After hearing about the new PS3 redesign of this summer’s blockbuster game Alone in the Dark we thought we should take a look at the Wii version, which you can now grab for as little as $15.

The original Alone in the Dark PC game was released way back in 1992, and soon built up a cult following as well as a number of sequels. Along with adventure game Myst and first person shooter Doom, Alone in the Dark was generally considered to be one of the first games to really show that PC’s were viable gaming platforms and not just glorified office word processors.

After years in the wilderness (when the series seemed condemned to the depths of gaming hell after the notoriously bad Alone in the Dark movie, starring Christian Slater, flopped), Atari and Eden Games decided to relaunch. Did Atari do the right thing in trying to resuscitate the game series, or should have AITD have been allowed to rest in peace?

To start with, Alone in the Dark doesn’t seem to want to be labelled as a game. The presentation, game chapters, and even the real-time item selection are designed to give the feel of a big screen movie. Perhaps the most unusual aspect about Alone in the Dark is that the script is written by a novelist and movie screenwriter called Lorenzo Carcaterra, who had no previous game writing experience. Outsourcing such an important duty to someone not directly involved with the game design is a very strange decision, and consequently will either be a great success that other developers will soon copy, or be remembered for years to come as a total failure.

You start the game with blurry vision and a vague awareness of a conversation taking place around you. Once you blink your eyes a couple of times your vision returns enough for you to see a heated discussion taking place between an older man, referred to as Paddington, and two younger men with serious guns. They threaten the old man in an attempt to make him cooperate with their proposed plans, and seem to discuss your relevance to the situation. This is confirmed when another man, who appears to be the leader, says that you are of no use and should be taken to the roof of the building and shot. One of the gunmen duly obliges and carts you off towards the roof, but along the way a strange, paranormal force surrounds both of you, cracking the walls as it goes. It isn’t long before your captor is dragged away kicking and screaming, leaving a splatter of blood. It’s time to get out of here before whatever that was comes back to eat you too.

Not long after attempting to escape, you rescue a woman called Sarah from a burning room. This is achieved by breaking down the door and putting out the fire in first person mode, using the Wii Remote to aim the fire extinguisher. Sadly Paddington dies soon after you get him to relative safety, but this is not before he cryptically tells you that the fate of the world rests upon you. Sarah will become a regular companion throughout the story, though you will end up splitting away from her many times only to meet up with her again later on. So will you be able to solve the mystery and overcome the evil threat that it destroying New York? Well don’t worry too much about that now, because rather than being one long, sprawling adventure game, from here on Alone in the Dark is split into chapters, like a DVD movie. Each chapter takes about 10-20 minutes to play through, so if you die you’ll only be put back to beginning of that chapter. Likewise, when you quit, the game is saved at the start of whatever chapter you were in.

There is lots of excitement to be had in Alone in the Dark, including a chapter where you must scale across a collapsing building, avoiding brickwork falling towards you, and another in which you’re required to hijack a fork lift truck and race it down narrow passageways in the dark. You’ll be driving around a car park, knocking possessed people over in your wake, and even shooting at a giant sucking bat with Molotov cocktails. Sadly, Sarah is of no use throughout the game -unless you like to be distracted by overacting and constant bitching as you play. She is no Alex Vance, and doesn’t really help out when it comes to killing nasties or solving puzzles. Her role is to give you orders and generally make things trickier, by demanding that you hurry yourself but be careful about doing it. Just like a real wife eh? This is all quite fun stuff, but is sadly let down by poor controls. You’d expect the motion controls - thrown in for the Wii - to be the problem, and to some extent this is the case…but even the standard controls that move Edward around are hideous and clunky.

With little camera support, you’ll end up performing three point turns just to face the way you’d like. You’re required to flick the Nunchuck upwards to jump, which is more awkward than anything really - there’s absolutely no need to map a jump movement to motion controls for a game of this nature. Sadly there is no support for Gamecube or Classic controllers, which we think would have made things a little more bearable here. Looking on the bright side, a plus point (for me at least) is the realtime inventory system. If you read the Gamesweasel Alone in the Dark Xbox 360 review then you’ll have heard Matt’s complaints about this…but I happen to disagree with him. Instead of having a menu screen (where you can pause the game and choose your weapons), Alone in the Dark does things differently. When you move the Wii Remote and Nunchuck apart Edward opens his jacket (like a flasher), revealing his weaponry and other items. You can then point at your desired choice and he’ll equip it. What makes it more interesting for me is that enemies can still attack you, and fire can still burn you whilst you’re making your choice. Switching into first person mode to aim your gun/extinguisher is also good fun with IR control on Wii, and at least that system works ok even if it is a tad slow.

