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One of the biggest questions about Skyward Sword is how well the Wii MotionPlus controls are going to work. It's often difficult to precisely and accurately report on the finer details of motion controls when our only gameplay experience is at a press event where the conditions are so different from a normal gaming environment. Crowds, lighting and noise can all affect both the player and the equipment's ability to function. So, we were happy to get a chance to see Skyward Sword post-E3, in a slightly more low-key environment at Nintendo's Comic-Con suite. So how well do Skyward Sword's Wii MotionPlus-required controls work...

Known as Itadaki Street in Japan, Fortune Street is a strategic board game-style party game that's basically like a beefed-up version of Monopoly. In fact, if you like Monopoly, it's safe to say that you will absolutely love Fortune Street, because it takes the same concepts and adds a few extra levels of strategy to make things more interesting. And if you like either Mario or Dragon Quest, you might want to check it out just to see characters from both series on the same screen at once competing against each other...

As we've seen with Canvas Curse, Mass Attack and Epic Yarn, Kirby excels at trying new things. But what about the classic Kirby gameplay the series is most well-known for? What if sometimes all we want to do is inhale a bunch of enemies, absorb their powers, and float around like a puffy pink cloud all day? Well, that's where Kirby Wii comes in. If you yearn for a new Kirby game that harkens back to Kirby classics like Kirby's Adventure and Dreamland 2, read on...

Was I the only Need for Speed fan groaning during EA’s E3 press conference once it was revealed that The Run’s racing cache would be… quick time events? So… instead of falling back on the good favor you’ve earned from SHIFT and Hot Pursuit, you’re making this your flagship racing franchise into The Fugitive?! Okay, let’s get calm… While I can report that the cineractive events are in fact a little lame, they make a helluva lot more sense within the context of something far more interesting and exciting The Run is looking to pull off.

You know what chess needs more of? Stabbing. Over the years there have been many video gaming attempts at translating the centuries-old game of chess, but most have been fairly imperfect thanks to the limitations of artificial intelligence (at least, when super computers aren’t involved). Or maybe they just needed more violence. In Check vs Mate (formerly known as Battle vs Chess), you don’t simply get to remove a piece from the board when you capture it. It’s as if the defending rook said to the attacking knight, “why don’t you make me get off the board, punk?” The two pieces then meet face to face with a squad of friends in mortal combat...

The moment we sat down to check out the latest preview on Combat Wings: The Great Battles of WWII, the developers hit us with something we didn’t expect – they think that modern flight-simulators are boring. All of them. According to these fellows, piloting an F-22 at two times the speed of sound is a veritable snooze-fest and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles are for pussies. The real action happened back in the 1940’s, when planes were flown by...

 

There’s no getting around it: Disney Universe exists because somebody at Disney saw LittleBigPlanet and said, “Hey – go make that exact thing, but kiddier and with Disney in it”. But it’s such a natural fit, we actually have a hard time criticizing the copycatting. You can customize your Disney-ified Sackboy-type character, putting it in different costumes based on Disney characters (Stitch, Pumbaa and a Tron-inspired avatar were all represented in the demo we saw); The focus seems to be...

It seems that Activision is moving to revive its peripheral market with Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. And, to be honest, this is looking to be a pretty brilliant move indeed. Think back to when you were a little kid and all of those action figures you managed to collect over the years. What if, instead of having to deal with that bothersome “imagination” thing, you could plug your favorite action figures into the television set and have a battle between... oh, let’s say Darth Vader and Batman? Yes, we know. You would’ve...