GamesRadar - Wii Reviews

Sexy Poker (Review)

Nov 5, 2009

Appropriately, you can play Sexy Poker one-handed. We used the spare hand to repeatedly punch ourselves in the head, but you can use it however you wish. The fact that this is an excruciatingly awful and embarrassing game is not entirely surprising – anything with the word ‘sexy’ in the title usually is – but it even manages to get the ‘poker’ bit wrong. ...

Tornado Outbreak (Review)

Nov 2, 2009

Wow, this is a strange one. Tornado Outbreak is a completely new IP from Konami – home of Silent Hill and MGS – but it looks and feels like a Saturday morning cartoon tie-in. It’s hard to believe that this saccharine sweet title was once thought to be MGS creator, Hideo Kojima’s next project after Guns of the Patriots. ...

Rabbids Go Home (Review)

Nov 1, 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!” ...

Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga (Review)

Oct 27, 2009

Welcome to Eldar, the land of many grays and browns, brainless enemies and mercenaries, and mute characters. A console first for the action role-playing series, Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga presents plenty of problems from the beginning: an awful color palette, yawn-worthy cutscenes, stiff combat, poor enemy and mercenary AI, and a predictable story. ...

Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter (Review)

Oct 27, 2009

Sadbear lives! Once again we’ve turned Crayola Frankenstein and breathed life into the greatest platforming mascot that never was. Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Alex Kidd – all pretenders crushed under Sadbear’s lumbering trunks. But is nostalgia for this unlikely hero – our avatar from the original DS Drawn To Life – enough to warrant a second outing? We fear not. ...

Astro Boy: The Video Game (Review)

Oct 26, 2009

It seems Astro Boy returns every decade or so, and now American film makers have retooled the iconic character for another reboot. Albeit low budget looking and feeling, High Voltage Software put more life into Astro Boy: The Video Game than we’d expect from a movie tie-in. Bright, sleek and silver, Metro City sets the stage for Astro Boy’s adventure against an evil robot-wielding president. ...

Squeeballs Party (Review)

Oct 22, 2009

Poor Squeeballs. All these animated soft toys want is to be loved and given a good home. But they’re in for a world of pain before they can be placed on the shelf at the local toy store. It’s your job to make sure they’re fit for children by playing a set of minigames that ensures their wicked thoughts are whacked out of them. Don’t let their cute, wide-eyed exteriors fool you. ...

Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes (Review)

Oct 22, 2009

Star Wars has long been dead to us. However, we’re big enough to admit that the ‘franchise’ (what else can you call it?), especially the Clone Wars spin-offs, is aimed at a younger age group and not crusty, cynical 30-somethings like us. But this doesn’t excuse the churning-out of games of such mind-numbing dullness that they’ll cause instantaneous cerebral meltdown in anyone above 8. ...

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias (Review)

Oct 22, 2009

All hail the hundredth WiiWare title. And thank the gods it wasn’t Sexy Poker. Winter of the Melodias is one of few games that deserve to trigger the illustrious milestone. (Frontier also marked the start of the WiiWare hundred with the dazzling original LostWinds). Bigger, better and bolder? ...

Wii Fit Plus (Review)

Oct 21, 2009

As another new year looms, we approach the time when Balance Boards will be dragged from under sofas and doomed resolutions will be made by fatties across the land. Is anyone going to lose that post-holiday belly by standing on a set of bluetooth-equipped scales and wobbling in front of a Wii? Maybe not, given how thoroughly dull and sterile Wii Fit can be. A few sessions later, the interest wanes. At least that’s our experience of it ...

A Boy and His Blob (Review)

Oct 21, 2009

Feeding colorful jellybeans to an amorphous alien pet to make it transform into a multitude of cool items was loads of fun way back in 1989, and WayForward’s resurrection and re-imagination of the NES sleeper hit A Boy and His Blob perfectly captures the clever gameplay that made the original so absorbing. 20 years later, the remake is one of the most endearing games you’ll find on the Wii. ...

Marvel Super Hero Squad (Review)

Oct 20, 2009

Ever heard of Marvel Super Hero Squad? Us neither. Apparently it’s a popular toyline that feeds Marvel’s beloved heroes through a shrinking machine. Suitably, MSHS seems to be Marvel Ultimate Alliance fed through the shrinking machine. Goons are punched and boxes smashed, only this time everything’s two feet shorter. ...

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo (Review)

Oct 20, 2009

After two mind-frazzling Wii beat-’em-ups (roughly 800 remote inputs to throw a single punch), things cool down in Dragon Ball’s latest. It makes sense: it covers the earlier pre-Z adventures. Simpler times deserve simpler play – so it’s out with finger gymnastics, in with mindless button-thumping as Goku churns his way through a tame scrolling brawler. ...

WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2010 (Review)

Oct 20, 2009

We liked the direction SmackDown was going on the Wii. But clearly we were a voice in the wilderness, because THQ has decided to tap out on the whole ‘arcadey’ alternative thing they had going on and have instead opted to make a more traditional SmackDown in line with that seen on the other formats. ...

FIFA 10 (Review)

Oct 14, 2009

EA have tossed realism out of the window for this year’s FIFA. And why not? Football’s started to get on our nerves lately, so it’s great to see all semblance of ‘accurate simulation’ given the boot in favour of a lightning-paced, thrill-a-second arcade goal-fest. ...

JU-ON: The Grudge (Review)

Oct 13, 2009

JU-ON manages to capture the film’s atmosphere admirably well, and as a result it’s nearly as frightening as the film. It’s broken into episodes, each telling a self-contained, mostly plotless tale about a hapless sap who’s being terrorised by ghosts. ...

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Review)

Oct 13, 2009

Have we all gotten over the fact that Mario and Sonic are in the same game yet? Then we can begin. The chillier of the two Olympics might get short shrift in the national media, but historically it tends to produce the better videogames, and so it proves here again. Sega have done an admirable job of making loads of sports involving falling down a mountain at high-speed feel different from one another. ...

Spore Hero (Review)

Oct 8, 2009

There’s something undeniably impressive going on at the heart of Spore Hero; some kind of alien technology that means if you stick a third leg on the creature you create and put its eyes on its belly, it will walk around looking as pitiful as it sounds. The first thing we did was give it a mouth so it didn’t starve to death. See how the sorry thing uses its bellyeyes to look for food. Horrible. ...

Groovin' Blocks (Review)

Oct 5, 2009

Remember this cheeky chappy? It was an 800-point WiiWare download, but now we get a beefed-up retail version with extra songs and graphical effects. Don’t get too excited, though, because while Groovin’ Blocks is far from the worst game on the service, the concept isn’t strong enough to justify the extra cost. ...

Spaceball: Revolution (Review)

Oct 5, 2009

If the bland title doesn’t put you off, the first five minutes will. Hurled into an unfamiliar puzzle game after a slim tutorial, it’s up to you to work out Spaceball’s advanced elements. But once you do, everything falls into place. Basically, you fire balls at a grid. When a ball hits a panel, it lights up. Keep lighting panels until the grid matches a pattern in the corner of the screen. ...