The overall theme of Alone in the Dark for Wii is the same as that of the next gen versions, but you will visit different locations and essentially play through some totally different chapters. Graphically though, the differences are plain to see. The Wii version looks surprisingly dated in comparison to the 360 game. The whole game world, its environments and characters, look grey and very dull. The much touted realistic fire effects have not made their way across from the bigger platforms - so instead we have some horrid, near two dimensional red and orange fuzz to cope with. Apart from some nice lighting effects in certain places there is hardly anything to distinguish this from the Playstation 2 version. Considering that the Wii is around three times more powerful, this is quite disappointing.

The music and sounds effects are very atmospheric and suit the game perfectly - you’ll have no qualms about wearing headphones or using your stereo system with this game. The voice acting on the other hand is really grating. All of the characters are overacted, and the speech quite often cuts in (inappropriately) during the middle of an important scene or dramatic moment. I found it hard to concentrate on both at the same time; I was either listening and missing important onscreen action - or vice versa - watching the screen and not listening to the characters chatting away. Perhaps the addition of compulsory subtitles would have helped here.

To round up then, Alone in the Dark Wii is a fun title with a good storyline. The addition of chapters which you can skip if you get stuck is interesting, but does seem to spoil the idea of a traditional gaming exploration and reward system. The added Wii waggle controls are a bit of a pain and an unnecessary addition to the gameplay - but they don’t ruin things too much. If you can get past the dated visuals and bad acting then you could spend some enjoyable time here. If, however, you’re fussy about clunky gameplay and graphics then you should give the Wii version a miss and look for the new PS3 version. I award Alone in the Dark 3 out of 5.

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Related: Alone in the Dark Xbox 360 review, Alone in the Dark preorder goodies

Tags: Alone in the Dark, Alone in the Dark, Wii

If Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour series is to golf games what Gran Turismo is to driving games, then Super Swing Golf is its Super Mario Kart. Coming from the somewhat touched minds of Ntreev Soft and Tecmo, this is an anime golfing adventure full of power-ups, pimped-out outfits and impossible shots. A far cry from the straight-laced style of its competition, can this bright ‘n’ breezy romp knock Tiger’s hole-in-one series out of bounds?

Does that even make sense? We hope so, here’s our Super Swing Golf review.

There once was a game called PangYa, a casual golf freeware game cooked up in Korea. Super Swing Golf Wii is based on this downloadable treasure, although obviously the control system has been rehauled to fit a Wii rather than a PC. Anyone expecting a realistic game of golf should step away, as just one peek at the aesthetics will reveal a bizarre cat/teddy bear/paper bag monster caddy, a couple of wizards and some ninja. It all looks very good, if striking bold greens and a liberal rainstorm of kawaii float your boat. A look this surreal deserves an equally bizarre soundtrack, so be prepared for one too many bouncy muzak tracks to bop to while you’re on the course.

Luckily, the gameplay has its feet very firmly on the ground. Structured around two parallel control systems - one is similar to that used by Wii Sports’ golf game, requiring the player to pretend his Wii Remote is a Nine Iron, while the other relies on your speed and reactions when it comes to button pressing. Whichever’s your poison, both systems work perfectly well, and the game sticks to the traditional golf game theory that your first action - be it swing or button press - dictates the strength of your swing while the second controls its accuracy. Nothing unusual there.

After stomaching the wordy and poorly structured training session, it’s a good idea to take Scout or Hana (the generic ‘Boy’ and ‘Girl’ characters) for a few practice holes. Sunny, chirpy environments abound, and there are some surreal fantasy holes, but this is mostly proper golf. The big gimmick and the thing to look out for is currency collection. Churning out Birdies and accurate ‘PangYa!’ shots earns you cash, in the form of Pang, which you can use to kit yourself out in flash duds or fancy golfing paraphernalia. Sadly, there’s no option to buy a golf cart, so eager fans will have to wait for the continually delayed Wii Golf Cart sim to hit stores. More money can be earned via the minigames. Popping balloons and such. All golf games must have stupid minigames. It’s the golf law.

Damn, this muzak is annoying.

The bulk of the game is to be found in the Tour Mode, a delightful story adventure which sees you take on the PangYa island one area at a time. Follow the map from stage to stage (the map, by the way, is similar to that used by New Super Mario Bros), playing competitively with the island’s residents, until you reach the area’s boss. That’s right. This golf game has bosses. And a flying dolphin. And that’s without mentioning the half-naked witch tour guide’s casual declaration that she has “invited beings from another dimension” to the tournament. Oh sure, Glamour Witch, that’s fine. Whatever.

Like most anime-related products, there’s a lot of waffle and an obsessive amount of background information here, but none of the cut-scenes waffle on for too long or go out of their way to melt your brain. One of the caddies even hilariously asks “What was THAT?” when you mess up a shot. Sure, it’s all very bonkers, but beneath the exterior is a very impressive golf game. Super Swing Golf does not shirk on its responsibilities to do golf justice, with the game engine being surprisingly mature and well-crafted. In fact, its smorgasbord cast might prove to be a more palatable alternative to the crispy dryness of the more traditional sims, making it the most accessible example of the genre on the market.

