Review – Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter

Platformer, Puzzle, Art

This isn’t an Art Attack either.

Mark

The original DTL was by developed 5th Cell games (Scribblenauts) and released on the DS back in 2007. Making good use of the DS’s stylus it told the story of the land of Raposa where everything was made by the good like Creator whose power created everything in Raposa and was stored inside the magical Book of Life. So when the game’s villain stole the book and removed the pages, replacing them with his own drawings of twisted, dark creatures it was up to the player to take the role of the creator and set things right in Raposa by creating a hero destroy the dark creatures and remake the missing pages of the Book of Life. This was done by using the stylus to recreate the missing pages and save Raposa from the darkness with you literally drawing Raposa back to life.

Raposa Tang Clan ain't nothin' to fuck with.

This sequel for the Wii was developed by Planet Moon Studios (Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Armed and Dangerous) follows a similar path with you once again taking the role of the creator who’s hero adventures through the land of Raposa recreating missing objects and things to help restore everything that’s been stolen or destroyed but this time with the Wiimote standing in for the DS’s stylus.

The game begins with you creating some of the biggest objects in the game namely the Raposa planet, its moon and sun. To do this you use Drawn to Life’s paint program that’ll be immediately familiar with anyone who’s used any basic computer art program in the last twenty years be it. It’s has a basic colour palette, adjustable sizes for pens and stamps and tools for making simple shapes or curved/straight lines. All of which are done by controlling a cursor linked to the Wiimote that you draw on screen with along with clicking the relevant icons.

Who the hell keeps making these oversized videogame coins?

Once that’s done you then create your hero by drawing its arms, legs, torso and head or if you’re lazy you can just select one of the provided template characters to use. Then it’s a case of leaving Raposa to search for the missing items from the Book of Life. It boils down to lots of simple 2D platforming with the odd puzzle section thrown in to get access to extra coins to buy objects, art stamps, character templates or extra health, lives and the like.

But it’s not as simple as just jumping around from A to B as you’ll quickly find Raposa is missing lots of crucial objects needed for you to make any progress. First off you need to recreate the only bridge out of Raposa town then it’s the always common platforms to jump on and then objects that have special properties like bouncy trampolines or blocks you can swing off (once you’ve drawn yourself a monkey tail)

At first its great fun drawing all these things knowing that you’ll be using them throughout the game but you’ll soon find that even the most mundane objects like butterflies or generic background scenery needs recreating which makes it hard to get a good flow going with the platforming and exploration when you’re stopping every other minute to load up the painting screen to draw a log or shop sign.

Lurk DS Version I played the DS version of this game, so obviously the gimmick of this game that you get to draw in game objects is going to be easier than pointing at a screen. On the downside I am as adept at drawing as Michael J. Fox is at playing the board game Operation. So all the objects in my game tended to mono-coloured blobs. Since I never played the original I wasn’t too fussed about the plot and you don’t really need to read it to know what to do. Since the game consists of moving the weird sausage man avatar I made  about the map towards the exclamation marks. This is followed by the level after you’ve had to colour in the area of the level. When it comes to the platform sections they really aren’t anything special. If you’ve played any Super Mario Bros game then you’ve seen pretty much everything that’s in this game. It honestly plays out with every single platforming genre stereotype. To the floating platforms and underwater levels etc. The game isn’t all bad I did like the times where you have to draw the actual platforms on the screen. You have a limited amount of “ink” to make ramps or platforms to get your avatar to where you want to . If you cock it up you can erase it and try again so that makes it interesting, to try slightly different things. Though much like the developers Scribblenauts, this is a good idea that unfortunately is let down by the final execution. Secondary Score: 5/10

Thankfully the grind of jump-draw-jump is broken up from time to time with the introduction of action ink and later psychics ink. Action ink can used to draw on screen during the platforming sections kind of like a sports commentator would and what ever you draw with this blue ink (so long as its with in the special dashed ‘canvas’ area) stays put so you can make your own platforms and ramps to jump on.

Psychics ink is different in the fact that it’s red not blue and what ever you draw with it becomes solid and then leaves the canvas. So say you draw a big red square (no easy task given the free hand controls for both types of ink) it’ll drop off the canvas allowing you to push it around or use it as a solid platform. Different shapes all act as you’d expect with round shapes rolling down slopes and step triangular shapes making good ramps. Add to this the occasional use of drawing pins on the canvas to hold the psychics ink in place and you can make your own rotating platforms and treadmills.

All of this sounds like a great formula for a fun and innovative game right? Well just like its handheld predecessor and even Scribblenauts the different game elements struggle to rise above mediocrity with the main drawing mechanic being the worse offender. Sure you can use the Wiimote to draw on screen but doing so is akin to serving tea while wearing boxing gloves and an eye patch. It’s near impossible to draw a straight line without using the tools provided and drawing a smooth curve even more so.

Yes with time and patience you can get good results but it does somewhat kill the experience and that’s coming from someone who spent most of the 90′s wasting his time with SEUCK (ask you parents kids) Add to this the loading screens that pop up with every mundane action and stop/start music that sounds like a Vengaboys cover band and you’ll soon be wishing it was a handheld game so you could fling the fucker at the nearest wall.

There is a great ‘art creation sandbox-thingy’ game to be made with both this and Scribblenauts having the right ingredients but until the recipe is perfected by someone who knows the difference between what makes a great game and a list of bullet point features that look good on the back of a box I’ll remain unimpressed.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

5/10

]]> http://www.peoww.co.uk/drawn-to-life-the-next-chapter-wii/feed/ 2 http://www.peoww.co.uk/dead-space-extraction-wii/ http://www.peoww.co.uk/dead-space-extraction-wii/#comments Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:04:44 +0000 Colin http://www.peoww.co.uk/?p=4065

Review – Dead Space: Extraction

On-Rails Shooter

In space no-one can hear you waggle.

Colin

Yes, it has been said before how well suited the Wii is to Rail Shooters but it’s still not a genre that has fully been exploited on the console. Past games (actually the ONLY ones I could think of) range from the blaverage – Link’s Crossbow Training, to the atmospheric – Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, to the whorey fun – House of the Dead: Overkill. Dead Space Extraction (DSE) steps forward, not trying to best 2008′s Dead Space but rather showing a different side to the events on and around the USG Ishimura.

Brief recap of the events of the first Dead Space. Big ship uncovers quasi-religious-scientific artefact (The Marker) on planet – People start acting strangely – Creatures begin to appear – They eat/infect/turn people – Shoot their limbs off to survive – You turn up after the shit has hit the fan. Somewhat crass of me, indeed but the narrative of the game was actually fantastic, roaming the dimly lit ship (they mostly come from the dark – mostly) where story unfolds by collecting vid and audio logs in the greatest survival horror fashion whilst bathing in all the Sci-Fi references from Alien to Event Horizon. Truly a joy to play.

It slices, it dices, it's fifty ways to kill in one package.

DSE is set just before the events of the first game – pre fan-shit hit-age. The Marker has just been discovered and it all kicks off. People start to go nuts, start hallucinating, start savagely attacking each other and a small group of misfits take it upon themselves to survive.

A huge chunk of the game is its story, or rather the interaction between the survivors, which is why this review won’t be giving away any more details. Needless to say people in such a situation talk to each other and a major part of the game involves the game taking you on your set path though the world and the panicked survivors arguing to with each other, trying to figure out what is going on and what to do next – All with Scottish and English accents no less (amongst others). Ninety percent of the game has you travelling with a companion so the story progresses naturally from the dialogue. The characters are voiced very well and you do experience genuine camaraderie along with the occasional urge to shoot some of the more scaredy characters. The occasional vid, text and audio logs appear in the environment which are fine, however few and far between they may be. FYI devs; listening to any kind of audio through the Wii-motes inferior speaker is never a good idea.

