CaptainD's WII Games Review Blog

Press Release - Two Tribes and The Game Factory Announce New Series of Rubik-Inspired WiiWare Games

2009-11-03T08:03:00.000-08:00

Harderwijk, Netherlands – November 3rd, 2009 – Two Tribes, an independent developer and digital publisher and The Game Factory, an International publisher of family-friendly and casual video and computer games, are pleased to announce a new series of Rubik inspired WiiWare™ puzzle games. The first game of the series, Rubik's Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH, will be made available on WiiWare to gamers throughout Europe this autumn.

Puzzle video game fans now have every need to be excited with the upcoming launch of Rubik’s Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH. Developed by puzzle game professionals Two Tribes, the creators behind the critically acclaimed Toki Tori (Wii and iPhone) and Worms: Open Warfare 2 (Nintendo DS™"), Rubik’s Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH is an original 3D puzzle game that provides hours of puzzling fun and excitement across more than 70 brain-busting levels. Utilizing the intuitive Wii controls, players ‘herd’ coloured cubes to their exit points across stylish environments using a crazy mix of tools including conveyer belts, warps and stop signs.

“We are very excited to be releasing our second WiiWare title”, said Martijn Reuvers, Managing Director of Two Tribes, “Inspired by the cult classic from the eighties, Rubik’s Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH is a totally fresh and unique 3D puzzle game experience which we can’t wait to show to Wii gamers”.

In addition to the 70-plus levels included, Rubik’s Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH also features the original Rubik’s Cube gameplay as a bonus. Players can try to solve one of the four sizes available, play the unique pattern matching score mode, learn how to solve the original Rubik’s Cube and even compete in the two player mode. Rounding out the package are the online leader boards, with the potential to host tournaments, with prizes awarded to those players who achieve the best scores.

Rubik's Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH Highlights:

· Original 3D puzzle solving gameplay

· More than 70 brain-busting levels

· Tailor-made Wii Remote™ control scheme

· Conveyer Belts, Warps, Stop Signs, Directional Signs, Splits, and more.

· Stylish environments

· Classic Rubik's Cube in four sizes

· Tutorial on how to solve the original Rubik's Cube

· Unique score mode

· Online leaderboards

Rubik's Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH is rated PEGI 3+ (4+ in Portugal) and will be available on the Wii Shop Channel. For additional information please visit the official site at: http://www.rubikspuzzlegalaxy.com/

About the Rubik's Cube
In 1980, the Rubik's Cube, was launched on an unsuspecting world with a Hollywood party hosted by the "other" famous Hungarian Zsa Zsa Gabor little did anyone know it would become the world's biggest-selling puzzle. Today it looks the same, it works the same and it's still incredibly popular. So iconic did the puzzle become that it earned a place in New York's Museum of Modern Art, and its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary; not to mention worldwide sales exceeding 300 million copies. Rubik's Cube has featured in major movies, ad campaigns, generated huge sales of T-shirts and apparel, been used as an iconic image for lottery games and scratch cards and along with the brand's other 3D twisting puzzles still generates a huge amount of public interest, recognition and affection.

About THE GAME FACTORY
The Game Factory, trading as The American Game Factory, Inc. in North America, is an international publisher of family-friendly and casual video and computer games, many based on leading international children's characters. It is a subsidiary of the K.E. Mathiasen Group A/S, the largest Nordic company within children's licenses and spanning many different product categories such as: Apparel, toys, candy, home furnishing and games. For more corporate and product information, please visit www.gamefactorygames.com.

About TWO TRIBES
Two Tribes B.V. is a privately owned company focusing on the development of games for portable devices and downloadable game services. Since 2000 Two Tribes has been operating from their offices in the center of the Netherlands. Over the years, Two Tribes has created games for a wide range of game devices. They developed games for Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance and countless mobile phones. With the advent of downloadable game services, such as WiiWare and XBox Live Arcade, Two Tribes has entered home-console development as well. For more information, visit www.twotribes.com.

First Thoughts on WII Fit Plus

2009-10-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

Very positive so far - lots of new features (tracking features and exercise-programmes as well as simply new exercises and games), and some of the games really are a lot of fun - circus juggling and snowball fights are probably my favourites after a quick tryout, with some crazy extras like flapping your wings (er, sorry - arms) to guide a bird onto scoring platforms. There are some enhanced versions of games already in WII Fit, too.

Full review sooner or later, but from first impressions, at £15 from Amazon this looks like a very good buy.

WII Fit Plus

2009-10-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

Despite the postal strike, our copy of WII Fit Plus has arrived today. Will post more about it when I've had the chance to try it out.

