a co-op multiplayer mode, which is essentially the same as the single player mode. Each person controls one on-screen reticle to give you double the creepy monster busting power. That said, when playing co-op it’s advisable to bump up the difficulty so you don’t just roll through the enemies.

In addition to the story mode there are also challenge levels that unlock as you progress through the main story. This challenges are much more difficult than the normal story, and also have more of an arcade feel than the narrative driven main quest. In fact, you visibly rack up points as you slay monsters, and are given a score at the end. The game keeps track of top scores on a leaderboard, as well. As an added bonus, this mode is playable in co-op as well. If that’s not enough Dead Space for you, there are also motion comics available to view at your leisure. These aren’t quite as good-looking or as captivating as the campaign, but are worth checking out for any fans who are interested in the lore of the Dead Space universe.

When it comes down to it, this is an on-rails shooter. It is a superb on-rails shooter, perhaps second only to Darkside Chronicles, but if you’re not digging the on-rails genre then this game isn’t going to change you mind. That said, it was a great experience while it lasted; which was about 7 hours for the main story. I could easily see myself getting hooked on the challenge mode, though. Having a tangible score at the end is a great incentive to go back and try to beat it. Other than its length and lack of frights, however, this is a superb game that should definitely be experienced by anyone who even moderately enjoys on-rails shooters.

Posted by Andrea Campton in Nintendo Wii, Reviews | Comments Off

Guest Review: Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade is the latest edition in Natsume’s classic series originating on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. For the most part this game has stuck with the same basic features that have made the series such a success, with this newest release adding a few much beloved new features.  Kiwi lets us know her thoughts on this latest Harvest Moon entry.

Posted by Chris Bunner in Nintendo Wii, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars

My experience with the tournament fighter genre has been somewhat strange. There are some very popular games that I could never get into, such as Mortal Kombat series, while I loved games like Killer Instinct. Part of it may be to do with the pace of the game, or whether something different is implemented. Whatever the case may be, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom had something that caught my attention and pushed its way high on my to buy list as the release date neared, and having now had the game since a couple of weeks after it came out I believe I’ve got a solid opinion on it.

A game like this needs no story, which is good because there is hardly any at all. The gist of it is that the Capcom characters are somehow thrown into an alternate world where the Tatsunoko characters are where they fight against and along side of them. Each of the different characters has their own ending, and some of them will have special reactions depending on who they go up against in a fight. Some can be quite comical, some corny, and some just plain cool.

So what about the core of the game? Well, each fight consists of a 2 vs. 2 tag-team match. The action is fast paced and is the perfect type of game for stringing together tons of combos if you take the time to practice with certain characters. There are 27 playable characters, several of which you have to unlock. There is a good variation of play styles between the different fighters and overall they seemed to be balanced out fairly well as you will find very skilled players using many different combinations. Don’t worry about not knowing who the heck anybody is from the Tatsunoko side, either. I knew nobody on that side yet I like just as many of those characters as on the Capcom side. One thing that did frustrate me a bit, though, was the method you had to go about for unlocking the characters. It involved beating arcade mode (x) number of times with different characters from the Tatsunoko side to unlock Tatsunoko characters, or using Capcom characters to unlock those. It’s not that it takes too many times of playing arcade mode, it’s just that it forces you to use certain characters. The plus side to that is it will help you become familiar with more of the cast and allow you to get a better feel for which characters you’ll want to become your mains.

If you’re interested in how the controls work out, you have several options, which seems to be the direction many Wii games are taking now. If you want a simplified control scheme at the cost of less control over your actions, you can go with either the Wii Remote or the Remote/Nunchuk combo. Aside from those, you can also use a Game Cube or Classic controller, or even an arcade fight stick designed specifically for this game. If you take one of these latter three options then you will have more control over the type of attack you do, such as easy, medium, or hard. These attacks are divided between the A, X, and Y buttons, which apparently simplifies the control scheme from the previous vs. games. Despite this simplification, though, other techniques have been added which can help spice up your attacks and result in some wickedly long combos when used effectively.

You can’t forget about multiplayer either. Sure playing against the computer can last for a good while and provide enjoyment, but what keeps you coming back for more are those intense matches between you and another human controlled combatant. Have a friend jump on and go at it in versus mode. However, if you’ve got the itch for some real competition and you have nobody at hand that can do that for you, there’s always the option to take the game online. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom offers a good experience here with in-game friend lists, rival lists, and a ranking system. The best part is that as long as you have a good internet connection, most of the time you can find matches that will run smoothly. There are of course times when you will run into lag, but for the most part that has not been an issue for me.

Another thing that can add to the charm of the game is the graphics. They have a wonderful polish to them and the framerate never seems to slow down no matter what is going on (aside from the occasional lag issue online). The fighting plain is in 2D, however the character models are 3D, giving a 2.5D effect to the game. There are also certain times, such as during special moves, when the camera will move around for a better angle as you watch your character unleash a devastating amount of damage. Outside of gameplay, such as in the endings, the art keeps with the anime/manga style which only makes sense with the Tatsunoko characters here.