Obviously if you wanted to talk and listen to people you wouldn’t be playing video games, theres action to be had too! The Necromorphs (the baddies) of course are out to get you and have to be dispatched in much the same manner as the last game. The “spray and pray” approach to shooting will only get you so far and will deplete your ammo reserves quicker than you’d like, as such “strategic dismemberment” is the way forward. Shoot off a head and they slow down, flailing wildly towards you. Shoot off the legs and they travel much slower crawling towards you. Shoot off the arms and they have less to attack you with. You don’t have to turn each enemy into a stumpy torso, so a few limbs here and there is generally enough, with latter enemies requiring more to pierce their armoured hides. To aid your aim against the speedy Necromorphs is your stasis module (C on the nun-chuck), which when fired, significantly slows your foes down for a while. Three stasis shots can be stored and once used they naturally recharge.

Arthur Brown would be proud.

Of course there is a pretty weak waggle based melee attack but it’s about as effective as harsh language – you need guns. You can carry 4 weapons at any one time, with the option to exchange them at the start of certain levels, or when you collect a new weapon in the environment. Each weapon has an alternative fire mode (accessed by turning the Wii-mote on its side) and requires you to collect ammunition – with the exception of your “always with you” Rivet Gun. This weapon is pretty much weak sauce with its slow fire rate, but on a stasis slowed enemy it can be remarkably effective. Other weapons include Dead Space favourites the Plasma Cutter, Line Gun, Flame Thrower, Force Gun and Contact Beam along with new arrivals PSEC Pistol and Electric Arc Welder. Using each weapon for a time will soon have you choosing and sticking with your four favourites. Each weapon also incorporates an “active reload” wherein if you press the reload button a second time at the right moment, your gun reloads quicker. There is no real penalty in failing the “active reload” other than having to wait the normal reload speed, which when you have pointy limbed enemies charging towards you is penalty enough.

As mentioned previously, the guns require ammunition. This, along with health packs, weapon upgrades and the text/vid/audio logs are scattered about the environment or in containers and lockers. A simple task such as picking up ammo changes into life threatening emergency, being that you can’t stroll about at your leisure – you go where the camera takes you. You constantly get the feeling of panic, scouring the landscape with you eyeballs for fear of missing something or worse – seeing it but not being quick enough to aim and press A on it – thus pulling it towards you with you kinesis module (remarkably tooled up for miners, police and scientists aren’t they?). A few instances halt your travel forward and give you free reign to point your remote around and to the side of you to scan for more items, again these sections are just as (if not more) frantic in your mad dash to pick items up in the few seconds you have. Play with some skill, strategy and ammo conservation and you should keep a fair reserve of ammo, but reckless blasting with leave you with your pants round your ankles – and not in a good way.

Mafro Secondary Review Many eyes rolled when this was revealed to be an on-rails lightgun game – mine’s included – but the final product is anything but a lazy cash-in. The developers refer to this as a”guided first-person experience”, which couldn’t be more accurate. It doesn’t feel like your typical on-rails shooter at all. It plays very much like an FPS, but on rails – If you know what I mean. Pretty much all the centralgameplay mechanics of Dead Space make a successful transition. Dismembering enemies limbs is once again essential to kill them, rather than the traditional headshot method. Tilting the remote on its side to activate each weapons alternate fire mode is a clever touch, particularly when using the plasma cutter as it mimics the on-screen actions. Speaking of weapons, therivet gun is by far the best of the new bunch. When fully upgraded, it’s sheer power more than makes up for its slow firing rate. Using it, along with the stasis ability results in it being one of the best weapons in the game. Extraction manages to perfectly recreate the atmosphere and tension that made its big brother the best survival horror game since Resident Evil 4. Once again, sound plays a big part in creating a sense of terror, and fightingnecromorphs is just as thrilling as it was before – perhaps even more so due to your inability to move. It creates a sense of panic that not many other horror games can match. Also worth mentioning are the storytelling and characters. It’s much more cinematic than the original, and the text/audio logs make a return. Aside from a few shockers in the audio logs, the voice acting is fantastic, and the face models in particular are very impressive. Don’t let the on-rails aspect put you off, Dead Space: Extraction is without a doubt one of the best third-party offerings on the Wii, and one of this years biggest surprises. Secondary Score: 8/10

The atmosphere and carnage is nicely broken up with a few puzzle sections, such as “use kinesis to pull/insert thing out-of/in-to wall”. The most frequent puzzle is easily the best, ostensibly a version of “Buzz Off” where you guide the cursor round a short maze without touching the sides or other hazards. You do this to hack door panels and is again, remarkably frantic when there’s enemies charging towards you. Brilliantly implemented. A couple of boss battles are also dotted in there and whilst they are tricky – not always being sure what you must do, they certainly are fair.

Not only is this a great stand alone game, but as someone who has played the previous game and seen the movie and watched the comics it’s great to see the environments again. Many of the levels are easily recognised, but not in a cheap, rehashed way, a brilliant chance to see them from a different perspective. In addition you get to interact with a few characters that know Isaac (your protagonist from Dead Space) and even face a few of the bosses he does.

The story levels can be completed and re-completed on a multitude of difficulty levels, but if hearing the character interactions again isn’t for you then there is the option to play challenge levels, small sections of the story levels (sans character interaction) but with increased numbers of enemies spawning in increasingly difficult and relentless waves. Perfect for cheap visceral thrills.

The Wii does a fair job with the graphics, and while the game may not be as pretty as Resi: UC, it certainly does have more enemies on screen, interactive environments and the lack of HUD greatly immerses you into the world. Likewise, while the game does have the same visceral gameplay and feel to HotD Overkill, the story just adds so much to the atmosphere. There were a couple of minor instances of slowdown, only mentioned to be fair to people that love hearing of the Wii’s technical limitations – myself included.

The game also includes jump in 2 player play for both modes. It’s certainly a welcomed addition and in the case of the higher difficulty settings – its essential to have a wingman watch your back and dish out witty puns.

While its length is fairly standard for a light-gun affair this doesn’t stop Dead Space: Extraction from being nothing less than a phenomenal game. Taking the best tension from Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and the shooting fun from House of the Dead: Overkill, Dead Space Extraction brings enough of its own unique gameplay to make it stand out from the crowd. “Man-up, sweetheart!” and buy this game.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

9/10

]]> http://www.peoww.co.uk/dead-space-extraction-wii/feed/ 3 http://www.peoww.co.uk/final-fantasy-my-life-as-a-darklord-wii/ http://www.peoww.co.uk/final-fantasy-my-life-as-a-darklord-wii/#comments Sun, 23 Aug 2009 09:06:10 +0000 Mark http://www.peoww.co.uk/?p=3287

Review: Final Fantasy: My Life As A Darklord

Tower Defence/RTS

Yet another excuse to get your Tonberry on.

Tiq

My Life as a Darklord is a fairly straightforward tower defence game from the Crystal Chronicles series which all started back on the Gamecube. The Crystal Chronicle series now consists of five different games: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, FFCC: Ring of Fates for the DS, FFCC: Echoes of Time for the Wii and DS, FFCC: My Life as a King and FFCC: My Life as a Darklord both released via Nintendo’s Wiiware online service. There’s also the upcoming sequel FFCC: The Crystal Bearers for the Wii.

Putting the 'tower' in tower defence.

My Life as a Darklord is also a tower defence game with a twist. Rather than fighting off hordes of bad guys, you play the role of Mira, daughter of the Dark Lord from My Life as a King. Your objective is to fend off would be adventurers as they try to climb your dark tower, which contains the crystallised essence of your father at the very top. If even one hero manages to reach the top, it’s game over for you as the destruction of the crystal means the end of the entire dark kingdom, itself.