Also a mate will be bringing round Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics soon (largely because he's played it and we haven't, so he expects to beat us hollow at every event) - providing I can persuade him to part company with it for a while, I'll be able to review that soon as well.

Oops...

2009-10-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

... failed spectacularly at the single leg balance test on WII Fit today and it gave me a WII Fit age of 45 - I'm only 32 and had consistently been getting a WII Fit age of 26 or thereabouts!

I'm not sure I like WII Fit any more... :-D

Play Deal of the Day

2009-09-28T08:24:00.001-07:00

FIFA 10 for the WII. Can't give any personal opinion as I haven't played it, but here's the official blurb:

On the heels of winning 25 international gaming awards with FIFA 09, the top-selling football franchise from EA Sports is surpassed with FIFA 10. Responding to consumer feedback from more than 275 million online games played, FIFA 10 refines an already potent game engine, focusing on what matter most to fans.

Interested? Click here.

WII Game Review - Mario Kart WII

2009-09-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

Mario Kart WII is one of the Nintendo WII's best-selling titles* and, well over a year after its release, still one of the games that generates most interest in the console. Having enjoyed Mario Kart Super Circuit on the GBA, I was looking forward to this game and wasn't disappointed by it at all.

A fun and often crazy racing game, Mario Kart WII features a host of familiar Nintendo characters - Mario, Luigo, Wario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, etc - as they battle for supremacy amongst a large selection of tracks. There is a single-played championship mode, which is fine in itself, but the game really comes alive in multiplayer mode. You can have up to four players on a single WII (though without a big screen this can be a little confusing!), and typically race in a tournament of 4 trakcs, each of which can be selected separately.

The game looks great; we all know that the WII's graphical capabilities aren't the most impressive, but the bright, bold, colourful cartoon-style graphics suit the game (and the console) down to the ground. There are some very nice touches, lots of attention to detail, and good animation (some of it very funny). The tracks have a lot of variety in terms of difficulty and aesthetic style. Crucially, there is a good impression of speed as you zoom round the tracks. The sound also is great - fun music, insane sound effects and speech samples. It looks and sounds great, and plays just as well.

You can play the game with a classic controller or a Wiimote turned on its side. As standard the game comes with a steering wheel that you can slip the Wiimote into for a more authentic driving experience. It takes a while to feel comfortable with the Wiimote alone and it's definitely easier (but less fun) with a classic controller.

Apart from simply driving (which can be challenging enough, with some tricky courses and various parts of the track that will affect your car - speed0up lanes, creatures that wonder onto the track and can slow you down (or worse!), mushrooms to bounce on - with a tumble to the bottom of a deep canyon as the alternative. All of this is great and makes the game a lot of fun, but what seals it is the power ups (and power downs). No just that there are loads of different things to collect to help or hinder you winning the race, but all of the AI opponents use theirs too. All too often in games like this the AI racers rarely if ever use a power up, but here they're fully used by each competitor. This makes the races very unpredictable since you might be winning and suddenly find your car shrunk to the size of a hedgehog with a similar loss of power; someone turning into a rocket and zooming past you as if you're not moving; a could shooting lightening suddenly appears above your car and won't go away; your windscreen is squirted with ink and you can't see the track properly for a while.

This can be a bit of a mixed blessing since it sometimes detracts from the skill needed to win; often skilful use or avoidance of particular power ups / downs is more important than actual driving skill. However after a while it became clear to me that, while this part of the game certainly introduces a random element into the races, overall your skill in the game is what counts most.

The key strength of this title is its variety - there are loads of tracks to race on, a good number of different characters to choose from, and many different vehicles to race in. Both single and multiplayer modes have a good number of options, and there are several different game modes - standard racing, battle mode where you can blow each other up (well actually you can do this in race mode too, but maybe not as much!) and collecting coins. In these games you can act individually or as part of a team, with 6 on each side (though I've tended to find that whoever's in the same team as me automatically becomes useless!). There is also online play to challenge up to 11 of your friends, and a variety of online challenge modes which are constantly updated and added to.

Naturally it's the multi-player mode that offers the most enjoyment for this game, but whichever way you look at it, Mario Kart WII is a very strong title. Some might feel that there is a bit too much randomness to the races, but if you persevere you'll learn just what to use and when to get the biggest advantage against your competitors.

Overall Mario Kart WII is great fun, and with the excellent online multiplayer plus the huge (and expanding) variety of courses, challenges etc means that you're never likely to get bored of it. If you liked racing games and aren't looking for a pure simulation, Mario Kart WII should suit you right down to the ground.

* Mario Kart WII is 4th in the WII best-seller lists with 17.39 million sold; only WII Fit (21.82m), WII Play (22.98m) and WII Sports (47.62m) have sold more. Figures taken from Wikipedia on 1st September 2009.

