Wii Reviews

Have you ever stopped to think about what’s in your Wii remote? You might sensibly think it’s batteries, or circuit boards, or jam, or whatever witchcraft it takes to make Nintendo’s motion magic work, but it’s not. Put the remote close to your ear and you should hear something unusual: “BWAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

Towering Adventures retains the basics of the original Rainbow Islands. It’s still a vertical platformer, except instead of fleeing the rising tide, you’re outrunning a succession of ultra-cheap bosses. To help your ascent, you can vomit rainbows, which can be used as platforms or to kill local wildlife.

A slow-mo spume of watery froth erupts upon the screen as a digitized bass is yanked from the water. For a second it is caught in a moment of balletic glory – like a dancer impaled on a shiny metal hook. It’s all the fun of The Matrix’s bullet time but without a second of philosophizing about the meaning of trout. Then you’re back to earth with a bump. Well, a splash.

The lore of time traveling devices is one of deeply rich and storied heritage. There was the DeLorean in Back to the Future, a mythical hovercraft in HG Wells' famous novel, the amazing spaceship in Flight of the Navigator... and a magical washing machine? Yes, time travel has arrived to the ridiculous, flatulence-riddled world of the Rabbids, and they're on a crash course to make their mark on every critical moment in this world's history...

TV Party is Rabbids do the Balance Board. About two thirds of the minigames require one, from surfing through space on an iron board to dodging potholes on a haywire Harley Davidson. The games can be played with remote tilting, but where’s the fun in trying to urinate on plants if you’re not leaning to direct your virtual wee-maker?

We put a lot of trust in a button press. When you squeeze that trigger in Halo you always know what’s going to come out of that gun. It has to be this way. Imagine, for example, if nine times out of ten Master Chief’s shoot button became an instruction to drop his weapon – he’d be pretty screwed. Wii remote gestures are not button presses, however, and Ready 2 Rumble hammers the point home.

At this point in Wii's lifecycle, we've seen enough terrible budget releases that a game like Real Heroes: Firefighter - with its generic title, cover art, and even token press quote -- should very well set off red flags. But resist the urge to cast this one aside on a glance.