In order to stall and ultimately destroy your enemies, you have to continually build up your tower with floor after floor of fiendish monsters and odd traps. You have access to a small selection of monsters and traps, so strategy is vital. Your creatures consist of  a selection of strength, range, magic and speed based monsters at your beck and call which you can spend resources on, to defend your tower in the most epically intense game of rock, paper, scissors you’ll probably ever play. You can also place traps on each floor that range from somewhat standard poison arrow to alarmingly odd evil puppet shows.

The usual suspects.

All of these resources take damage from heroes, and if they manage to wipe out every enemy, they’ll take out that floor along with it, forcing you to rebuild in order to stay alive. Each victory you achieve will earn you points which you can spend levelling your creatures, in order to make them more competent and ensure your survival. You can also increase the floor cap of your tower, making it possible to build it much higher, and hit the enemy with even more resistance. Heroes will also level up as well, bringing waves of harder, stronger and faster enemies to your door as well as the occasional boss fight against incredibly strong opponents who’ll require an epic beating, before they go down.

This all adds up to a pretty damn fun game, in the end. For one thousand Nintendo points there’s plenty of obvious replay value here as tower defence games will usually provide a fun distraction from whatever your doing, and My Life as a Darklord certainly delivers in bucket loads with cheerful music, cute animation and surprisingly intense gameplay as you struggle to keep away the hordes of would be heroes in an almighty balan

Mark Secondary Review You know it may just be the trying-to-hard-to-be-quirky writing or maybe it’s the lack of proper Vivi style black mages but this game feels more like a Disgaea spin-off that an entry into the Final Fantasy cannon. More importantly though is it any good? As we’re not exactly lacking for tower defence games lately with dozens of free to play (or nearly free if you get NextWar on XBLA, plug-plug) TD games on PCs and consoles. Well it makes a great first impression with the slick visuals and nice music you’d expect of a Square-Enix game but play for more than a few hours and you’ll soon start to tire of it. The biggest problem I have is just how stingy the game is with giving you new units, equipment and room types to play with. I understand that you can’t give players everything all at once but the rate at which it drip feeds you extras is bordering on sadistic given the first few hours of play filled with the same basic Goblin soldiers you’re forced to utilise. Things do improve slowly but by the time I was using magic units and equipping support items I’d lost interest and not even seeing Tonberrys or Cactuars could temp be back to this slick yet shallow TD clone. Secondary Score: 6/10

cing act.

More importantly though, My Life as a Darklord actually delivers one important gameplay element  usually unheard of in tower defence games, and that’s an actual plot. I mean don’t get me wrong here… there aren’t any deep meaningful moments in the story that are going to change your life or stay with you forever, but for a game that costs one thousand points there’s a lot of  effort contained within.

I’d highly recommend this to those of you looking for a fun distraction and for the FF obsessive’s out there who may be having trouble at this point trying to keep up with the crystal chronicles series.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention the DLC for this… at the point of typing this there is currently already a heap of downloadable content, including costumes with addition abilities, extra items, new monsters and extra floors for your tower. If Square Enix can make a consistent effort to release interesting content for this game, then there’s no telling how much time you may spend playing this great little game.

To Summarize: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord is an excellent wiiware title with plenty of replayability and a lot of potential for enhancement via DLC. Great fun to play and watch and great value for a game that costs less than a tenner.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars 8/10

]]> http://www.peoww.co.uk/final-fantasy-my-life-as-a-darklord-wii/feed/ 0 http://www.peoww.co.uk/madworld-wii/ http://www.peoww.co.uk/madworld-wii/#comments Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:47:12 +0000 Matthew http://www.peoww.co.uk/?p=2130 Review: MadWorld

Fighting

The Wii gets hardcore.

Formed from staff of the now-defunct Clover Studios, you can almost guarantee that any game from them is going to be different. Their past games – Okami, Viewtiful Joe and God Hand – were all unique in their own way and MadWorld is no different.

Taking the form of a 3d beat ‘em up, you play as Jack, a former marine, who has to fight his way through the Death Watch game show set up by terrorists who are holding the fictional Varrigan City hostage. A virus has been released which will kill in twenty four hours and the only way to get the vaccine is to participate in the game and kill other people. The whole plot is basically a mix of Escape from New York and The Running Man, which is always a good thing.

How many reviewers went with the 'black, white and red all over' caption I wonder?

Each level takes place in a different section of the city and has a thirty minute time limit. They consist of multi-level arenas rather than a linear path from beginning to end. To progress you have to build up your score by defeating the enemies, the more brutal their death the more points awarded. Throughout the levels are various environmental hazards such as spiked walls, circular saws etc. in order to do that. After a certain score has been achieved, new things are unlocked varying from weapons such as spiked baseball bats or daggers, to health items.

You will also unlock mid-level mini games, “Blood Bath Challenges”, for the opportunity to add bonus points to your overall score – one example of this is “Man Darts” where you have to hit enemies at giant dartboard using a baseball bat, with a bulls eye awarding the most points. These mini-games can also be played as a multiplayer mode. Once you have gained a high enough score, the boss battle is unlocked and upon beating them your Death Watch ranking is increased. There are also a couple of Road Rash-style motorbike levels where you take down pursuing enemies. These are relatively brief and serve the purpose of breaking up the action of the normal levels. While they are fun, the game often suffers from some pretty bad slowdown in these sections but not enough to ruin the experience.

Stairway denied!

While many games fail to utilise the Wii’s motion control capabilities properly, MadWorld gets it right.The remote controls your attacks, tap A to punch and hold it to grapple. B revs your arm-mounted chainsaw with either a horizontal or vertical slash executed by moving the remote in the respective direction, and the revving sound comes from the speaker in the remote which is a nice little touch. A strong hook and an uppercut can also be done using the same method but without pressing B. On the nunchuck, the analogue stick obviously controls the movement, and a quick flick causes Jack to back flip which acts as his dodge manoeuvre. The C button snaps the camera back behind Jack and the Z button is jump. Quick time events are also a big part of the game but, thankfully, they are done right and in no way do they feel annoying and cheap. They are mainly used during boss battles to deal out large amounts of damage, God of War-style, and are the only way to kill them outright in a variety of satisfying ways. It’s games like this which show how motion controls, when done right, can be superior to simple button presses in certain situations.

Tiq Secondary Review: It’s big, it’s stupid, it’s violent and it doesn’t give a damn who knows it. MadWorld is grotesquely gory and incredibly stylish. The game puts you in control of a forty-something ex-marine called Jack Cayman as he cuts a bloody swathe through a twisted, monotone hellhole called Varrigan City all in the name of rescuing the mayor’s daughter. The entire city has been taken over by a terrorist group called The Organizers who have turned the place into a giant game show called Death Watch, filled with zombies, aliens, vampires, brutal gangs and massive chainsaw wielding maniacs wearing Minotaur masks, all eager to win by laying waste to everything that moves. For the hardcore gamers out there who have been waiting for a game to come along, that would finally force you to take the Wii seriously, I say… this is it. Although the game is somewhat short you won’t be disappointed if you knock the difficulty up and provide yourself with a real challenge, with brutal enemies waiting eagerly to knock you down a peg, as well as some fantastic memorable boss fights that put the Wii’s unique control scheme to good use. MadWorld also looks and sounds incredible with its black and white graphics that do well to emphasises the harsh, gory atmosphere of the game, as well as some fantastic audio commentary from Greg Proops and John DiMaggio that bring a somewhat childish but extremely funny sense of humour to the game akin to something out of a south park episode. MadWorld is exactly the sort of game that hardcore Wii fans have been crying out for, it’s violent, it’s daft and it’s deeply, deeply satisfying to play. If you’re a fan of the unadulterated grittiness of the old GTA games, you’ll definitely love this.Secondary Score: 9/10

I previously mentioned Platinum Games’ products in their former guise being unique in some way or other. The visuals in MadWorld are simply fantastic and show that art style can more than make up for lack of graphical horsepower. The black & white visuals look like a graphic novel in motion, it looks like no other game you have played. The overall lack of colour accentuates the blood. It is a brutal and violent game but the violence is much more slapstick than realistic, the comic-style “WHAAACK” AND “SPLAAAT” in large yellow lettering only reinforce this. Imagine a black & white version of Itchy & Scratchy and you are almost there.