The Nintendo WII and Autism

2009-09-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

I've known for a long time that the physio department in the hospital I work at has a Nintendo WII with WII Fit and WII Sports to help older people get mobile again or just to gently introduce exercise into their lives again after an operation or other hospital admission. However recently someone pointed my attention to the benefits that the WII has had with her autistic child - in fact the positive results have been quite staggering.

Here are both articles if you're interested:

Consider the Nintendo Wii for Kids with Autism
I'm a Believer in WII Therapy!

I know Mary online as, like me, she is a long-time Epinions member. Visit her profile page there for more of her excellent writing.

EA Active Review

2009-06-30T09:29:00.000-07:00

EA Active is the latest way to use your WII to get fit. It has a different emphasis to WII Fit, which focuses a lot on balance, and offers you a variety of track, sports, and muscle-building exercises to help fight the flab. I've seen it described as a "Western" workout programme as opposed to WII Fit's "Oriental" style workout plan, which is probably a pretty fair assessment. For developing muscle strength and burning calories I'd rate it very highly and rarely use WII Fit anymore (though I still feel that WII Fit is a good product, EA Active is better suited to my needs).

The real key to EA Active is the resistance band - this makes it possible to do muscle and resistance training. You can shorten or lengthen the band's position relative to the hand grips if you need to make your work-out harder / easier (be very careful to tie the band tightly onto the grips though). This works much better than I was expecting it to and you can definitely use the exercises to build muscle as well as burn calories.

EA Active certainly gives you a good workout, and because it features a large number of different, short workouts, it doesn't get boring. Some are quite undemanding while others are very challenging indeed.

While it's a very good product overall, EA Active does have a few problems. With some of the exercises you really could do with having a wireless nunchuck, as if you perform the tasks with any enthusiasm it's easy for the connecting cable between the Wiimote and nunchuck to get tangled up and / or in the way. The resistance band can work itself loose if you're not careful, and the thigh strap frequently starts slipping down. The problem with the resistance band only really persists until you've worked out exactly where you want it and tie a really strong knot there... the thigh strap continues to be a bit of a pain even after weeks of trying to get it to stay put.

The trainers can get very annoying, though they can be turned off to an extent and it's strangely therapeutic to hurl abuse at them while you're exercising! The female trainer does have a certain "I want to have your babies" quality to her voice when you're doing well, which is frankly quite disturbing. On odd occasions the game tells you you're doing it wrong at the same time that the trainer's praising you for doing it right - though this is only a slight and un-troubling inconsistency.

One of the good things about this program is that it automatically schedules rest days (after 2 or 3 days of working out), and if you skip a day you should have been working out, it simply reschedules that as a rest day. In the 30-Day Challenge, you work out 20 of the days with the others scheduled as rest. Of course you can do extra workouts if you want on any of the days.

While the pre-programmed workouts are good and quite fun, the option to create your own custom workouts is definitely a strong selling point. With a huge number of exercises based around circuit training, resistance training and sports exercises, in addition to being able to vary the intensity of the workouts, gives you great freedom to make up a workout of exercises you enjoy, focus on a particular muscle group, etc.

The game tracks the calories you've burned based on your profile, and how much effort you put into an exercise genuinely does make a difference - it's not simply tracking each rep as a set value of cals. There are various trophies you can earn as you complete certain objectives - i.e. 100 / 1,000 / 10,000 calories burnt, 25 laps of the running track, 200 tennis swings completed, etc. There are 30 such trophies and some you'll earn quickly, others will take a fair amount of time. It's a nice additional motivation for you as you keep working out.

You can use the game with or without the balance board - certain exercises can be done with it in a slightly different way. It doesn't really matter if you don't have a balance board, but it does give you a little extra variety if you have one. In-line skating, for instance, is completely different using the balance board (and a lot less painful!).

The graphics are nice, nothing amazing but give you a good sense of the outdoors or sports area you're supposed to be in. The backgrounds have a slightly surreal quality, looking more like an oil painting really than a game, but it works well. Player animation is fluid and realistic - though the graceful onscreen movements do not always accurately reflect what you're managing to do in real life! Setting up your profile includes creating an avatar for yourself, and it's easy to create a character who looks very similar to yourself. There is a decent range of music in various styles available throughout the game, and all of the music is very good (though I don't always agree with the category it's described as being!).