Purists will shirk the Korean golfing madness, but if you’re not obsessive about realistic play, this will be more than enough for you. In fact, there’s very little to fault Super Swing Golf on. The Tour Mode will keep you going for quite some time, while the dual control methods mean that joining in on the multiplayer will be a cinch for anyone. Dressing up the characters and the picturesque courses will appeal to casual gamers, the hardcore design will attract more dedicated players. It’s obvious that a lot of attention has been paid to the design of this game, and that’s what makes playing it such a joy. This is definitely a shining example of how to make good, high quality sports game fun.

Just turn off the damn music. 4 out of 5.

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Preowned: Super Swing Golf - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Super Swing Golf - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Related: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 review

Tags: Super Swing Golf, Golf, Wii, Sport

Baroque is an interesting sounding game about pain, suffering, death and reincarnation. Sounds like a typical night out in London but I won’t let that dissuade me from giving it a fair chance, time to continue into our review of Baroque for Wii.

In Baroque you take control of a character simply known as The Protagonist, a blue haired chap who has lost his memory and voice. All we know is that he has very guilty feelings about something, but he doesn’t remember what. A pretty cool looking male Archangel appears as you wander around the Wastelands chatting to the other freaks of society and tells us that he will forgive us for our sins if we save the world - a pretty good deal then. The Archangel gives us a special gun which can purify Meta beings, then points us toward the Neuro Tower and informs us that we should head to the bottom floor if we wish to succeed.

To put is simply the Neuro Tower is basically a very big dungeon full of monsters, your job is to navigate yourself down to the very bottom, use your special powers to purify the Meta Beings and then work out what caused you to lose your memory. There are characters to help you along the way, such as The Collector - a street urchin who holds onto items you throw his way in case you die during your mission. He works very much like the bank in Nintendo’s Majora’s Mask (if you happen to have played that). There is also a strange chap called The Coffin Man, he happens to own the training dungeon in which you can practice your skills, unlike the Neuro Tower this dungeon is static and doesn’t randomly change. What we found unusual was that The Coffin Man didn’t let you enter the training dungeon before you had died in the Neuro Tower (so much for practicing beforehand).

Gameplay feels like a clunky Final Fantasy game, you run around killing nasties, collecting items and upgrading things like your Attack Power, Defence Power, as well as performing special spells to boost your skills and attack enemies. There are new swords to find which have special properties and are more powerful, handy to get the stronger enemies with. You can also find Coats which give you better protection from certain attacks and environments such as fire. Also Drug fluids which give you temporary performance effects and healing can be found, along with special branding tattoos which allow you to mark yourself (or an item) which gives you further abilities. You’ll also be eating the hearts & bones of your foes to regain energy and vitality, which is very important as if you run out of vitality you’ll start to lose energy which in turn causes death (a bit like the Sanity Meter in Eternal Darkness, but without the cool mind tricks). Careful though, some hearts and bones aren’t good for you and can give you stomach-ache or even cause death right away. There are lots more of things to find and do, you’ll constantly have to keep control of your inventory to manage things.

Baroque sounds good up until now doesn’t it? Yes it does, the trouble is that it isn’t very good. Or to be more specific, the gameplay feels old and it’s just no fun. Let me explain.

To start with the movement is very clunky, it’s not that the framerate is poor but that the number of animation frames for each character is quite low, so whilst everything moves at a nice speed it’s as if the characters/items within are slower and less fluid. Whilst not being that distracting it does spoil the game somewhat, when you control Link in the Zelda game for Wii (Twilight Princess) you really get a sense of life and solidity from everything, here in Baroque you sense that these empty and poorly animated polygons are just floating around the level. You have the choice of playing in third and first person, neither of which feels right, it’s probably better to stay in the default third person mode though. The Neuro Tower is also pretty crappy; every floor of it seems to be full of square rooms and narrow corridors, sometimes you’ll find the odd ramp to take you up or down a level, but only to another set of identical looking rooms and corridors. The few round rooms there are seem to be more hexagonal than circular, we failed to spot a curved edge anywhere. As you go further down in the tower the colour schemes change of the walls change a bit, but it’s really just a cosmetic difference. Only the odd fire pit or spiked wall will remind you that you’re not in the room you just left. It’s rather hard to praise anything physical about the game, the level design is poor, the enemies are dull, crudely designed and just ridiculous - having to hit a room full of flying metal fish is funny, but not in a good way - sometimes you’ll come across a baddy which shows more intelligence than a can of paint, it might run up and steal one of your weapons and then go hide. It’s just a shame you’ll find him in the next room staring at the wall waiting to be struck from behind, awful.