Matching perfectly with the slapstick violence is the over-the-top commentary provided by Greg Proops (Who’s Line Is It Anyway?) and John DiMaggio (voice of Bender and Marcus Fenix). While it does provide a lot of genuine laugh-out-loud moments, you will begin to notice phrases repeating themselves the longer you play. Also worth mentioning is the impressive hip-hop soundtrack, it unexpectedly gels well with the gameplay and visuals.

Despite the immensely fun combat, it is probably advisable to play through this in multiple sittings taking a level or two at a time. As fun as the game is, the combat can become slightly repetitive after long sessions. The overall length of the game is slightly disappointing though, it took me just under four hours to complete it on the normal difficulty setting setting. Although having said that, you can go back and replay any previous levels which adds to the longevity. A harder difficulty mode is unlocked upon completion of the game and it’s no slouch, enemies hit harder and you’ll lose more health. It forces you to change the way you play, less gung-ho and much more cautious and conservative.

Along with the recent release of House of the Dead: Overkill (also published by SEGA) MadWorld offers something different than the vast majority of other Wii games. With great gameplay and fantastic visuals, Platinum Games’ first release ultimately shows the same magic present in their past games as Clover Studios and this will hopefully continue with their other upcoming games.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars 8/10

]]> http://www.peoww.co.uk/madworld-wii/feed/ 4 http://www.peoww.co.uk/snk-arcade-classics-vol-1-wii/ http://www.peoww.co.uk/snk-arcade-classics-vol-1-wii/#comments Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:02:54 +0000 Mark http://www.peoww.co.uk/?p=2015 Review: SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 (Wii)

Retro Compilation

A classic compilation?

Mark

The Wii isn’t exactly lacking when it comes to playing retro games. Not only is it backwards compatible with it’s little brother the Nintendo GameCube but it also has the Virtual Console or VC as it’s know by Nintendo owners. For a small fee you can download and play games from 8-bit NES and Commodore 64 games through to 64-bit N64 titles with everything in-between, with over half a dozen retro consoles and over three hundred different games available.

So why am I talking about the VC during a review of this new release? Well it’s because as of the time of writing of the sixteen games in this collection eleven are already available for download via the VC, but at 900 Wii points each (£6.75 in real money) surely buying this collection is the best way to play these SNK classics? Well lets see…

There’s sixteen different games to play that are a mix of different game genres from the early to mid nineties all made and released by SNK and later converted for the Neo-Geo home console. Along with being able to play perfect conversions of each game there’s art work, music, move lists and videos to unlock thanks to a achievement style ‘goal’ system that’s rewards and encourages you to play the games rather than relying on just sheer nostalgia. To make it an easier read (and review for me) I’ve focused on the better games in the collection rather than speak of it as a whole.

Classic 'Slug.

Metal Slug

First out the gate is arguably SNK’s most famous franchise Metal Slug. For those of you who’ve never played one before it’s what appears at first to be a simple left to right scrolling action shoot ‘em up with you in control of a lone soldier who’s expected to rescue dozens of POWs and destroy and entire army equipped with a simple pistol and a box of grenades. More powerful weapons can be collected from heavy machine-guns, flamethrowers, shotguns and rocket launchers from handy ammo boxes strewn throughout the levels or by liberating any POWs you find. From time to time you can also man one of the powerful mini tanks or Metal Slugs in each level with its destructive cannon, tilting machine-gun and think armour that can take several hits before exploding.

You’ll need it to as your standard troop can only take a single bullet, grenade, shell or explosion before losing a life and later levels become bullet hell with all kinds of solders, tanks, planes and even scuba divers trying to put you down for a dirt nap. Despite all the death and action happening on screen you never lose track of your trooper thanks to the well drawn and designed sprites that all drip with a kind of manga influenced world war two ascetics.

Neo Turf Masters. From an era when golf games were good. Fuck this analogue swing nonsense.

Neo Turf Masters

Next up we have SNK’s take on the 16-bit golfing genre much like the PGA Tour Golf games of the time but with less emphasis on accurate simulation and more arcade style par goals. You start out by choosing from a selection of different golfer each with there own strengths and weaknesses be it driving, accuracy, skill, recovery or putting. Once you’re on the green you have to make your shots using a constantly moving power bar, and then height bar making it a matter of good timing to get a good shot without too much/little power and too high/low.

With four different eighteen whole courses and the constant pressure of keeping below par there’s always room to improve your scorecard. It does well at staying on the fun side of simulation and never gets too bogged down in pointless detail like PGA does or slide to far into luck-over-skill territory held by something like Mario Golf.

Last Resort. SNK's take on the classic horizontal shooter R-Type.

Sengoku

Now I don’t know if it’s my lack of understanding of Japanese mythology or badly translated dialogue but this game makes little to no sense from beginning to end. It plays like a scrolling beat ‘em up but just as you get used to fighting mutants in a post-apocalyptic wasteland you’re whisked into the sky to fight demon samurai before being dropped back to earth to have a boss fight atop a stampede of ghostly horses! Putting aside such madness there’s coloured orbs to collect that let you arm you with weapons or even transform in a dog that can spit fire. Like I said madness, but fun madness for a while until the novelty wares off and you’re left with stodgy controls, repetitive action and not much else.

Shock Troopers

What would you get if you crossed previous game Metal Slug with SNK’s own Akari Warriors? This SNK’s Shock Troopers. Taking control of eight different soldiers each with their own mix of weapons, speed and strength you chose one of three different routes to the enemy base destroying anyone and everything in your path. Once you get used to dodging bullets, throwing grenades and mowing down waves of enemy troops you can forgo the lone wolf option and link up with a friend and try another of the three routes each with unique levels and action.

Samurai Showdown. Great graphics and tight fighting action. Balls-hard though.

Super Sidekicks 3: The Next Glory

A poorly aged 2D footie (call it soccer and die) game, don’t bother playing unless you’re trying to get the goals (unlockable goals that is not football goals). Next!

Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy

Bloody hell this is getting positively incestuous now, anyway… take Metal Slug, replace the tanks with mechs mix in the non-linear pathways of Shock Troopers and add some hidden bonus rounds where you ride a jet powered skateboard and give the main character stretchy arms to grab enemies and yank chains for a trick or treat and you get Top Hunter. The other new gimmick here is the ability to jump between two different planes or layers on the screen with enemies and items occupying only one making it easy to dodge attacks but difficult to collect every bonus going. By mixing the two planes mechanic with all the usual SNK action and high production values you get one of the most playable games in this collection.

Baseball Stars 2

Take the Super Sidekicks 3 information and replace the word ‘football’ with the word ‘baseball’.

Burning Fight

A poor man’s Streets of Rage here that plays much like Sengoku but without the bizarre goings on to distract from the lack of fun and shabby gameplay on offer is an even more shallow and pointless affair.

King of the Monsters

Now I’ve not lumped this in with the other SNK beat ‘em ups because it’s actually different enough to warrant its own write up. Here the combatants are all Japanese monster movie style archetypes with King Kong, Godzilla, Jet Jaguar etc. all present and beating the crap out of each other in different Japanese cities like the skyscraper filled Tokyo or water filled harbour at Kobe. If that doesn’t get you intrigued how about the fact it has the EDF taking pot shots at you with their tanks and jets, yeah though that would do it for you. The combat is a unique mix of straight fighting with punches and kicks tied with wrestling style grapples and throws that you can use to were down your opponents energy bar and then go for a three pin (you know just like in the films). The range of monsters is a bit small and some of the fights are too easy but as a quick ten minute play on the bus to work it’s the best in this collection.

