GamesRadar - Wii Reviews

Rabbids Go Home (Review)

1/11/2009

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!” ...

Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! (Review)

13/07/2009

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. ...

Rapala's Fishing Frenzy (Review)

8/10/2008

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. ...

Ratatouille (Review)

26/06/2007

If you havent noticed - its summer, a time where movie theatres get big-budget actionganzas and your console goes through a bit of a dry spell. Unless you want to start tapping that pile of games you swore youd get to by now, you can always sniff around for the latest, potentially awful film tie-in starring emo spider-men, ambiguous pirates or… a French rat that cooks? Ratatouille on the Wii is nearly identical to its PS2/GameCube brethren, only not as good because simplified waggle ...

Rayman Raving Rabbids (Review)

22/11/2006

What if the hero didn't save the day? What if, instead, he was hoodwinked and mocked by his captors? If Rayman Raving Rabbids on the Wii is any indication, the resulting forecast would be partly innovative with a 95% chance of hilarity. Rayman is a prisoner of the insane Rabbids - evil animals that are one part Bugs Bunny, and one part Sloth from The Goonies. He's made to compete in twisted, gladiator-style minigames that show the versatility of the Wii's controls and the sense of humor of ...

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Review)

19/11/2007

Nov 19, 2007 Having had last Christmas ruined by a soundtrack of manic rabbid wails emitting from the family Wii, we were dreading the sequel. And by the minigame-anthology laws laid down by Mario Party, this should have been worse than the first. Only, by some small Christmas miracle, its not. Gone is the Neanderthal focus on aimless controller peddling, replaced with a whole host of game ideas. Just five minutes of play can see gesture mimicking to ride a mechanical bull, memory games to ...

Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party (Review)

18/11/2008

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? ...

Ready 2 Rumble Revolution (Review)

1/04/2009

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. ...

Real Heroes: Firefighters (Review)

3/09/2009

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. ...

Red Steel (Review)

29/11/2006

Shoot him in the head, then cut it off with a three-foot-long sword. Sounds like the best of both worlds, right? On paper, the blade-and-bullet aggression of Red Steel seems irresistible, but learning the complicated controls and coping with the overall sludgy gameplay really get in the way of any visceral sensations. ...

Resident Evil 4 (Review)

27/06/2007

Is there anything left to say about Resident Evil 4? It came out more than two years ago, astonished GameCube owners for about a month and then went into hibernation until the PS2 port launched later in 2005 with bonus goodies galore. Now, in friggin' 2007, Wii gets the PS2 version plus some wiggle-waggle controls - and that's it. No enhanced graphics, no "new to Wii" modes, just the same damn game you've probably beaten two or three times by now. And you know what? It's still a satisfying, ...

Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil (Review)

23/06/2009

Nintendo are loving re-releasing games at the moment. So it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise to see a re-released re-release of Resident Evil. The original PSone game was remade for GameCube with swankier graphics and new areas, items and creatures and now that game has been remade for Wii with not very much new at all. ...

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Review)

20/11/2009

At this point, Wii owners should be entering the stage called “acceptance.” Your games will only ever "look great for a Wii game," and you'll never get a game of comparable graphical quality to Resident Evil 5, so let’s just move on and understand that what you do get are different, but not necessarily worse, games. ...

Resident Evil: Umbrella Corp Chronicle (Review)

21/11/2007

Nov 21, 2007 Theres no doubt in our minds that at some point in the recent past, Umbrella Chronicles was a very different game from the one that has finally emerged. Far from being some elaborate mystery for us to unravel, the evidence has been there from the start - early interviews with Capcoms team suggested Chronicles would be a game more like Resident Evil 4, while later interviews hinted at a change of tune. RE 4 is a tough act to follow, and its a shame we never saw Umbrella Chronicles ...

Rig Racer 2 (Review)

5/03/2008

We were mildly interested at the title Rig Racer 2, expecting some sort of hauling ass and taking names (names like Big Daddy and Snake, of course), flooring it over the-sidewalk-and-through-the-buildings madness. After all, if movies have taught us anything, it's that a big rig is basically indestructible as long as you blast the horn when plowing into something. But what we got was a track barely wide enough for two trucks side by side - and ...

Rock Band (Review)

23/06/2008

"No f&#*ing way am I wearing that." That was the initial reaction by many gamers when they saw the little plastic guitar that powered the original Guitar Hero. My, how times have changed. In Rock Band - the new multiplayer spin from the original GH creators, Harmonix - not only do you eagerly want to grab a fake plastic guitar, but you won't have to look far to find three other people just as willing to step up to grab a fake plastic bass, fake plastic drums and a fake plastic ...

Rock Band 2 (Review)

23/12/2008

If the first Rock Band was the opening leg of a full-blown concert tour, with four players living the rock and roll dream via color-coded buttons and plastic guitars, drums, and microphone, Rock Band 2 is like the final show of that same tour. ...

Rock 'N' Roll Adventures (Review)

26/11/2007

Nov 26, 2007 Which came first? Ninjabread Man or this or Anubis II, as all of them are practically identical - one game with three skins. Elviz (yes) swings his guitar like the Ninjabread chap swings his sword, and shoots at things using the same pointer-controlled cursor. From level structure to menus, the only real difference is in the graphics. For a game with a musical theme, the music is very poor. Elviz jumps on drums and runs along keyboards, which could have made a nice sound but ...

Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis (Review)

15/10/2007

From the deranged minds that brought you Grand Theft Auto, and the sycophantic gorehounds that will soon unleash Manhunt 2, comes... Ping Pong? Or Table Tennis rather, (Rockstar hates it when we call it the "Double P" word) and even though the game won't turn near as many heads as beating a prostitute to death or disemboweling a leather gimp, Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis still serves up a game of ball worthy of some attention. It's not entirely irrelevant to bring up the developer's ...

Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre (Review)

18/03/2009

Being a gigantic, muscle-bound dude who walks around half naked, uses a talking gun and has bright blue skin, Rogue Trooper must be as easy to recognise as the Incredible Hulk. Despite this, the authorities feel the need to put out TV broadcasts warning people to look out for this most wanted (massive, murderous, a bit blue) fugitive. ...