Info: Publisher: Activision / Genre: First Person Shooter / Players 1-10 / Format: Wii
If you don’t know what this is by now then you must be a typical Wii owner – a soccer mom or a witless follower of fads that has to have this year’s Christmas top-selling game thingy or any of the stereotypes trotted out on the instanet.
I got a call from Mrs. Dave to tell me that this year’s Christmas club vouchers had arrived. Did I want a game as a belated birthday pressie? Did I want that Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox? Instead I asked her to get this. Am I nuts? Missing out on the game of the decade, the century, even? Maybe.
I played Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox last year and I wanted to try it with Wii controls. I like the Remote and Nunchuck more than analogue sticks. Treyach have done the port of this (they did last year’s World at War, not game of the century edition) and have let you customise the controls as you like, in terms of camera speed, dead zone and the like. For me it works very well. The level where you follow a double-hard-cool-dude-sniper dressed like a tree through Chernobyl and take potshots at baddies before shooting a geezer’s arm off was pleasing to play. My shooting was uncommon in its accuracy and great fun. Read more »
Info: Publisher: Aksys Games / Format: Wiiware / Genre: rhythm action /Players 1-4
This game has been out for a long time. If you listen to In The Fridge with Jack and Daan then you’ve heard them speak often about it, lavishing the game with compliments. So why is he reviewing it, you ask? Well, after much indecision I finally caved in last week and downloaded it.
It costs six hundred points. That’s not a lot, about the same as a modest chippy tea or a copy of your favourite Gentleman’s photographic interest magazine. You get a rhythm action game (like the gentleman’s magazine, but with more replay value) that has three levels.
You control a line on the left hand side of the screen. You move the line up and down to hit back patterns of dots and lines while some music plays. It’s electronic skiffle or whatever the kids call it these days. And that’s it. Is it?
Yes and no. The more you hit the better you score. As you score more, the graphics get colourful and frankly start to bother your eyes, making it hard to see what you’re up to. It’s not all roses though; if you miss a lot you don’t score and the graphics fall away to black and white (like telly was in the early 70’s when I was a little boy). Miss too much in the cold, electro-skiffle free 70’s and its game over for you sonny-Jim.
Read more »
Info:
Publisher : Deep Silver / Format : Wii / Genre : Survival horror/pray’em’up / Players : One lonely guy
Ah, young Grasshopper. Come, sit awhile. You have much to learn and I have much to tell. First, life is a wheel and it turns very slowly. Wisdom will come only when you appreciate this. For my part, I learned this lesson when I lifted the curse on the mountain…
Cursed Mountain is a survival horror I suppose, though I didn’t find many moments to jump out of my skin at. This isn’t a problem, as the game is filled with a wonderful air of isolation and tension all the way through.
You are Eric and you get sent to find your missing brother. He is up a mountain. A cursed mountain. You travel through villages and monasteries, climb mountain trails and crevasses and meet a few mystics on the way. The tale of how your brother got lost unfolds as you go, through cut scenes and documents you pick up on the way. Being cursed, the mountain is full of souls neither dead nor alive. With your trusty magic ice axe (don’t expect coherent narrative, this is a video game remember) and some ritual waves of the hand you release these souls to rest in peace.
Read more »
Info:
Publisher: Square Enix/ Format: DS / Genre: RPG / Players: One
This is one of many great Square Enix RPG games on Nintendo’s DS system. The story revolves around a 16-year-old girl called Cornet Espoire who lives in a village called Orange that is part of the Marl Kingdom. Cornet lives with her Grandfather and a puppet called Kururu. Cornet processes a special ability that allows her to converse with puppets which is used a lot in the game to recruit new party members. The adventure starts with Cornet and Kururu taking their daily walk through the local forest but on this day they are ambushed by someone but are rescued by the Prince of the kingdom who Cornet takes a fancy to and attempts to impress him by carrying out certain tasks. The prince gets kidnapped though and Cornet has to go an epic quest to get back the man she loves.
The game plays out just like your typical JRPG but with a musical twist in that Cornet’s horn is used to help the party and grows in power which allows you to perform special attacks. You select the place you want to go on the map and then you move through the areas examining objects and talking to various NPC’s. As you travel around the levels you may encounter random battles with enemies. Your party will take one side of the top screen with the enemy on the other. All the commands that you can perform are displayed on the touch screen. The battle takes place in turns and the order of attack depends on the ability stat of combatants. You can also set the game to Auto-battle where the computer will fight the battle for you. This is handy at times when you are required to grind against weak enemies but because it only performs basic attacks with it on its use is limited some what but you can switch back to full control at any time.
In the battle you can perform a number of different actions but nothing out of the ordinary. You can fight which opens up a sub-menu where you can select to just attack, cast a magic spell or special attack and use an item. You could otherwise attempt to escape but you forfeit all money and experience points for the battle. Certain enemies will be able to put your characters under a number of abnormal states. The usual suspects here are poison, sleep, paralyze and confuse. All status changes revert back to normal after battle which is nice. Read more »
Reviews can be good fun useful things. They let the writer express the games premise and their thoughts and feelings into an informative digest. This is all good, but sometimes they can be like a wordy quagmire of literacy turning even the most alphabetical accomplice into a grammatical mush. So we tried to come up with a (not particularly) scientific formula for finding the best mix of information and opinions, while keeping guff to an absolute minimum. After minutes months of research, debate and failed experiments our supercomputers churned out a single number. That number was eight. Eight words to perfectly sum up even the most preplexing purchases and cover the highs, the lows, the good, the bad, what made the game brilliant and what at the same time made it fall before the last hurdle.
Or to but that explanation more simply…
8-Bit Reviews – Short, snappy, informative reviews in exactly eight words.