Last Resort

Rather than ripping off on of it’s own game, SNK follows the lead of Irem’s always popular R-Type series even down to the orbiting weapon pods come bullet shield. All the shump clichés are here in full force with collectable weapon upgrades and huge arse bosses but unlike R-Type doesn’t punish you for not having a photographic memory and pneumatic pistons for fingers. The handy option of a rapid-fire button helps prevent finger cramp and the generous checkpoints mean you wont have to memorise every enemy attack pattern to ensure you don’t succumb to the games one hit kills.

Lurk Secondary Review The problem with any collection of games is the overall quality of the games, for every good one there tends to be a few stinkers. As well as the games there’s a host of unlockables, including music artwork and move lists for the fighting games. SNK are mostly known for their fighting games and they make an appearance. There’s King of Fighters 94, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, World Heroes and King of Monsters. A big problem with these is that they all have better sequels. As well as the fighting games, there’s a selection of sports games. Neo Turf masters, which is a fun Golf game. Baseball Stars 2, which is an OK cartoony Baseball game. Super Sidekicks 3: The Next Glory, which is an average arcade football game, just don’t go into it expecting any depth to it. The collection also has shooting games, the best of these being the classic Metal Slug. Shock Troopers is a very good Ikari Warriors style top down game. Last resort is a wholly average R-type clone. The other games on this collection are Burning Fight a dire side scrolling beat-’em-up. Sengoku a slightly strange side scrolling beat-’em-up. Top Hunter a fun little side scrolling platformer/shooter. Magician Lord which plays like a poor man’s Strider. A problem is the medals you unlock the extras with don’t stack. So if you complete a game on normal, you don’t get the medal for completing it on easy, which is a little annoying. Otherwise everything is presented very nicely. Secondary Score: 6/10

Magician Lord

SNK does Black Tiger this time with action platforming the order of the day along with collectable power ups that transform you into six different forms like dragons, fish and even ninjas. Much like the games (Black Tiger, Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins) it mimics its hellishly difficult but persevere as it rewards you with some great later levels.

Art of Fighting, Samurai Showdown, King of the Fighters ’94, Fatal Fury

Peoww’s Danny will likely come looking for me with a hammer for saying this but each and ever one of these games bores me to tears. I could write up a long review of each one along with interchangeable character names, locations and fighting styles such is the incestuous and copycat nature of them. The bottom line is if you haven’t played them before don’t expect to be blown away by them, they all have their charms but they all play like every beat ‘em up did in the nineties. That is to say boring memory tests with the occasional need for digital dexterity.

So final score time and the need to rate the collection as a whole. If you don’t have broadband and access to the VC then this collection is a must have buy thanks in no small part to the overpricing of retro titles for download that would cost you over £70 if you bought them via the VC. Sure there’s a few lemons in there but even compared to other must have retro collections like Capcom Classics or the Midway Treasures the lemon/gold ratio is far better. Also there’s the odd niggle like the d-pad orientation changing when in the system menus but when you add the unlockable goals and other extra content you get this…

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

9/10

]]> http://www.peoww.co.uk/snk-arcade-classics-vol-1-wii/feed/ 0 http://www.peoww.co.uk/king-of-fighters-the-orochi-saga-wiips3/ http://www.peoww.co.uk/king-of-fighters-the-orochi-saga-wiips3/#comments Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:01:01 +0000 Colin http://www.peoww.co.uk/?p=2078 Review – King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga

Beat ‘em Up

Mid-90s violence overdose.

Colin

PSP: Shelling out coinage to plug into a big wooden cabinet in a big room filled with bright lights and sweaty adolescents just doesn’t sound like the kind of thing anyone would enjoy but for many modern gamers it was a way of life that is certainly less prevalent nowadays – The King of Fighters series was one of many game series that played a part. With this collection of series entries out now it will be interesting to see how well the games have fared over the years and whether any newcomers will be interested in it.

For those not familiar with the series the KoF games were almost like a combination of other established SNK fighting games (namely Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury). You could say that this inspired many other games to have similar mash –ups (Marvel vs. Capcom etc etc) but I won’t. KoF: The Orochi Saga contains King of Fighters ’94-’98 and a few extras too.

I'm not sure who that'd hurt more.

As you would expect the aim of the game was always to beat the juice out of your opponent but again a slight twist is thrown into the mix with the addition of three man teams, either a set team (like team USA) or in certain modes – making your own three man squad. Some would say it adds a certain strategy being that each character is different, but frankly you should always just play with who you like best, not putting too much thought into it. Once your line-up is ready you fight your opponent, one by one until one player looses all their health and then the next in the line-up steps in to take on the victor. You’re basically stuck with a fighter until they are defeated, which thankfully rules out the possibility of cheap “tagging in” and “tagging out” during certain points in a fight (it’s a form of cheating you know).

Hardly seems fair.

You can take your squad through the arcade modes of each of the five games which is as you would expect involves you fighting increasingly difficult teams, or try out the training mode. The standard options of attacking a stationary opponent or someone that can fight back are present but also a more easy to navigate moves list and the option to have button combinations for moves displayed at the top of the screen – so you don’t have to memorise everything. This was a very useful feature that either I haven’t seen before – or have just missed.

Mark Wii Review Now these games are my kind of beat ‘em ups, never mind all this spending six months learning combo chains and counter-moves bollocks only to get beasted by someone mashing buttons. Two buttons, easy to execute special moves and a big roster filled with interesting and more importantly varied characters make this collection a must have party game for when the beers come out and you need something fun but not too taxing to play. The games might look simplistic and basic put aside today’s titles like VF5 or SF4 but don’t fooled by the (now) retro presentation and garbled engrish of the early games, there’s plenty of depth to be had here with the whole three fighters per team mechanic giving you great scope for tactics and alternate strategy’s along with the later game’s super move system. If your idea of a good beat ‘em up is less Tekken and more Body Blows get this as despite showing its age can more than hold its own with the rest of the genre. Secondary Score: 7/10

In addition to the arcade modes from the ’94-’98 games a challenge mode has been included which is exactly as it sounds. Fighting opponents with certain limits and constraints ranging from not being able to see the timer or power gauge to fighting enemies who randomly flicker between being normal to invulnerable – so never a dull moment. Each challenge its self does have an AI difficulty rating ranging from easy (never as easy as you’d think) to advanced (Jedi Master more like). Never once do you feel helpless however, with each characters moves list only a button press away and a genuine sense of getting better at the game.

Completing challenges rewards you with the usual artwork and soundtrack unlockables, not to mention bragging rights.

The graphics have been really well represented and are as good as they were well over 10 years ago, the controls work well and the characters animations and moves are very fluidic, unlike certain other 2D fighting re-releases. Being that the ’94-’98 games were quite similar to each other it does seem a bit unusual to cram them all into one game but I don’t think anyone ever complained of having too much choice. King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga is a fine 2D fighter which was as fun to play now as it ever was. Aimed more at fans of the series than newcomers I’d still recommend it to anyone who likes the genre.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars 7/10

]]> http://www.peoww.co.uk/king-of-fighters-the-orochi-saga-wiips3/feed/ 0 http://www.peoww.co.uk/draft-house-of-the-dead-overkill-wii/ http://www.peoww.co.uk/draft-house-of-the-dead-overkill-wii/#comments Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:00:48 +0000 Matthew http://www.peoww.co.uk/?p=1326 Review: House of the Dead: Overkill

Lightgun Shooter

Dear Microsoft.  Light gun.  NOW.  Love Peoww.