Even the default Wiimote and Nunchuck controls are uninspiring and badly thought out, for some totally way out reason the inventory screen in mapped to the A button, which frequently means you’ll accidently open it whilst you’re trying to attack or investigate something. It’s probably a good thing they’ve only incorporated one ‘motion control’ into the game, shaking the Wii Remote makes you character perform a special attack, which isn’t all that special anyway. Thankfully there is the option to use a classic controller which does improve things but sadly there is no Gamecube pad support. Whichever controller you use things still feel very 1995 and are reminiscent of the awful third person controls found in games like the Resident Evil, well maybe not that bad but it’s a close thing.

We’ve mentioned that the variation of locations, character models and animation is quite poor but thought we’d best confirm that graphically Baroque is bad, the Wii version is a simple ports of the PS2 game and even the Playstation2 is capable of a lot more than is on show here, let alone the Wii which is four to five times more powerful. Another thing is the horrid fuzz surrounding everything; the Nintendo 64 was plagued with fuzz due to its low texture memory and handling, this is not an issue the Wii should be encountering at all.

The game sounds are acceptable, sometimes even atmospheric! There is plenty of voice acting to listen to as well, but it’s not that well acted and can get annoying at times, especially when you approach NPC’s hoping they may give you a new clue but just say what they’ve said before.

To sum up Baroque for Wii is a very tired game, it’s a lazy port of a pretty poor PS2 game and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It will last you a long time as it’s not that easy and has plenty of levels to explore, pity the gameplay is stuck in the 1990’s and not in a fun retro way. Technically and graphically Baroque is about fifteen years old, we’re sorry but we just don’t want to pay full price for a game that missed its boat a long time ago. A game with a good idea behind it but just turns into a missed opportunity which means we award Baroque a rather lacking 2 out of 5.

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Rental: Rent Baroque - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Related: Dead Rising for the Wii

Tags: Baroque, Baroque for Wii, Wii

Originally released for the Xbox 360, Table Tennis was an unusual entry for Grand Theft Auto developers Rockstar. Even so it was well received by critics and gamers alike thanks to its high resolution visuals and hardcore gameplay. So how does the Rockstar Presents Table Tennis Wii port with its added motion controls and reduced graphics detail shape up?

As you would expect from a game with such a simple premise (hitting a plastic ball about) there isn’t a big story to deal with, simply choose a player and play some ping pong.

There are two main game modes, Tournament which sees you battling your way against cpu opponents to win Bronze, Silver and Gold medals or an Exhibition match which is just a friendly game (either with the cpu or another human).

In tournament mode you can choose from Easy, Medium and Hard difficulties each with a varying number of rounds - in each match you need to win two out of three games by scoring 11 points (or 12 if it is tied at 10). If you succeed in defeating everybody you’ll end up winning a medal and unlock extra content along the way. Completing tournament mode on easy isn’t actually that easy and if you’re brave enough to jump in at hard then you’ll have to be very lucky not to get beaten right away. To get the hang of all the various shots it is advised to use the Training mode, here you can practice every type of shot including spinning which you’ll need to master these before you’ll be able to defeat a CPU opponent. You can hit shots forehand, backhand, slow and fast - as well as adding spin (left, right, top and back).

Surprisingly playing Table Tennis against the CPU isn’t too bad, it plays realistically enough without being too much like superman, making the odd mistake and letting you get a quality shot in. The controls feel realistic enough, you swing in the rough direction you want to hit the ball, add spin by charging a D-Pad direction before you swing or either hitting A for a soft shot and B for a hard shot. If you plug in the Nunchuck you can play in expert mode which lets you move your character manually with the analogue stick, this provides you with more control and allows you to move away from the table to allow for harder more charged shots, but on higher difficulties it is very tough going to move you character fast enough and time your swings. We found it fun enough playing through with the easy Wii Remote only controls which are very similar to what you had with Wii Sports Tennis. Because we haven’t got MotionPlus yet, it’s more gesture than motion controlled - which means you swing and then the game reacts, rather than a real time swing as you move your arm. Rockstar’s Table Tennis for Wii really comes alive in 2 player exhibition mode; it’s so much more fun to be beating a real rival as opposed to a virtual one and if you have someone else to play with, you’re bound to have some fun with it - though you’ll need to play through the tournament many times to unlock everything. Interestingly it’s not just a case of winning every match to unlock everything; you’re expected to win in various different ways - so you might have to win a match from being a game behind, or your final shot being a smash.

Graphically Rockstar Presents Table Tennis Wii isn’t too bad, the resolution and detail of the 360 version is lacking, but the framerate, game engine and character models all seem to be the same structurally - which is neat. The in game characters do seem to have a plasticky looking skin tone, making them look like mannequins - but apart from that, they look fine and the physical animation/motion capture is superb. The sound effects and music are ok - though not amazing, you could play this game with the volume down and not be missing too much.

