Run out of spare cash for Virtual Console downloads? Fear not, because theres a whole load of entertainment to be squeezed out of your Wii and DS without having to spend even the pittance that a NES download or a second-hand copy of Mario Kart DS will set you back. Heres our selection of some of the best cost-free console fun you can find.
1) Free game rental
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Thanks to its staggered - some may say relentless - release dates, every year since 1998 has been a Mario Party year somewhere in the world. Some years have even been multi-Party years, and while few of the many hundreds of minigames that comprise Nintendos critically maligned - yet hugely successful - series have been particularly memorable, the age of the Mario Party has rarely been dull.
Minigame Island
The very first N64 version included the Minigame Island mode, which was a compilation
Detective Conan brings one of Japans most popular anime series to Wii this month - peep the review here. And weve already had the obvious fighting games based on Naruto and Bleach, as well as a swashbuckling adventures with the pirates of the popular One Piece and, uh, a Fist of the North Star pachinko game.
These games got us thinking about other classic pieces of Japanese animation that wed love to see in videogame form, and how they might work. Whether or not any of them ever turn up, its
So here it is, seven months after the Wii launched and we're just now getting our first online game - and it's one that's been out in Japan since December 2006. But for the endless Poke-masses, such a delay means nothing. We'll be battling our super-powered 3D Pokemon online regardless of how long Japanese gamers have been doing it. The real question is, how well does Wii's online setup work? We cracked open the new Battle Revolution box, loaded it up and set out to answer that question.
The
In general, we think you've got pretty good taste in games. You've made massive successes of stellar franchises like Ratchet & Clank, The Elder Scrolls and Katamari Damacy. You tend to like the things we like, and that's part of why we enjoy writing for you and telling you about all the cool games we think you'll get excited about playing.
Sometimes, though, you ignore our advice, which breaks our hearts a little. It's bad enough when you do it by passing up kickass experiences like Okami or
How long should a game be? It's an impossible conundrum, like asking the length of the proverbial string. But therein lies our problem; we keep hearing sob stories from developers who claim their publisher overlords, blinded by statistics and spreadsheets, force them to implement extra modes and levels to artificially inflate a game's length. Worse still, this attitude seems to have filtered down to many gamers, who feel short-changed if their newest acquisition isn't large enough to span three
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Alma - as seen in F.E.A.R. and F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point
Most action games owe a debt to Hollywood, but this scary little girl with long black hair was a particularly blatant borrowing from Japanese horror. Still, a spectral tween who could murder entire platoons of crack soldiers in the blink of an eye, and a foe that can never be defeated? Damn.
Anna Navarre - as seen in Deus Ex
Deus Exs supporting cast was full of great characters, but fellow cyborg agent Anna was the standout. Initial
Film licensed titles have been the mainstay of developers bank balances ever since the release of Some Like It Hot Pong and Gone With The Wind Invaders. Its just a case of squeezing out a simple platforming game and letting the brand sell itself. But its not always so easy. Some films, no matter what, just wont work as games. If only someone could tell the developers.
3 Stooges - NES
How best to represent 190 short films? Why, minigames, of course. Playing as the Depression eras favorite
There's something funny about the fact that one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, Transformers, is based on a cartoon that was ostensibly a thirty minute infomercial for toys. But will the corresponding game also be just another promotional tool? Executive Producer Daniel Suarez explains what Activision did to ensure that Transformers: The Game was more than meets the bottom line.
GamesRadar: For those who haven't seen it yet, what kind of game is it?
Daniel Suarez: It's a
As the most popular “cult” game series around, Final Fantasy has more spin-offs, merchandise, collectable whatnots and inspired curiosities than practically anything but Mario. If money was no object, heres what would be in our shopping