Matthew

I’ve always been a fan of lightgun games and have fond memories of playing Time Crisis II and Area 51 (50p per player a.k.a £1 for dual-wielding!) in the arcade of my local bowling alley – which has now sadly become achav haven. Strangely enough, despite the Wii being the perfect console for lightgun games you aren’t exactly spoiled for choice. If you have played the previous games in the House of the Dead series you will realise how radically different this is. Taking place beforeHotD 1, it tells the story of Agent G’s first assignment and the origins of the zombie outbreak. The story in these kinds of games is never usually important but this is an exception. Clearly a parody ofgrindhouse , B movie cinema and it’s presented in such a manner.The over-the-top, hammy acting of the characters are brilliant, particularly Isaac Washington who is basically all of Samuel L. Jackson’s film roles ever condensed into one, but with addedmutherfucker.

Yeah, the ankle. That'll do it.

As far as the gameplay goes this is pretty much your standard on-rails shooter, but with the addition of the ability to move the camera slightly when thereticle is pointed at the side of the screen. You build up combos as you gun down zombies while adding score multipliers along the way ranging from “extreme violence” to “goregasm”. You can pick up bonuses such as the “Slo Mo Fo” item for a brief bullet-time effect, first aid packs and grenades. Weapons are bought using money awarded after each level, only two can be carried at once and they can be fully upgraded for increased damage, ammo capacity, less recoil etc. The standard magnum gets the job done but if you want more of a challenge it is advisable to simply stick with this weapon as the others are perhaps a little too powerful and make the game much easier, especially the fully-maxed automatic shotgun which is an absolute beast and by far the best gun to use if you are going for a high score. Thankfully, much like Sega’s otherWii lightgun games, you can properly calibrate the controller to aim exactly where you point, and you can also remove the crosshair for the authentic arcade experience.

Have you suffered an accident at work?

The game consists of seven stages with each represented by it’s own authentic-looking movie poster. Each stage lasts around twenty minutes or so and, as you would expect, culminates in a boss battle which can be a tad easy due to the helpful red circle that shows their weak spot. While there is no selectable difficulty level, upon your first completion of the game you can choose to increase the number of zombies or, even better, play the Director’s Cut. This basically entails playing through the game again at a slightly higher difficulty, and with added extracutscenes , enemies and areas. Also, unlike the standard mode with its unlimited continues (the only penalty for dying is a points deduction), you only get to use three continues in the Director’s Cut before it’s game over, leading to a more cautious approach – you have to be more careful when you chose to reload so you don’t get caught off guard. After completing this mode you can then dual-wield weapons, different from simply playing two player in that you only have one health bar. As well as the main story mode, there are also a selection of four mini games for up to four players which are just basic things such as a target range and save the civilian. Also, it must be noted that a played this game strictly with alightgun attachment. First the Nyko Perfect Shot and then the official Hand Cannon. I much preferred the latter due to the more weighty and stable feel of it, plus it just looksbadass. The game perfectly playable just using the controller but using a lightgun shell certainly adds to the experience as well as making aiming much easier if you play without the crosshair.

Colin Secondary Review Guns, babes, the un-dead, more guns and lots of swearing – surely that’s all you need to know. For the others that need a bit more information how’s about the fact that I don’t see a better light gun game coming out on the Wii? You can pretty much imagine what the gameplay is like, mowing down the un-dead like there’s no tomorrow just doesn’t get old. Unlike the other games I would say the variety of enemies is significantly more limited but frankly keeping it to the shambling masses never got dull. You can mix it up with a choice of weapons for each level, and your ability to upgrade them with cash earned adds more variety to the mayhem. As you may imagine, light-gun games or any sort do have limited life span but the host of extras HotD comes with is more than reasonable. I would strongly recommend a gun-grip add-on to use while playing (anything other than the Wii zapper should suffice). The AMS hand cannon add-on that is available to purchase certainly puts all those other crappy Wii add-ons to shame, holding the Wii-mote any other way to play just feels wrong frankly. In short, House of the Dead: Overkill is a genius bit of gaming because of its immature, whorish fun  attitude that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Hopefully Sega realise the little bit of magic they have created and try something equally inventive for the next game in the series… Either that or another equally shameless genre rip-off *smiley-face.Secondary Score: 9/10

The visuals certainly make this stand out from the crowd while a lot of the zombies character models are repeated it is certainly one of the better lookingWii games. As well as the grainy, scratched film effect when in the game, the retro 70s-style movie poster presentation of the menus helps the game achieve the wholegrindhouse feel. The soundtrack meshes perfectly with the visual style, from 70′s the funk to sleazy guitar riffs it’s one of the best I’ve heard in a while and it’s a shame that it hasn’t been given an official release yet. The voice acting is definitely in the so-bad-it’s-good category and had me laughing out loud on numerous occasions. The narrator’s cliched movie trailer voice over during the level introductions in particular are fantastic. The dialogue on the whole is very memorable, not just because of the excessive swearing but for the humour as well.

While this game is undoubtedly brilliant, it isn’t without it’s flaws. The frame rate can sometimes take a hit when there is a lot going on, and on one occasion the slowdown during a boss fight caused me to be killed through no fault of my own. There are also frequent loading pauses, sometimes not that noticeable but other times it stutters more that Gareth Gate. While it’s hard to tell of this is intentional or not, it can become very inconvenient and irritating, especially when this happens during or just after a reload with zombies attacking as it causes you to misjudge your timing. There are also occasions where the game is simply far too dark to see what’s going on and you have to resort to shooting blindly, hoping that you cleared the area. Also, giving the scoring nature of the game uploading your high score to an onlineleaderboard would have been a good addition.

Simply put, I love this game. Everything about it. I cant remember the last time I had such fun playing a lightgun game. From the visuals, sound, presentation, gameplay it really is fantastic and as a complete package is definitely the best lightgun game so far on the Wii an without a doubt one of the best lightgun games I have ever played.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

]]> http://www.peoww.co.uk/draft-house-of-the-dead-overkill-wii/feed/ 7 http://www.peoww.co.uk/disaster-day-of-crisis-wii/ http://www.peoww.co.uk/disaster-day-of-crisis-wii/#comments Sun, 02 Nov 2008 10:03:41 +0000 Matthew http://www.peoww.co.uk/wordpress/?p=992 Review: Disaster – Day of Crisis

Action/Adventure

Wii in ‘actual game’ shocker.

Matthew

Disaster: Day of Crisis first caught my eye way back before the Wii was even released. It was briefly shown in a video package of upcoming games from Nintendo. After that it wasn’t seen or heard of for almost two years until it was revealed to have been put on “indefinite hold” a.k.a “polishing a turd”. Thankfully that was not the case.

Think about every cheesy ’80s and ’90s disaster film you have ever seen you will have a good idea of the plot. Taking the role of the awfully-named Raymond Bryce (he’s got nothing on Casey Ryback) the (somewhat ridiculous) story basically involves trying to rescue your deceased best friend’s sister who is being held hostage by the terrorist organisation, SURGE (because CAPITALS mean business), who have also stolen a nuclear bomb. Of course all this conveniently happens during volcanic eruptions, earthquakes floods, tsunamis and bear attacks (?!). Sounds like an utter mess and I literally didn’t have a clue what was going on most of the time but since the game is fun to play it didn’t matter.

Turn anything in the game into a dancemat.

Despite the fact that the Wii is continuously mocked for having too many minigame collections this could be labelled as one, albeit a much more fleshed out one. Given the subject matter it isn’t the type of gameplay you would expect. First of all there are the 3rd-person sections where you explore the environment. In these sections you basically just go from point A to point B collecting power ups and rescuing survivors.

Breaking open containers by shaking the Wii remote reveals health power-ups in the form of amusingly large hamburgers or chunks of meat which Raymond finishes off in merely a few bites – as well as being a genuine laugh-out-loud moment it also gives the game a nice arcade-y feel. There are a few clever ideas worthy of note here such as having to keep your heart rate down and breathing fresh air to clear your lungs of smoke and ash.