So overall then Table Tennis for Wii is a fun game for two players, just not as much for the single players amongst you. A real challenge to be had on the harder levels, but the long rallies needed to win points again tough CPU opponents means that all the arm swinging can get quite tiring after a while, a few more cases of Wii tennis elbow to be had here - make sure to rest regularly folks. We give Rockstar Presents Table Tennis for Wii an ok 3 out of 5.

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Rental: Rent Table Tennis - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Related: Wii Sports 2

Tags: Table Tennis, Rockstar Presents Table Tennis, Rockstar, Table Tennis, Wii

If you’re a keen PC user you may have come across Defend Your Castle as an addictive flash browser game, if not then don’t worry, it’s not essential to have played it before to appreciate this new version. Defend Your Castle the Flash game asked you to use your mouse to fend off a hoard of little stick men whose sole intention was to knock your castle down. Defend Your Castle now with Wii Remote control makes its way to the WiiWare service and comes with a radical makeover and a few gameplay changes, but is it any good? Well for a really low price of 500 WiiPoints we couldn’t help but give it a try, so here is our review of Defend Your Castle Wii.

Defend your Castle Wii is a very straightforward game to play, during the game day simply you point your Wii Remote towards the television and hold the A (or B) button to grab one of the stick men running towards your castle, you can then flick the Wiimote up, left or right and let go of A to fling him away to his doom or you can pull the controller down to squish him on the ground. Sounds easy right? Well it is…..to start with. You’ll easily throw every stick man into touch for the first few levels but just as you get comfortable a few more will run onto the screen at once, they’ll also be running faster - some might even be carrying battering rams. Doesn’t sound quite as easy now does it eh? Yes still too easy you say, how about some tall button eyed monsters that take five attempts to pick up before they fall down and die? While you’re busy taking those extra four attempts the stick men are fully taking advantage of you being held up by the bigger guy. So wait, we can’t be expected to fend off an ever increasing army of bad guys just with our giant stick man throwing hand can we? No of course not, at each Night fall (end of each level) you get the chance to spend the points you earn for squishing bad guys. Here we can purchase some castle upgrades to help ourselves out - though we may have to spend some of our hard earned points on repairing damage first. You may also want to fortify your castle walls a bit too, thus making it take longer for the bad guys to break in - but should you spend all your cash strengthening or should you look at more aggressive options? Let’s talk about the castle upgrades that you can purchase a bit more, first things first you will need to install a pit of conversion which allows you to turn enemy stick men into nice chaps to work for you in your castle defence. You do this by picking up an enemy stick man and dropping him into the pit (which looks like a paint pot - more on that later), after a few seconds he will be fully converted to your side and sitting in storage - but without a task he is next to useless.

Each of the four Castle turrets can be upgraded for use; the first you’re likely to be able to afford (with your squished stickmen points) is an arching range. With your recently converted chaps ready and waiting why not send them up to the Archery tower so they can shoot arrows at those nasty enemies? The more archers you train the more arrows they’ll shoot, thus more enemies will be shot - but those devious enemies are coming up faster and faster - perhaps you’ll need to invest in a Stone Masons Shop? Yes that’s a good idea, instead of just training archers why not have some chaps repair your castle from within as the battle is happening? That would be helpful would it not, but you’ll need a lot of chaps working at the repairs to make it worthwhile - don’t forget that each chap in the Stone Mason tower is one less Archer you could have on the front line, a tough choice indeed. So with that tough balancing act you would think it was crazy to add another two upgrades into the mix, well crazy or not - they’re here. Let’s throw a Demolition Laboratory (where you can send out suicide bombers to blow the enemy up) into the mix too, oh and while we’re here, why not top that off with the Institute for Magical Arts (no, not Hogwarts), a tower dedicated to the pursuit of magic, training mages to cast spells. Depending on the number of mages you train up the more spells you’ll be able to cast: You start off with a simple Erasing tool - hover over an enemy you want to erase and press the relevant D-Pad direction and he’ll be wiped out, literally! It takes a long time for a solitary mage to recharge his power, so it’s best to train more but once again the dilemma - one more mage is one less Archer, Stone Mason or Suicide Bomber that you can use. To make it even harder you’ll need 35 Mages to unlock the Convert spell which will bring on a spray can to convert a single enemy to your clan and 100 Mages to acquire the explosion spell (which lets you blow a bunch of enemies up simply by pointing towards them). Though we shouldn’t forget that whilst all this is going on, the waves of enemies has increased tenfold and not only that, they’ve developed huge catapults which are very tough to destroy - those spells could be handy here, we hope you chose not to train too many Archers, Bombers or Masons instead of Mages otherwise you might be lacking in spell power when the catapults arrive. Every few levels is made even harder when the bad weather comes in, snow and rain that obscures your vision can really make things tough. This seemingly simple game has turned into a strategic nightmare hasn’t it folks?