To give you some idea of what you will end up doing in EA Active, here are some examples:

Circuit-training - walking, running, high knees, kick-backs
Volleyball exercises - bump, set, smash
Tennis - forehand & backhand swings / volleys, overhead smash
Basketball - hoop shooting, target shooting
Muscle exercises - bicep curls, upright rowing, shoulder raises, lateral shoulder raises; squats, lunges, lunge jumps
Boxing - target punching, knee bag

Another good thing about the game is that it combines exercises after you've done them a couple of times, for instance upright rows with tricep extensions or more complex combinations of tennis shots etc. This helps to keep things interesting and motivates you to push yourself further. This really is a very well thought-out exercise programme, especially if you use the 30-Day Challenge mode.

Other good things about this game (well, I suppose "program" or "package" would be a more appropriate description) is that you can set targets for yourself in terms of calories burned, workouts completed or time spent working out. The slight problem with this is that if you change anything, it resets completely - very annoying the first time you change it only to find that day's workout doesn't count. Still now that you've read that, maybe you won't make the same mistake that we did!

Overall EA Active isn't a perfect product, but it is very good at what it does - I can definitely feel the difference in my muscles compared to before I started using it. The way it combines a large number of short activities helps to keep things interested, and certainly has kept this reviewer (whose attention span would often be beaten by a goldfish) interested. If the thigh strap wasn't so problematic, I would have said that this was a truly excellent package.

What will be interesting in the near future will be to see how EA Active compares to WII Fit Plus...

WII Game Review - Worms: Space Oddity

2009-06-21T05:03:00.001-07:00

Worms: Space Oddity is a game that you'd really expect to port perfectly to the Nintendo WII. In case you've been living on Mars for the last couple of decades, the Worms series of games is a turn-based strategy game where two or more teams of worms try to blow the others up and be the last team standing. (Surprisingly, a lot of the best friendships are created by games involving blowing each other up... strange but true.) There are a number of weapons at hand, some unlimited in use but tricky to use accurately (i.e. bazooka), some amazingly powerful but rarely found (i.e. banana bomb), and many in between. You play on randomly-generated landscapes - it's easy to have a completely different landscape each time so no-one gets too much of an advantage due to always being in the best position - and some items on the landscape can help or hinder you. An overhang of the rock-face can provide one of your worms with some useful protection, though it can also hinder their ability to fire their weapons. Barrels of oil will explode if a weapon lands too close to them. That sort of thing.

While there have been many worms games and many variations on the theme, the basic game has remained that outlined above, and Space Oddity is no different. Though set in space and featuring different weapons, it is to all intents and purposes exactly the same game - it looks a little different but it plays the same and the weapons are largely just renamed, not genuinely different. Okay, there are actually a few genuinely different weapons, but these are very much in the minority. The key selling point to the game was the use of the Wiimote - you use it to aim the bazooka (very fiddly!), shake it up and down like a mad thing to make your flying saucer attack, hold it horizontally and "push" down to push the plunger on a bomb's detonator, etc. Some of these work well enough and some are too fussy. The idea had a lot more apparent potential than has been realised here.

There are two main weaknesses to the game that really hinder it. Firstly setting up your teams, editing names etc using the Wiimote is a real pain. Much worse is the fact that the graphics are absolutely atrocious. Even given that the WII is not a graphical powerhouse, there is no excuse for graphics that look as bad as this game. Everything on-screen is so fuzzy and blurred that you really have to strain to see what you're doing at times. Perhaps with a signal booster for the WII (I haven't got one but I know they do exist) it would look better, but as it is, the game looks terrible. Thankfully the sound is okay, decent music and speech (you have several "voice packs" to choose from for your team of worms, who make different comments depending on what's just happened in the game).

As you'd expect from a Worms game, on the whole it's still fun to play, especially in 2, 3 or 4-player mode of course. The controls are so-so, some work and some are practically impossible to use, but mostly it's still enjoyable trying to outsmart your opponent / opponents. The console's AI is okay and with the adjustable difficulty level you should be able to find a challenging but not unbeatable opponent (or, indeed, opponents) when no are no human adversaries around. This version of Worms unable to have as many worms per team as the PC versions I've played, though you can still have a respectable number.

All in all, Worms: Space Oddity is definitely a missed opportunity. Virtually nothing significant has been added to previous incarnations of the games, the Space theme was really nothing more than a change of scenery, and only about half of the game mechanics work well enough. Combined with the terrible graphics, I can't really recommend this at all, unless you're desperate to have a version of Worms to play and don't have anything other than a WII in the house.

Other games in the Worms series:

Worms Armageddon (PC)
Worms 3D (PC)

First Impression - EA Active

2009-06-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

Wow... I tried the "low intensity" workout and was sweating cobs... whatever is the high intensity workout going to be like?!?!

