All Wii Reviews

Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party (Review)

Oct 8, 2007

On our extreme journey of revolutionary dance, we've experienced countless mixes (and a few ultramixes), seen a supernova or two, and explored the rhythmic universe. After all of that physical movement, can we really be bothered to stop by a party? Consider Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party a singles mixer, with DDR newbies swapped in for unattached attendees. With its streamlined interface and lack of extensive options, Hottest Party seems targeted at those gamers who missed the first ...

Dave Mirra BMX Challenge (Review)

Oct 5, 2007

Oct 5, 2007 Having starred in some fairly reasonable Tony Hawk-style games and sensibly extricated himself from the risible BMX XXX a few years ago, Dave Mirra seemed to drop off the gaming radar. But while we'd sort of forgotten he was still around, it seems he never actually went away. Late last year he popped up on PSP, to very poor reviews, and now the same game has been converted to Wii. BMX Challenge is pretty much identical to the Sony portable version. Instead of the free-roaming ...

Death, Jr. II: Root of Evil (Review)

Jun 2, 2008

What proud son doesn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps? We can think of a few ol’ blocks you don’t want to be a chip off - Saddam Hussein, Noel Edmonds, the Grim Reaper. Alas, then, for poor Death Jr., son of the soul collector. And alas for Root of Evil, a port of a PSP title, it’s a massive chip off the old block - with blocky being the key word. Where in the developers’ handbook does it state ...

Deca Sports (Review)

May 13, 2008

Deca Sports (Sports Island in the UK) has simple and genteel controls that mean you won’t be destroying any hardware - or indeed your wrists - and it’s a far less hectic proposition all round; ice skating, curling and badminton are hardly in the same adrenaline-pumping class as pole vaulting, hurdling and hammer-throwing. ...

Defend Your Castle - WiiWare (Review)

Jun 30, 2008

The first reaction to XGen’s fortress-protection simulator ranged from a minor "pfft" from our art people to full-blown mock vomiting from one editor. An update of their own flash game, the argument goes that XGen haven’t really updated at all. Our scoffing editor even played the original in the background to make his point.

But they’re wrong. A) the crude stick men of the original are now, erm, crude crayon drawings ...

Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed (Review)

Mar 3, 2008

Crypto is back, and this time it’s in the disco-dancing, bell bottomy 70’s. The third installment in the series comes out with little that is new but does it with enough verve to make the game enjoyable, and sometimes, laugh out loud funny. There is a plot - above and beyond destroying all humans to get our DNA - about stopping humans from figuring out what’s really in Big Willy’s hotdogs (Big Willy, by the way, is a ...

Detective Conan: Tsuioku no Gensou [import] (Review)

Jun 20, 2007

Professor Plum in the kitchen with the candlestick? Or the black-painted men in the park with the poison that turns 17-year-old amateur sleuths into ankle-biting miniature detectives? This is the story of Shinichi Kudo, a boy whose natural curiosity leads to him being shrunk by mysterious criminals. Rather than cry about his fate, or even enjoy the chance of acing his exams and generally being the smartest kid in primary school (which he probably was anyway), Shinichi devotes his newly reset ...

Dewy's Adventure (Review)

Sep 28, 2007

Sept 28, 2007 Ever sipped from an innocuous mountain spring, only to find your guts afire hours later when the “refreshing purity” reveals its true bacterial payload? Like the Evian-to-be that had you hugging the porcelain that time in the Brecon Beacons, Dewys Adventure pledges refreshment, disguising a cruel backstabbing agenda within. Backstabbing, you say? Okay, its a bit strong, but we must admit were disappointed. During the Wiis wobbly training feet days, Elebits was the ...

DK Barrel Blast (Review)

Oct 8, 2007

Oct 8, 2007 Donkey Konga - drums and monkeys, together at last; their powers combined in a game that was perfect in design and execution, packed with a satisfying pair of drums to bash your tunes out on. When Nintendo monkeyed (ha!) with the formula for DK Jungle Beat, even the most optimistic gamers choked at the idea of playing a platform game with a pair of bongos, but Nintendo proved the doubters wrong and weve never been so happy to have been mistaken. Jungle Beat remains one of the ...

The Dog Island (Review)

Jul 15, 2008

For something that looks like a Nintendogs rip-off, there’s a lot more on offer here than you’d think. Choose your four-legged bobble headed puppy from a whopping 48 breeds and you’ll begin a surprisingly entertaining adventure. It’s not GTA or anything, obviously, but it’s still quite diverting. ...

Donkey Kong Barrel Blast (Review)

Feb 8, 2008

Oh no - not you again. Barrel Blast is the worst game to carry Nintendo’s logo since the late nineties, and a game with Game & Watch-level gameplay married to sub-GameCube graphics.The Wii’s best titles are games that couldn’t be done anywhere else. Free from fluff or waste, they’re accessible and graspable by even the densest of non-gamers. Simple, immediate games are exactly what make the Wii great, and the ...

Dr. Mario - WiiWare (Review)

May 21, 2008

Is the old NES puzzler still worth revisiting after all this time? Well... ...

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (Review)

Nov 22, 2006

After dozens of games on nearly as many platforms, the Dragon Ball Z franchise finally hit its stride with last year's Budokai Tenkaichi, the first game to really capture the feeling of the DBZ anime's insane, aerial martial-arts battles. For the sequel, developer Spike has pulled out all the stops, packing in around 130 characters and two dozen full storylines to deliver the definitive Dragon Ball experience. Like in the first game, fighting in Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 unfolds from ...

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (Review)

Feb 29, 2008

Talk about truth in advertising - check out the slogan adorning the print campaign for Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3: "Introducing, among other things, some people you haven't had a chance to punch in the face yet." That's the long and short of it in the third iteration of the Budokai Tenkaichi fighting franchise. As is often the case with yearly, numbered iterations in any franchise, Budokai Tenkaichi 3 doesn't deviate ...

Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire (Review)

Oct 4, 2007

Oct 4, 2007 Picture the least interesting licensed action game you've played in the last several years. Now, swap the license and its ensuing production values for a generic, by-the-book fantasy setting. What's left? Probably something pretty similar to Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire for Wii. Like many early Wii titles, Dragon Blade takes an established concept (weapon-based brawler) and adds motion controls to the mix, though the term "tacked-on" really isn't appropriate here. Dragon Blade does ...

Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors (Review)

Feb 19, 2008

Break out the Icy/Hot, kids - you'll never make it through Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors without loose joints. The game dispenses with the turn-based RPG combat and sprawling world map of other Dragon Quest games in favor of an on-rails, first person hack and slash adventure perfectly tailored to the Wii. A few things are thrown in for fans of the series - familiar music, typical character stereotypes, ...

Dream Pinball 3D (Review)

May 8, 2008

Pinball - dead easy to do in a videogame, right? Actually, not if you’re going to do it well. You can’t just stick a load of ramps and targets on an oblong playing area, whack a pair of flippers down the bottom and expect it to work like a proper table. When pinball was a big deal in the arcades, the best designers were revered among fans much like Miyamoto or Kojima are today, except without the internet to make global stars of ...

Driver: Parallel Lines (Review)

Jul 26, 2007

Heres the story of Driver. Driver 1: ahead-of-its-time PS1 police-chase beauty; GTA before GTA. Driver 2: the same, with on-foot bits. Driv3r: a bigger collection of bugs than youd find on a sugar lump left next to an ant hill. Which brings us to Parallel Lines - the game that returned the series to some of its former glory, and which you can think of as GTA with a time-traveling twist (youre in 1978 for two-thirds of the game, then banged up to emerge in 2006 for the rest). And the action ...