Remember I mentioned the Pit of Conversion being a paint pot? You do? Great, that means you were paying attention - top marks. Well yes, the Pit of Conversion is indeed a paint pot, a pot of blue pain in fact. The whole game has child arts and craft theme to it and it’s so distinctive; the clouds look like bits of paper attached to drinking straws, there are written notes in Biro ink, scrabble letter tiles and much more - you’ll need to see the game in motion to really appreciate it. The graphics might not be next gen, but they look good, run smooth (even with hundreds of enemies on screen) and really suit the game. The sound effects are just as child like too, the squishes and explosions all sound like a small child playing with toy soldiers in his room.

The developers of the game claim that the game has unlimited levels so you’ll technically never finish it, though we suspect it will become so insanely difficult later on that it will effectively become impossible for a single human to do - but how about two, three or four players? Yes that’s right, up to three other players can all help Defend Your Castle if you so wish and what’s more they can jump in at any point, just turn another Wii Remote whilst the game is in progress and multiplayer is enabled there and then with no interruptions.

We really recommend Defend Your Castle for the Wii, we think it is fun for gamers and non gamers alike and will really keep you entertained for many weeks - beware though Defend Your Castle Wii is very addictive and intense and we only have one gripe and that is the game throws in its upgrades and variations quite early on leaving few surprises for gamers who manage to get to higher levels and so we give Defend Your Castle near great 4 out of 5.

Try Defend Your Castle for free with a GameFly free trial.

Related: TV Show King, Strong Bad Demo

Tags: Defend Your Castle, Defend Your Castle WiiWare, WiiWare, Wii

When we heard that Carnival Games for Wii had sold over 1.5 million copies we knew we had to go and take a look at the game. Who doesn’t like to go to the fair? Of course, no one, that’s who! Everyone loves going to the fair, where else besides Disneyland can you get expensive rides, tacky stalls, badly cooked food and old men dressed up as animals? Carnival Games Wii with over 25 genuine Carnival games tries to recreate all the fun and frolics of going to the Carnival in the comfort of your own home - it sounds a multiplayer smash, but does it deliver the prizes?

Upon first entering the Carnival you are first asked if you want to play in Single Player or Multiplayer mode, either way your next job is to create your own character from a few basic features such as gender, face shape, hair colour, clothes and accessories. There isn’t much choice to start with and creations can look very similar - however the more you play the game you’ll unlock different outfits and other pieces to customize your character with later on.

Right you’ve now got a body - well most of a body! Just like Ubisoft’s Rayman, most of the characters in Carnival Games have no arms, and no, we’re not sure why. From here if you chose Single Player you now have to decide which part of the Carnival you want to travel to.

There are five Carnival areas; Fortune Way, Claw Alley, Love Lane, Lucky Pass, and Rodent Row. You would think those names suggest the overall theme behind the games to be located in that area, well if you did then you would be wrong. The name merely refers to the prize event/machine you can use within that area. Never mind though, everything does look and feel like you’re in a 1950’s carnival - you even get that mild sinister feeling from the old movies about travelling carnivals as you play, though don’t worry, there aren’t any serial killing clowns.

Here are three of our favourite games, but there are many more to play that everyone is bound to find a few they really like.

• Hoops - throwing those cute mini basketballs into a net never gets tiring
• Spilt Milk - try and knock a stack of empty milk bottles over with a ball, simple but great.
• Balloon darts - hold the Wiimote like a dart and try to pop small balloons stuck to the wall, another simple game but it’s quite compelling.

Ok to the Singleplayer: The Carnival Games single player mode is as you would expect, a solo trawl across every Carnival game trying to get the best score you can. The better you perform the more tickets you can win; tickets can be spent on some of the attractions in each area such as a Fortune Telling machine. You can also exchange tickets for new items in the character creation menu to further increase the choice. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s boring to play Carnival Games on your own, but the experience is better with others.

Now to Multiplayer: The great and unusual thing about Carnival Games Wii is that the multiplayer mode lets you earn tickets as you play too; typically games like this only let you earn rewards when you play through the singleplayer mode. For sure, as with any party game, Carnival Games is more fun with friends, there is a nice mixture of minigames that require you to take it in turns or play together in real time - if you only have one controller you can simply choose the one Wii Remote option in the multiplayer setup menu.

The good: Carnival Games is a nicely presented and atmospheric minigame collection, the graphics are quite acceptable and the authentic sounds and speech will no doubt take you back to your childhood. The game uses the Havock engine to produce accurate force and physics, we’d say it’s probably little underused in this title but it is a nice feeling to know that the in-game physics are as realistic as they can be. Earning every prize and unlocking the secret games will actually take you a while, it might be a party game but that doesn’t mean you won’t need some practice and skill to complete the hardest minigames with a perfect score.