Looks like EA have gone for loads of variety, the workouts are good, the equipment that comes with it... not so sure, seems a bit flimsy to me! The trainers are a bit annoying but then that's to be expected.

Day 1 of my 30 day challenge down... 29 to go...

EA Active has arrived!

2009-06-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

Well, that is to say that EA Active: Personal Trainer has arrived at our house. Will of course keep you updated as to how well it works - expect a report after 30 days on how well I've done with the "30 Day Challenge".

Before I can tell you what it actually does do, I'll tell you what it says it will do:

"Revolutionise your workout with the ultimate interactive fitness program that offers nearly endless exercise variety. Get fit with a comprehensive approach to fitness that combines nutrition and lifestyle factors with a variety of activities - all from the convenience of your living room. Featuring customised routines that target upper body, lower body, and cardio, plus a guided 30-Day Challenge. Burn calories and stay in shape with fitness made fun and easy."

Well, we'll see if it can make good on those lofty claims. It will be interesting to see how it shapes up to WII Fit - though it will be even more interesting to see how it compares to WII Fit Plus.

Super Mario Bros WII

2009-06-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

Up to four players can join in the coin-collecting, monster-stomping, mushroom-eating fun... I've never been a great fan of these games to be honest, but I have to admit that this one has managed to pique my interest.

Mario Kart WII

2009-06-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

I'm rediscovering my love of this game... here's a gameplay trailer to illustrate why before I finally get my review done!

WII Fit Plus

2009-06-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

Here are the E3 videos and official trailer for Nintendo's expansion of WII Fit - more muscle exercises and muscle games, some expanded features etc. Apparently there's even a game where you play the role of a certain popular video game character called Mario... Not convinced about this one to be honest, but if the basic release isn't too expensive it might be worth a shot...

WII Game Review - Nights: Journey of Dreams

2009-06-06T03:40:00.000-07:00

Nights: Journey of Dreams is a 3D platform game with the slight difference that you can fly as well. After a cut scene that was actually very good graphically by WII standards, we're led into the tutorial of a very average-looking game. The basic storyline is that you have entered the world of dreams, with a figure called "Nights", who looks suspiciously like a female Sonic, acting as your guide. The tutorial gives you the basics of game and flight mechanics, and off you go via the inevitable evil guy bent on world domination and suchlike.

Once you get into the game you have collect things, free things, chase things, avoid things and jump on things - we've been here many times before in 3D platformers, and Nights doesn't add much that's new except the flying ability. The world of "Nightopia" looks okay, with the 3D feeling solid enough without anything looking particularly impressive, and there is some level of creativity in the game world and level design. The music is okay, though its relentlessly cute and happy tone does begin to grate on the nerves after a while. The voice acting is reasonably okay, a bit annoying really but probably not to the game's target audience, who are evidently quite a bit younger than me.

Unfortunately, any potential audience for this game is likely to be extremely put off by the controls. While on the ground they're okay but once airborne, at the point where the game should have the chance to shine, they're awful. The game has two separate control methodologies for flight, one using just the Wiimote and the other the nunchuck, and both are terrible. The controls always feel sluggish and awkward, and to get your character to do what you intended is very rare. In addition to this the perspective often shifts suddenly without warning and you find yourself going in the opposite direction for no apparent reason. Then you have the restart points - spaced ridiculously far apart and with timed challenges to accomplish that, thanks to the unresponsive controls, are more or less impossible. Needless to say this review isn't based on me getting very far in the game or playing it for very long, but I'm sure you can appreciate that it wasn't long before my patience with Nights ran out completely.

There is a two-player mode, but again the controls ruin what could be relatively enjoyable. It's got a PEGI age rating of 7+, but I'd recommend you only play this game if you are at least a hundred and fifty years old.

Overall, Nights: Journey of Dreams looked like it would have been, at best, a rather average platformer; however with such unsatisfactory controls, the dream soon becomes a nightmare. Sorry for a less detailed review than usual but there's no way I'm going to waste more of my life on this gaming atrocity!

If you want a fun 3D platformer for the WII, go for Crash of the Titans instead.

Want to trade in any old WII games?

2009-06-06T03:17:00.000-07:00

From what I've been able to find out (online and through personal experience), HMV seems to offer the best price on WII games. If you're in-store and haven't got the games with you don't worry, just go and ask whoever's on the game counter how much it would be worth. Depending on promotions etc the prices may fluctuate, but generally they're going to remain stable, and apparently WII games are holding their price better than games for other systems. Whatever the value of the games is, they'll put that on a gift card for you which can be used whenever and for whatever - doesn't have to be other games.