We want to hear your thoughts and feeling of games old and new in exactly eight words and we will be posting them on the blog as well as reading out the best on the show. If you want to get involved it’s simple. Just send us your review and your done. You could email us, post a comment below, post them on the forums, send us a tweet, leave us a facebook message, tell us in person (tue/wed 8pm onwards), or even send a carrier pigeon with the information (it’s faster than broadband you know).
Here are this weeks batch of 8-bit reviews from the team as well as our focus group to get your creative juices flowing: Read more »
Info: Where I bought it: Gamestation / Their price for a new copy(RRP):£22.99 / My pre-owned price: £4.99
Publisher: Nintendo / Format: Nintendo DS / Genre: Strategy, Flight shooter / Players: 1-6/ Age Rating: 7+
The Star Fox franchise is one of the few Nintendo franchises that has been tossed around to try new things. Star Fox adventures on the GameCube sent Fox McCloud on a staff wielding, Zelda style adventure and filled out little bits with interplanetary flights. This time sees fox in a more strategic style of playing.
During the text filled “cut scenes” you can choose your next path by what Fox says and when the time comes Fox might go off (Depending what you make him say) and you will take control of some other characters like Falco or the rest of the team.
This time you can forget flying on a set course, that’s all done on a map screen (I’ll explain later.) But back to the point at hand, the only time you take control of the ships is when the enemy marker collides with your marker on the map and a battle ensues. Then all hell breaks loose, as well as the main enemies you have to kill, to collect tokens, there are also the annoying enemy turrets, other small enemies and, at times, a giant laser beacon. All of those will try to stop you collecting the tokens as you fly around in the varying landscapes like mountains, cities, ocean cliffs and the sun. Read more »
Publisher: Nintendo / Format: Virtual Console / Genre : flight school’em up / Players: 1
Mode 7. In the days of the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive it was the SNES that was the popular home console powerhouse, a far cry from today and the criticism of the underpowered Wii. Mode 7 was the tin hat on top of a muscular soldier of a console. You see, and this is the bit from a scientician’s perspective, the SNES could “scale and rotate sprites”. The Mega Drive could not. This was used in games like Super Mario Kart, F-Zero, Super Mario World and Super Probotector. It was all Super.
Pilotwings existed because of Mode 7. Best described as an arcade flight and general in-the-air-messing-about game, Pilotwings used Mode 7 to move the ground around and make you feel like you were flying, skydiving, hang-gliding or rocketbelting like Bond. The ground is flat as a pancake (it got all bumpy and 3-dimensional in the sequel on the N64) but the game is strangely compelling.
Read more »
Info:
Where I bought it: Gamestation / Their price for a new copy(RRP):(A shameful) £9.99 / My pre-owned price: £2.75
Publisher: Nintendo / Format: Nintendo DS / Genre: Rhythm action / Players: 1-2/ Age Rating: 12+
Two years ago one of the biggest game franchises to hit Japan attempted to combat the western rhythm action marketing. Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! Came from Japan to go up against giants of the genre; Guitar Hero III & Rock Band, under the new westernized version called Elite Beat Agents. Unfortunately it didn’t do quite as well as it perhaps should have.
The track list in this version consisted mainly, of old disco songs; Y.M.C.A., Canned Heat, Believe and ABC to name a few. Disco songs mixed with some more, odd choices like Without a Fight, Walkie Talkie Man, The Anthem and Highway Star. These tracks (though odd) provide great rhythm action.
The controls are simple, tap, slide and spin to the beat. That’s all there is to it. With four difficulty levels for you to unlock the game sends you up the learning curve at a decent pace. When you reach the harder levels it becomes addictive, spending every day trying to beat your high score.
Read more »
Info: Publisher: Activision / Format: Wii/ Genre: Rhythm action/ Players: 1-4 / PEGI: 12+
In this addition to the very popular Guitar Hero series – as the name suggests – you can play tracks from the previous Guitar Hero console releases (apart from recently released Metallica). The Wii sadly never had a Guitar Hero title until Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, and Guitar Hero Rocks the 80’s, originally for the Playstation 2, proved very popular. Guitar Hero 2 was the first in the series to be released on the Xbox 360 featuring revamped graphics and exclusive tracks.
If you haven’t heard of Guitar Hero, this is how it plays. You hold a plastic guitar peripheral which has five coloured buttons on it and a “whammy” bar. You press the buttons in time with what is shown on the screen. Slight improvements have been made however to the peripheral(s). Guitar Hero World Tour (4) saw the improved guitar with touch sensitive pads at the lower end. This enables players to play tricky solo’s quickly and without strumming. Don’t worry if you cant get to the touch pads fast enough, you can also play these notes using the normal buttons and not strumming. Guitar Hero World Tour also bought us the joy of singing and drumming. The drum and microphone peripherals makes this game even more special. All the classics from the previous games have been revamped so that you can sing, and play on drums. This is a great addition to the games, especially if you have played/own the originals.
Read more »
Publisher : Sega / Genre : alleged fps messiah / players: 1-12 (online) / platform: Wii
OK. So here it is. Three wise men knocked on my door and said “Is this where The Conduit is?” I told them yes it was but it wasn’t convenient to call right now as I had to save Washington. “Is it any good?” they asked. Not an easy question to answer. I told them it depended on what they were looking for. “The Messiah,” they said. Well, it isn’t that I told them. “Oh,” they said, “we’ll go and wait for Modern Warfare 2 then.”
If you want what the Three Wise Men were after then stop now. If your mind is a little more open then read on.
Read more »
Review | David@WiiDS | 
December 9, 2009 10:58 pm | 
Comments (0) 
Subscribe