The bad: Even though Carnival games Wii has a good sense of atmosphere, there really does seem to be something lacking. However it isn’t just one small forgivable thing that is the problem. There are a number of flaws that when put together really turn what should’ve been a good game into an average one. The lack of Mii support is frustrating; the unresponsive and sometimes inaccurate motion controls can often feel like they’re hampering your success. The constant and loud disc accessing on the normally quiet Wii disc drive is very puzzling too, we can only think that the game data must be scattered around the disc file system in an unusually random matter. Our main gripe is that there just is no pizzazz or X Factor to the game, it’s not very technical we know but without that certain spark the game falls short.

Carnival Games sadly let us down slightly, the potential for a fun yet mature party game for all is here but is lost underneath a heavy layer of lacklustreness. We give Carnival Games for Wii an average 3 out of 5.

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Rental: Rent Carnival Games Wii - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Related: Mario Party 8 Review

Tags: Carnival Games Wii, Carnival Games, Carnival Games Wii

At WiiGameReview we all love The Simpsons. Family Guy, South Park and Futurama are all great and we always make a point to watch them whenever they come on TV - but it’s only The Simpsons which we buy on DVD. There have been many Simpson’s games over the years, most of which weren’t very good but this one is actually co-created by EA and the writers of the show. Now is the time for a closer look and review The Simpsons game for Wii.

TSG is a sprawling 3D adventure platformer featuring all your favourite Simpsons characters (unless one of your favourite is very obscure that is). The game starts off with you controlling Homer during his Land of Chocolate dream, however unlike the scene from the show, here you are following a white rabbit across the level (yes, a bit Alice in Wonderland) who is teaching you the basics to the game. After you’ve completed that you’ll be whisked back to Springfield into the familiar surroundings of the Simpsons house, this acts as your hub between levels and also shows your current status levels and bonus item count etc. When you’ve finished exploring the house thoroughly it’s time to head to the front door and walk into the golden orange force field and start your first proper mission, before it’s started though you’re treated to a really nice and authentic looking cut scene with all the voice acting performed by the original cast - no sound alikes or audio ripped from the show thank god. There are many more cut scenes throughout the game too.

So to the story! In one of the first cut scenes an instruction manual for The Simpsons Game suddenly appears through some sort of wormhole and into the hands of Bart - he soon realises that he is in a video game but can use the moves (or special powers to be precise) described in the manual to his advantage. This quasi realistic storyline may take some brain twisting but you’ll get it when you start playing.

From now on things get a bit more interesting, you aren’t just controlling one Simpson in each level, an example being one of the earlier levels where you take hold of Homer and Bart as you chase the bullies through the Springfield museum. You need the skills of both characters to complete puzzles and progress onwards. Bart has a cape which lets him glide to out of reach places or up drafts of air and Homer on the other hand can roll himself up into a giant ball and knock things over. Sometimes it can be as simple as requiring Homer to pull a switch so that Bart can cross a previously impassable path (or vice versa). The three other main Simpsons are playable too, Marge has a speakerphone and can control mobs, Maggie is small and is needed to negotiate small passageways and Lisa has the power to move large objects with telekinesis. Sometimes you’re controlling Bart and Homer, next you could be in control of Marge and Maggie and there are even levels where you switch between three or more of the Simpsons. It is good to see that you can play most levels cooperatively with a friend on one console, the screen is divided so you both have independent views of the game - this is much more of a fun way to complete the puzzles than having to manually switch over to another character when playing on your own.

So how does the game fair when it comes down to it? There is quite of fun to be had with The Simpsons Game, it has an interesting story and some good puzzle solving - the script being written by the TV show writers and the voices performed by the real actors really do add to the feel of the already impressive looking game world created by EA. The game is constantly poking fun at the games industry and classic gaming icons such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Street Fighter and Medal of Honour (as well as many more) - the gaming cliché system is pretty neat too, you collect tokens every time you perform a specific gaming cliché, a good example being ‘The Double Jump’. It’s also just a lot of fun to take control of The Simpsons family in the wonderfully recreated 3D Springfield town, sadly you don’t get to travel everywhere or have the freedom to explore but this is the closet you can get to actually visiting Springfield. So that’s the good, what about the bad? Well the missions are a bit of a hit and miss affair - a mix of themes from classic Simpson’s episodes which don’t quite feel right in the game and some new specific ones written especially for the game which wouldn’t feel right in the TV show - rather odd. The game camera is awful, you can be running towards your goal and suddenly the camera will swing around madly or get stuck behind a building. This can make some of the platforming sections very difficult; having to jump a gap when you can’t see where the ledge ends is crazy! Another thing that really get’s on our nerves are the respawning enemies, we know that this game is parodying games from past years but we’d rather have some more puzzles than waves of identical looking characters running towards you - this is something that that should have remained in the past.