I've certainly got a few games that I'm not going to play anymore, and they'll soon find their way into HMV's "previously owned" section.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

2009-06-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

One of the best Wii games to date, Super Mario Galaxy is quickly being followed up. We've seen little footage, and little information, but it seems Mario and Luigi are back at it again. This time, though, they're bringing company - Yoshi! The cute little guy seems to have as many power ups as Mario did in the first, and that's good news for fans of the series. 2010 release for this Wii title.

This was a guest post from our friends over at The 8th Circuit.

Announcement from LucasArts

2009-06-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

A throwaway comment at the end of a recent LucasArts press release that I thought you might be interested in:

LucasArts recently revealed that the classic adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (originally released in 1992) is included as an unlockable bonus in the Wii™ version of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, set to be released on June 9.

Broken Sword: Director's Cut for Nintendo WII...

2009-05-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

... though I'd been interested in this game since it was announced, I had basically decided to save my money since I have, after all, played and completed all the Broken Sword games for the PC. However...

If you read Gnome's review linked to below, you'll probably come to the same conclusion that I did - that this is a must-have game! From the screenshots it looks like the whole graphical style has been reenvisioned, and a lot of extra gameplay has been added.

Interested? Do yourself a favour and check out Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars: The Director's Cut: The Wii Review

Of course I'll be doing my own review sometime, but at the moment I'm not planning on buying any more games for the WII. Hopefully they'll come down in price a bit soon... even second-hand games for the WII seem expensive to me most of the time though!!

CaptainD - WII Games Review Blog

CaptainD's WII Fit Challenge!!

2009-05-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

Just wondering really how my scores on some of the balance games compared to others... comment if you can beat my score! (Or if you can't, comment anyway to make me feel good! :-D)

Heading (Advanced) - 553
Slalom (Advanced) - 46:00 (new record 19th May 2009)
Ski Jump - 342m

Sam & Max Season One for Nintendo WII - Trailer

2009-05-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

Not sure if I'll be getting this as I've already completed it on the PC, but it still looks good!

WII Fit - More Than Meets the Eyes...

2009-04-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me as my wife was playing around with various aspects of WII Fit that this program has a lot more features than I realised. You can go back and see your individual results / measurements over the whole time you've been using it, for one thing, and see how you've progressed over time. There are some very handy functions that I'll definitely be using in the future - now that I know they're there! If you use WII Fit and felt it was a bit limited (as I did, to be honest), have a play around with some of the features taht aren't directly part of the exercises and games. You might be surprised at just how complete a package it is.

For the last couple of weeks I've been using WII Fit fairly solidly, and am seeing some results, if not spectacular ones. There's still a loooooong way to go before I'm happy with my body shape / size / weight, but at least I finally seem to be heading in the right direction - and WII Fit seems to have been more help than I thought it would be.

An elementary Wiimote - 14 years ahead of its time?!?!

2009-04-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

About half a lifetime ago when I was taking Technology at school, I came up with the idea of taking a derelict Quickshot 2 joystick and swapping the defunct bubble switches with mercury switches. In those days analogue joysticks were practically unheard of (and rarely supported by the available games anyway), and micro-switches were seen as the best solution on the market. My school project worked, albeit the joystick was far too sensitive to properly play Kick Off 2 (or anything else).

However as I remember holding my project in midair tilting it in all directions, it occurs to me that it could be considered as a theoretical forerunner to the Wiimote – the principal is very similar even if the technology and application is different.

So... do you think that if I could ever find my mercury-switched joystick, Nintendo would consider paying me royalties? To think that as a 16 year-old I could just have had an idea a decade ahead of its time in my head (and hands), but failed to do anything at all with it!!

CaptainD - WII Game Reviews Blog

WII Fit Review

2009-04-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

WII Fit is not so much a game as a personal trainer, designed to help you reach your goal of losing weight. To do such a thing with a video game is quite a novel idea (though already much imitated) and has received considerable acclaim. Does it really do the job though?

After setting up your characters (your MII can be imported) with weight and height details, you set your goal in terms of weight loss (or gain, if you're primarily looking to build muscle bulk). WII Fit will automatically track your progress and keep you updated as to how you're doing.

Each day when you first log in (you can do it more or less often than daily of course), you will first be given the option of doing a Body Test. This will check your weight and show you your BMI - depending on the results, your MII may develop a large stomach or not. Then there are two "athletic tests", such as balancing on one leg, shifting your balance to hit targets on the screen, etc. After this you will then be presented with your WII Fit Age - calculated from your actual age and your performance in the acrobatic ability tests. Your MII will celebrate or weep depending on how you do.