Keep walking, Snake.

When rescuing survivors this is where the mini-games come into play, from performing CPR, cleaning wounds and applying dressings using a combination of button presses and Wii remote gestures. These parts work really well in breaking up the action and prevent things from getting repetitive. Fire fights against the terrorists also play a big part and this is where the game switches to Time Crisis-style light gun gameplay – definitely my favourite part since I’m rather partial to light gun games. You duck in and out of cover while taking out the enemies who have a rather handy red cursor that flashes around their gun when they are ready to shoot – this perhaps makes things a little easy but is a great help in the early sections of the game before you can level up your health.

Mark Secondary Review Do you remember all those old disaster movies Irwin Allen made in the 70′s? Well Nintendo do although the plot for this game is more in the Michael Bay style with mere earthquakes, tidal waves and firestorms deemed too boring so they’ve added stolen nukes, a female love interest, gung-ho soldiers and Morgan Freeman style kindly helper. Similarly the protagonist is a terribly hip gen-y arsehole covered in tattoos and carrying around more than enough emotional baggage to justify his surly and anti-authoritarian personality but he can handle a gun, drive a 4×4 and even reduce slabs of concrete to dust just by stomping on them. All the separate mini games that are linked together to form the gameplay work well enough be it the Virtua Cop style shootouts, Trauma Centre lite rescues or even Mario Kart driving that gives Wii owners an excuse to dust off all those Wii-Wheels. However the pacing is somewhat erratic with some stages giving you far too many recovery items while the following stage will be extremely stingy before returning to over generous in the following stage. All the ingredients are there for a great Wii game with the added bonus of a storyline that doesn’t involve anthropomorphic animals or vacuous cheerleaders but for me there’s just something missing from it. If you leave the game there’s nothing pulling you back to it, the story is hackneyed the gameplay unoriginal and encumbered by far too many ‘flail you Wiimote and nunchuck to lift a rock’ moments. If you have a Wii and want to play something not aimed at the pre-teen market you could do a lot worse than DDoC but don’t expect it to give you the same highs as something like Metroid or No More Heroes. Secondary Score: 7/10

There are also driving sections where, like Excite Truck or Mario Kart, the remote is held sideways and tilted to steer. Those ended up being my least favourite sections of the game due to the awkward, clunky handling of the vehicles and frustrating checkpoint placement. Finally, and what seems to be mandatory with every game these days, are the quick time events but strangely these aren’t as irritating as you would expect since they fit in rather well.

Throughout the game you can level up your character. You gain experience points for rescuing survivors, finding extra points concealed in containers and receiving a certain amount of XP depending on your ranking at the end of the level. XP is spent on increasing your attributes for things such as a longer health and stamina bar or stronger punches (resulting in fewer hits to break containers). The various attributes of your weapons can also be improved with increased damage, magazine capacity, reload time etc. This provides a worthy incentive to replay levels in order to beef up your character.

Despite not holding up well against Nintendo’s other Wii offerings the visuals are still impressive. From the opening FMV to the collapsing buildings, rushing tidal waves and earth-shattering explosions it holds up rather well – but there are some negatives. For instance the NPC character models all look like mannequins, and animate like them too. Dull, drab blurry textures litter buildings and the fire-effects can be laughable at times. However, once the action kicks in and the game moves up a gear you won’t really notice to be honest.

The voiceovers are pretty poor also, but thankfully they are unintentionally amusing. You will lose count of the amount of times “damn”, “damn it” and “dammit” are used. It’s also quite surprising and ironic to hear such expletive-riddled dialogue in a Nintendo game.

Overall, Disaster: Day of Crisis is an enjoyable game, with a mixture of gameplay elements that offer diversity which keeps the game flowing through some fantastic action set-pieces and the cheesy summer blockbuster plot is an added bonus that makes it all worth your while.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars 7/10

Fighting/Platformer

Someone must have reminded Nintendo about that other territory.

Matthew

First of all let me have a moan about the delay. Nintendo of Europe, as pathetic as ever, have cited translation as the reason for the six month delay from Super Smash Bros. Brawl being released in Japan to us ever-neglected Europeans finally getting it over here. It’s almost as if they don’t bother starting the translation until after the game is out in Japan. But enough about that, time to talk about the game.

The core gameplay of Brawl is the same it has ever been. Unlike traditional beat-’em-ups where you deplete an opponent’s health bar, in this your aim is to increase the damage percentage of your opponent. The higher the percentage becomes, the easier it is to be knocked off the platform and once you are knocked past a certain distance you lose a life. Items such as baseball bats, laser sword and bombs can be used to increase the amount of damage dealt.

Cloverfield revealed!

This time however, two new items are introduced. Firstly, evoking all sort of nostalgia, are the assist trophies which work in the same way as the pokeballs. Instead of pokemon, these summon characters from numerous past games including the Ninja from MGS, Andross from StarFox and even a Nintendog which fills the screen, obscuring your view. The second new item is the smash ball. During a fight this will appear and randomly float around the screen. Once a character destroys this it enables them to use their final smash, basically their finishing move. These range from Mario’s mega fireball attack to Gannondorf transforming into beast Ganon from Twilight Princess.

As you would expect, the selection of characters is as varied as ever. The detail in the character models is much higher than in the previous game. Series regulars such as Mario, Link, Samus etc all return. Newcomers include Solid Snake, Diddy Kong (!), Pit and of course Sonic the Hedgehog – the “who would win in a fight, Mario or Sonic?” argument can finally be settled.

Samus is too classy for a panty flash.

Each character has their own stage based on a game from their past. Amongst my favourites are Shadow Moses (with cameo appearances from a few Metal Gears) and Delfino Plaza from Super Mario Sunshine. A selection of stages from the previous game are also included which is a nice touch. One of the big additions to Brawl is the stage builder mode and once stages are made they can be shared with friends via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

Unlike Melee’s single player adventure mode which felt rather tacked on, Brawl’s version, called the “Subspace Emissary”, has a fully fleshed out story mode. The story is told via pre-rendered cutscenes written by Kazushige Nojima, who has previously worked on the Final Fantasy series. After seeing these it’s a wonder as to why Nintendo have shunned away from using FMV cutscenes in the past in games such as Metroid and Zelda. They are simply fantastic, more so because of the fact there is no dialogue at all and most of the communication is done with subtle character movement and gestures. Memorable moments such as Pikachu teaming up with Samus to fight Ridley or Link and Yoshi battling the bad guys in a forest are simply terrific. The levels consist of 2D side-scrolling and are linked together by the world map. Once the levels are completed you can return and replay them at any time. The secret characters are unlocked in this mode whenever they join your party, or they can be unlocked the usual way by meeting certain criteria in the melee mode. Stickers can be collected throughout the story mode which are used to power up attributes such as weapon damage and shield strength.