Let’s stop beating about the bush; graphically The Simpsons Game for Wii is very good looking. The character models, environments and everything else looks as it should - the cell shading is perfectly done too. The added motion control is not really anything to shout about, waggling the Wii Remote to trigger an action such as Homer’s ball rolling or Marge’s speakerphone antics is just not worthwhile, the controls may as well have been mapped in a standard format to the Wii controller as far as we’re concerned.

We like many elements of The Simpsons Game for Wii but the lack of gameplay depth and bad camera make it a chore to play through - there is however plenty of fun to be had and humour to see and hear if you are able to persevere to the end. So for not being that good or bad we give The Simpsons Game an average 3 out of 5.

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New: Buy The Simpsons Game from Buy.com
Preowned: Simpsons Game - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent The Simpsons Game - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Related: The Simpsons Game review

Tags: The Simpsons Game, The Simpsons, The Simpsons Game

Ninja Reflex for Wii is a small budget release by Nunchuck Games and is published by Electronic Arts. It’s labelled as a Ninja Skills trainer/simulator but really is just a collection of minigames. Nunchuck Games proudly display the photos of three martial arts experts on the Ninja Reflex mini-site who claim it is pretty good. We may not know our Xingyi from our Poomsae but we do know our Wii games so let’s see if Ninja Skills Wii gets a lowly white belt or a high ranking black belt in our review of Ninja Reflex. Upon booting the game for the first time you must choose your Ninja title and name from the many combinations possible. They’re all quite funny and if you ever dreamt of being that boy in the Karate Kid movies, you’ll feel right at home here. There are six Ninja skills lessons to master in Ninja Reflex Wii, these are: Shuriken, Koi, Hotaru, Haish, Katana and Nunchaku. Let’s have a look at the Ninja lessons in a little bit more detail:

• Nunchaku: Swing your Wii Remote in a figure of eight to make the onscreen Nun chucks do the same, you task is to smash fruit, boxes and other uninteresting things into submission.
• Katana: Use your Wii controller like a sword, swing to slash, block or dodge oncoming enemies.
• Haish: Catch tiny flies with by holding the Wiimote like a pair of chopsticks and put them in a bowl.
• Hotaru: Stare at the screen and press the A button when you spot a firefly, you have to be quick as they disappear quickly.
• Koi: Follow fish with your pointer on screen and attempt to catch them with your bare hands, the bigger fish are slower and easier to catch and the small fish are quick and you guessed it, difficult to catch.
• Shuriken: Throw Shurikens at moving targets by locking onto one with the B button and flicking the Wii Remote, throw quickly before the targets spin around or disappear.

There are six difficulty levels to each minigame which sadly don’t vary too much, you may have faster targets to hit, more fish to catch or only be asked to spot one colour of firefly when multiple appear, but that’s as varied as it gets we’re afraid. All of the games can be played with up to four players in multiplayer mode but they aren’t really any more fun that way and don’t count towards your Ninja progress unless played in single player mode.

Every time you complete a level you are rewarded with a green jewel, collect five of these and you can take part in a belt challenge. A belt challenge sounds exciting but really is just a random selection of three of the mini games you’ve already played but at a much higher difficulty. If you complete these then you are moved up a rank (belt) and have the option of playing the levels you’ve previously beaten at a higher difficulty to, or carry on with the harder challenges in an attempt to earn more jewels, complete more belt tests and possibly becoming a true black belted Ninja (we wish). With all that training you’ll no doubt get tired, why not chill out in the meditation room and relax a bit; here you can do some meditation with or without an instructor whilst you look at pretty looking screensaver and listen to the serene sounds.

We’re afraid to say Ninja Reflex Wii is not a very good title, the small selection of games aren’t very fun and do not really challenge the player. The motion controls are poor and do not do anything different from minigames found in Mario Party 8, Wario Ware Smooth Moves or Rayman Raving Rabbids. In fact those games are much more fun than Ninja Reflex altogether and if you already own one of them, you have no reason to purchase Ninja Reflex for Wii. As the game does get progressively harder you probably will find that it might take a couple of sessions to complete, but it will not last very long and has no replay value once you attain the highest belt ranking. We really can’t think who this game would appeal too, we can’t see it being fun for kids and it has no depth for the adult audience. Even with the four players you will need a fridge full of beer to enjoy this game. Graphically the game is pretty in places but does not push the Wii hardware beyond Gamecube level. With nice mild tinkly Chinese style tunes and some good voice over acting by the instructor, Ninja Reflex passes the sound test, but not the fun test. Because the game works fine we won’t give this an extremely poor rating but as Ninja Reflex isn’t any fun we can only award it 2 out of 5.

Get the game now
New: Buy Ninja Reflex Wii from Buy.com
Preowned: Ninja Reflex - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Ninja Reflex Wii - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Related: Ninja Reflex review, Ghost Squad review

Tags: Ninja Reflex Wii, Ninja Reflex, Ninja Reflex Wii, Wii