The training section of WII fit is divided into 4 main types:

Aerobic exercise - fat-burning exercises. Some examples of these are a dancing, rhythmic boxing and jogging. Mostly these are quick fun and relatively challenging, hula-hoops is a major killer on your abs. A pretty good selection, though there could have been more variety.

Yoga positions - various poses that you must keep for xx seconds, the WII balance board will help determine if you're doing it correctly and how much movement you have, measured by changes in your centre of gravity. To be honest I wasn't expecting to like this section at all, but to my surprise it's actually quite enjoyable and also very challenging.

Muscle exercise - not all of these particularly use the balance board or Wiimote, and basically there's no advantage doing these exercises on the WII compared to having a couple of dumbbells and using them. Not the strongest part of the package, but reasonably well implemented for all that.

Balance games - where I tend to spend most of my time playing WII Fit - skiing, tightrope walking and more await your pleasure. The games are, on the whole, quite fun and provide a decent challenge, and while not burning a huge number of calories do improve your balance

Once you've achieved a certain level, you unlock higher levels of those exercises. In the balance games you have "Advanced" and "Super-Advanced" levels, muscle exercises unlock longer workouts, etc. As you exercise you earn "WII Fit Cash" which, after a while, will unlock further games and challenges. This is good at first because it provides goal-oriented exercising, which is the main advantage of this over conventional exercise. Fairly quickly though you've unlocked most features of the game. The high score tables help to keep you coming back, especially when more than one person is using WII Fit and you can compete with each other.

The key element of WII Fit is the WII Balance Board, which you stand on or use in various other ways for the games and exercises. It's a fairly sturdy unit, and ours has certainly taken some serious usage without complaining. It's an innovative control feature and more games are making use of it, so the balance board is a good purchase in itself. The board becomes the base for yoga poses or muscle workouts, a dance mat, snowboard, or whatever else is needed.

All in all WII Fit is a good product, though not perfect. It seems from reading reviews and personal experience that those who get the most out of it are not in fact those most dedicated to exercising (who would surely already be going to the gym or engaging in various forms of exercise anyway), but rather those wanting to lose weight and who haven't played many video games before. To me the biggest weakness of the game is that, while quite a few of the games / exercises are fun, they're not as much fun as they could be, not enough of them are fun to do, and there's not enough variety to them.

We were using it regularly with some decent results and then stopped because it became boring. Months elapsed and recently we started using WII Fit again, not necessarily daily, and as an aid to losing weight, not the main focus of it. We've found that it works much better that way and still enjoy trying to beat our high scores.

The music is good, perhaps a little repetitive, but overall it definitely adds to the game. The graphics are nothing special but function well enough, and some of the animations are very funny. The game is slightly too obsessed with being "cute", sometimes to the point of annoyance, but mostly it's not a problem. There is a fair amount of customisability built into the package, so no matter how many people are using the product independently, they will be able to set it up to their liking.

If you're expecting WII Fit to be the solution to all your diet and exercise problems, think again. If you want something that will help (irrespective of the weather) and is a bit of fun now and then, WII Fit definitely fits the bill. Don't view it primarily as a game, as that will definitely lead to disappointment. The balance board is worth having in its own right, so although the price for WII Fit seems a little high, ultimately it's worth it.

You can also burn some calories by playing:

WII Sports
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics

WII Game Review - Mario & Sonic at the Olympics

2009-04-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

Mario and Sonic at the Olympics is a great little sports game for the Nintendo WII starring, as you might have gathered, Mario, Sonic, and a range of other video game characters who've appeared in their games. The setting is - wait for it - the Olympics (the China 2008 to be precise, not that it matters).

About the Game...

The first thing in MASATO's favour is that there are plenty of events. Not many of them are available at first, but you unlock more by completing circuits - these are sets of three or more events, taken from across the disciplines. You start with a set of Beginner circuits and can gain a couple more, eventually unlocking Intermediate and Advanced circuits which feature different (often tougher) events and more of them.

You can do a circuit or complete in a single event. At first you have 100m sprint, 110m hurdles, hammer throw, trampolining, skeet shooting and swimming events open to you. The controls are very well thought out, with a lot of variety between the events, but with many events starting the same way in terms of control to give some continuity. This makes sense as the start of different types of race, for instance, is basically the same in real life as well. Some events are more challenging than others, but the controls are never overly fussing or fiddly. The level of challenge provided by the AI players isn't that high, though it can seem to be at first - or on events that you just never seem to be quite able to get the hang of!

There are characters to choose from, each with their own stats and speciality. The characters are grouped into four sets - Power (Bowser etc), Speed (Sonic etc), All-Rounder (Luigi etc) and Skill (Princess Peach etc). You can play any event with any character, but obviously different characters are more suited to different events than others. You can also import your MII, which is a nice feature.