Adam Second Opinion Remember when gaming wasn’t a chore and everything you did with them could only bring a smile to the face? Remember when games had their own style of music and story that wasn’t ripped from Hollywood? Petridge Farm remembers and so does HAL Laboratories, the makers of Kirby and the super-duper Smash Bros. series. (GameCube controller not included) The very fact that it’s a fun game to play rules Brawl out as a straight beat ‘em up. It’s more of a party game given the amount of variable and wild-cards that can be administered to a match, ranging from the generic items; health; conjured old mascots and PKMN who fight for you; and the victory-snatching Smash Balls. It’s by no means as anti-competitive as the latest Mario Kart, as evidenced by the series stalward stance as the Nintendo’s platforms’ premier (only?) multiplayer fighter. Even if you’re on the receiving end of an unlucky and unbalanced assault, the sheer carnival brashness – helped along by some wiinomenal graphics – of it all will see you through many a beasting with a smile. The lifeblood of any fighter is it’s set of locked treasures, and Brawl is a veritable Aladdin’ Cave of Nintendo booty. A discography of orchestral soundtrack, a sticker-book, a trophy cabinet that makes the 360′s achievements look positively dull (right… you… OUTSIDE! – Ed). The campaign mode only acts as a shortcut (though by no mean short in itself) to the new characters and Kingdom Hearts-esque CG cinemas. The new additions are pure fanservice, which is something most devotees of Nintendo are finding sorely lacking with the Wii. Could this then be a last hurrah of the golden age of first-party masterpieces, or is hope still carried on the wings of Icarus? Secondary Score: 9/10

While the adventure mode does have a lot more depth than you would expect, the normal fighting mode the series is famed for is where most of the fun is had, especially in multiplayer. Fans prayers have been answered with the inclusion of online multiplayer. Despite owning a Wii since launch this is the first game I have actually purchased that works online. The online aspect wasn’t as much hassle as I was expecting it to be. There are three online modes, team battle, normal mode and spectator mode. The first two can be played either with randoms or with a friend. You are allocated a twelve digit game-specific friend code and to play online with friends you must add each other. Playing with randoms is where I experienced problems where the game couldn’t find anyone to match me up with; it all seems a bit hit-or-miss as to whether it will work or not. In spectator mode you basically watch a match and bet coins on who you think will win. A nice touch with the online portion is that you can make up a mini gamertag of sorts for other people on your friends list to see when you are online. It contains your friend code as well as a headshot of your Mii and a caption. Since the Wii has no voice chat, comments can be allocated to each direction on the d-pad to taunt your online opponent with.

Being a Nintendo game, memorable tunes are expected and Brawl certainly doesn’t disappoint. It contains signature theme songs from pretty much every major Nintendo game you can think off, as well as songs from the MGS and Sonic series. Some have been left untouched while others have been remixed and updated. More and more songs can be unlocked during play when they appear randomly as pickups and they can be listened to at any time using the My Music feature which lets you chose which themes are played on each stage and how often you hear them. I’d probably go as far to say that due to the sheer diversity this game contains one of the greatest videogame soundtracks you’ll ever hear.

There is so much in this game worth mentioning. I haven’t even got round to talking about the photo mode and replay feature which, using the Wi-Fi Connection, allows you to send photos and replays to your friends and also receive a pick of the best daily from Nintendo. There is also the Masterpieces section which is basically demos of some of the characters respective games such as Super Metroid, Lylat Wars, F-Zero etc. and more of these can be unlocked throughout the game. The trophy collecting also makes a welcome return.

I wrote in a prior review that Metal Gear Solid 4 was the ultimate fan service but I take that back. This is it, a Nintendo fan’s wet dream. Just like the previous Smash Bros. games it has one of the most complete multiplayer modes you’ll find. I honestly can’t think of anything bad to say about this game other than the connection problems with randoms online and the slightly too long loading times in places. If you own a Wii, not owning this is simply not an option.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars 9/10

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Review: Final Fantasy: My Life as a King

Sim/Strategy

Wii-ware comes to Peoww.

Danny

A Final Fantasy game that’s not an RPG? Hold the front page! OK joking aside it does come as a genuine shock that Square would make a Final Fantasy game that does not consist of tedious RPG fights/grinding and blonde men with ridiculously wacky hair, but they have. I mean they have done spin offs before but this is the first Final Fantasy that I can recall that actually was not a RPG which will be good news for some and bad news for long established fans of the series.

Join ussss....

First things first though, I’ve got to talk about the massive elephant-like creature that has plonked itself in the middle of most peoples’ minds and that’s the price. It is pricey no doubt but unlike many downloadable games this could actually be mistaken for a full retail Wii game, which is quite an achievement. The pricing works like this.

To buy the game itself it’s 1500 pts which works out as £11.25, which is not too bad. Then there is all the additional content. At the time of writing to buy everything including the game itself and minus the two nonessential additional costumes (yes there are only two I checked), it will set you back just under £22.50 or 2900 pts to be exact.

Are the downloads worth it? Well depends how much you like the game so I would not suggest buying them all straight away. While the additional dungeons pack is good value for 300 pts, the three extra races will get you back 800 pts which is quite a lot of money and not entirely essential. The biggest problem with this game (and all WiiWare titles at the time of review) is that there was literally no way to play the game before buying it because there are no demos to download. This is a cardinal sin and unacceptable and I hope Nintendo do something about it.

King, penguin, thing with ball on head. Japanese developers can really be odd at times.

Well I am four paragraphs in to this review and all you know about Final Fantasy: My Life as King is that it’s a little pricey and it’s not an RPG so I guess I should actually talk more about the game now. The game plays like ‘my first Sim City’ but with a ton of Japanese RPG flavouring. It’s not a terribly complicated game but due to this it is very accessible and fun in short bursts.

The main deal with the game is this. You are a small boy who is charged with running a country which is only one town big (weird eh?). You find this magical crystal which allows you to use magic to make buildings so you start building homes for your people until you run out of magic resource.

Aside from town-planning you also have to raid local dungeons but you can do that yourself because you’re far too important, so you hire people called adventurers to do that for you and no you don’t get to watch them fight, unfortunately.

Colin Secondary Review During the Viking review I was harking on about Dark Cloud, how it was a great feeling to build up your town/army/area seeing things grow and evolve as you play the game. Once I heard what exactly Final Fantasy: My Life as King (FF:MLaK) was going to be like I was intrigued. I enjoyed (still do) the game, playing at times for thirty minutes, other times for three hours (eek). It definitely lends itself better to wee pick up and play blasts. One criticism I would say is that the game’s difficulty did seem inconsistent at times. I would send my warriors (Lv 10) off to a Lv 7 dungeon and they’d get beasted. Now granted that you can’t lose the game so beasted warriors just come home and rest for a day (neither can you go bankrupt). But this failure when I was playing the odds game did baffle me. About the DLC. Don’t buy it. I paid for the three new races, but now realise even that wasn’t needed. Perhaps once I total everything I’ll want to invest some more cash, but for now I (and you) should be happy with what you get (certainly don’t ever pay for the new costumes). If this thing town-building, npc interaction and minor management even remotely appeals to you then GET IT. If you would like to try something different, give it a whirl. If you think it all looks very “gay” and wussy then don’t buy it. Secondary Score: 8/10

Raiding dungeons helps obtain more resources for expanding your town and can also let you acquire other useful items such as building plans and item making materials. Make sure you pick the right adventurer for the job though, because if you pick a dungeon that’s too tough for them they will be defeated and become unusable for a short amount of time.

You must also raise the morale of your people in order to upgrade your kingdom. Happy civilians are more likely to pay more taxes and generally just earn you more money. They can also leave out lanterns for you so can stay up later. To raise morale you can just simply talk to peasants or complete requests for them. For example your adventurers might ask for a place to relax so a good idea would be to build a park for them. It’s pretty simple stuff but it’s quite fun and rewarding to see your virtual townspeople happy and content and to see your town prosper.

While generally FF:MLAK is a well put together package there are a few problems. The game does seem to get a little repetitive after a while. I found I could only play the game in one hour bursts and there is no real reason to keep playing once you finished the story and beaten all the dungeons but it will take you some considerable time before you get to that point. Also a lot of the towns folk have very similar 3D models to each other so it looks like there a lots of the same person running around the town but I guess that’s to save space and to make the player buy the additional races packs.

Overall Final Fantasy: My Life as King is a bit of a niche game. It’s not going to appeal to everyone and those who like fast paced games will probably want to give this game a miss. But those gamers who like simple and well made city building games with a bit of a (basic) story and some interesting gameplay mechanics may want to give a game a try. Although if the price is too much for you I would strongly suggest picking up Lost Wind instead as it’s very impressive and worth the money.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

7/10

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