As you watch the opening video, you’ll be treated to a bit of J-Pop, though for the American release the song was mixed with some rap as well. Despite my strong distaste for the genre in most cases, I didn’t mind this addition as it seemed to fit pretty well. That being said, after looking up the original song in the Japanese version, I can say that it was perfectly fine the way it was and don’t see why they needed to change this. The majority of people who would want to pick up this game likely already find Japanese music appealing so the need to Americanize it is a bit puzzling. That’s no issue, though. Throughout the rest of the game it pleased me to find the Japanese voice actors still in place for almost all of the fighters. I believe the only ones to have American voiced characters are Viewtiful Joe and Frank West, which of course makes sense.

After spending hours with this game the first weekend that I got it as well as the many hours that have followed, I can say that this is without a doubt one of my favorite fighters ever. Not only is it great fun to play alone and even better when you’ve got friends around, the fact that it offers a good online experience pushes it right up to the top for the Wii. If you’re a fan of the vs. series or are just looking for a good fighter, then it’d be a crime to not pick this up.

Posted by Chris Bunner in Nintendo Wii, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: My Sims Agents

I’ve never really been interested in the Sims games, so I don’t really know how they play, but My Sims Agents seems nothing like The Sims at all. Basically My Sims copy the Mii style and put their own Sims style on them. So what exactly is My Sims Agents, and is it worth playing?

The game keeps things simple when concerning the story. You start out as a detective who helps out people around the town with simple stuff. One day when helping somebody you run into a man named Morcubus who has stereotypical villain written all over him. At this point you know very little of him, but you soon discover he is part of a much larger plot. You are also made into a special agent, although many of the “cases” you perform don’t seem very special agent-like. Still, seeing as the game is aimed towards kids, it’s not a real fault as it keeps things tame and clean.

The meat of the game of course consists of you solving cases for various people. This is done by finding clues that will go toward one suspect or another in determining who is guilty or what is going on. Early on things are very simple, but as the game goes it gets a little more difficult, almost feeling like a bit of a fetch-quest at times. Some people will be in need of help before they can help you, and often you’ll end up running all over the place. It’s not that bad, but it can get rather annoying at times when you have to keep running back and forth. The game also gives you the option of recruiting other agents to do their own assignments. Basically each of the characters that can be agents have their own talents, and these are added to by various items you find throughout the game. By putting agents in certain offices at the HQ and arranging the rooms with the right items, you can boost certain attributes that will help them better complete missions. After you finish the game you have the option of continuing playing and letting your agents complete these missions, and after having done them all you will get the real ending. What’s annoying is that it takes time for the agents to get their cases done and at this point the only thing left you have to keep you busy is find special items that are hidden in areas you’ve already been to.

There are also various little “mini-games” that you have to play when doing certain things. For instance, when picking a lock or when repairing something. Early on these puzzles start out simple, but late in the game they can really make you think and may take a little time to figure out. It was nothing that halted my gameplay, but for younger kids the later puzzle may prove to be frustrating if they have trouble with them. As for the controls, they are very simple and seem perfectly fine. I never once had an issue here and the motion controls were clean and did exactly what I wanted them to. It seems that EA knows how to not push things too much in that area for a game like this that doesn’t need excess motion control. The little bit of platforming that was involved remained pretty simple throughout, only slightly climbing in difficulty by the end.

Graphics in this game are very much cartoonish. As I mentioned before, the characters are reminiscent of Nintendo’s Miis and thus everything is kept fairly simplistic, though there is more detail than is to be found in something like Wii Sports. Nothing comes close to pushing the envelope even for the style they chose. However, this style doesn’t necessarily need flashy graphics to make it work, so in the end it all balances out.

One real thing that annoyed me in the game was the voices. All of the dialog is in text boxes, but there are still voices. The characters, however, never speak any real words. Everything they say is gibberish, even though it shows the emotion that they should be portraying. To me this gibberish seemed very annoying and stupid. If they went through the trouble of doing all of this, why not just speak in English and eliminate the need for reading the dialog? I guess you could argue that it fits the style of the game, but it just seemed like a very weird choice to me. As for the music, though, that seems to fit well. It’s far from anything that you will remember or want to listen to apart from the game, but it does a decent job at setting the mood for each of the areas so I have no complaints there, just no real praise.

So, is the game worth buying or not? Well, it depends on a few different things. How old is the person who will be playing the game? Do they like games that involve puzzles and solving mysteries? The game seems aimed toward kids through tweens, and it’s made up almost entirely of exploring and solving puzzles. If that suits the player then they might enjoy the game. It’s not a long game, and I don’t see a lot of people coming back for much afterward other than the better ending, but it is a decent game. Though if you’re looking for something a little more meaty or less kiddy, then you can safely pass on this title without missing out on too much.

Posted by Andrea Campton in Nintendo DSi, Reviews | Comments Off

Review: Faceez (Nintendo DSiWare)

I recently was in and out of the hospital and had a chance to play with Faceez, a photo application available on the DSiWare shop. Although it may not boast a laundry list of features, what it does provide is amusement.