Some of the events are a bit too easy - the High jump, for instance, saw me beating the world record at my first attempt! - but most of them have the difficulty level set just right. Some events I've yet to get anywhere near mastering - rowing, table tennis, skeet shooting and archery - some I mastered quite quickly - freestyle swimming, 100m sprint, high jump, fencing. There are obviously some in between that I sometimes seem good at but not at other times. Even playing MASATO as a single player game is a lot of fun, but of course where it comes into its own is as a multi-player game. The only real problem with this is trying to make sure that your opponents are at a reasonable level of ability at the game before they take you on - winning against an unskilled opponent is after all not much fun!

With a good number of events to choose from though, including some fun "Dream Races", the first of which is essentially Mario Kart but with the competitors running instead of driving karts (!), it'll be a long time before you've mastered all of them. Obviously having someone who can give you a good challenge on at least some of the events will be a major asset in terms of this game's longevity!

Aesthetics

The graphics are nice enough, well animated and suitably cartoony. The well-known WII graphical style suits this game perfectly, so the fact that the visuals are not as impressive as other systems can manage is no problem at all here. Each character has their own way of doing things depending on their strengths and weaknesses - for instance the strong characters only need to use one hand to do the hammer throw whereas all the others need both - and every character has their own animations when they're happy / disappointed with their performance.

The music is nice enough, though it tends to muffle the speech sometimes - each character says different things in reaction to their performance, too. Princess Peach is sickeningly gushing but in quite a funny way; Tails really annoyed me with his childish "I can do it!" and "I did it!" cries. Could just be me being old and cynical, I suppose. Sadly your MII doesn't say anything at all, just looks smug or sad.

Other Features

There are some mini-games too for opening up the gallery feature, where you can learn interesting facts about the Olympics. These include an impossible to control pinball-style game and the ever-popular "Whack-A-Mole" - poor moles. To me these didn't add a great deal to the game overall, but they're a decent enough extra feature I guess. Being able to submit your scores online seemed like a fun idea and you can compare your results to similar ones overseas, but some of the high scores are by people who have probably done nothing but play the game for a fortnight until they managed a perfect score, and some have quite obviously been hacked (don't ask me how, but I'm sure of it) - at any rate, don't expect to ever see your score in the world's Top 30!

The circuits do also have another option - it's effectively like choosing to play a joker. You can get double points for an event, but only if you finish in the top 3 - otherwise it's nil pois for you! Choosing the right event - and then performing well enough at that event - can make all the difference between first place and... well, anything between second and last - especially in the circuits with only 3 events. I found this to be a good additional feature to the basic game.

Negative Aspects

Though you have the circuits, I would have dearly loved to see more multiple-event features, particularly with a larger number of events (it is possible, though I doubt it, that these exist but I still haven't unlocked them). Also the animations between events can't be skipped until a certain point is reached - sure they're cute / funny at first, but after I've seen them a couple of times, I'd much rather get on to playing the next event or trying that event again than watching Shadow moodily grumble about not winning again.

Burn Those Calories!

MASATO won't make you thin overnight exactly, but it certainly burns more calories than most games, even on the WII. Depending on the events you'll be doing a lot of moving - it also depends on how enthusiastically you play the game, of course, but most events are difficult to play in a restrained manner! The 100m sprint is ten seconds of pure madness, and you'll feel exhausted afterwards - when you've unlocked the 4-100m sprint relay, I challenge you to play it five times in a row with no rest in between (let me know if you actually manage this). You have to win each time to beat my challenge, btw. Anyway, it's a good game in its own right, but it's also among the most physically demanding WII games I've played yet - not quite as tiring as playing boxing on WII Sports for a prolonged period, but not far off it. (Because of the hectic nature of the events I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to older ones or those with weak hearts though.)

The game does advise you to have a break every 15 minutes or so.

Overall Verdict

Mario and Sonic at the Olympics is a fine game, almost worth 5 stars though I find the delays between games annoying enough to award it 4 instead. Yes, despite the fact that having a breather may not be a bad thing! Still, as a single-player game it's good, and it's far better as a multi-player game; if you're looking for a party game, this is a great choice. It makes good use of the Wiimote and nunchuck, with a range of skills needed to effectively play all the events. Unlocking the extra events and circuits is paced quite well - you don't access everything too quickly - which encourages you to keep playing the single-player mode.

Finally, unlike like most video games you'll even be turning into an Olympian rather than a couch potato playing it! This is exactly the sort of game that will make people want to own a Nintendo WII.

Other Sports Games for the Nintendo WII

WII Sports
Big Beach Party Sports