Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

This Wii-exclusive release follows former incarnations on both Sony’s Playstation and PSP formats. Whilst Monster Hunter didn’t sink without a trace it wasn’t the massive smash Capcom would’ve been hoping for, so now they have aimed their sites on the Wii.

Journeying to Moga Village, you learn that there have been seismic disturbances of epic proportions due to a massive scaly beast by the name of Lagiacrus, which you are charged with slaying. However, this is a very long road you are about to embark upon and after a few tutorial missions you get an idea of the scale of the place. At the start there are only a few areas of Moga Woods you can travel to but this soon increases to many more, and then to multiple maps the further you progress. After completing the requisite tutorial missions you can then take on quests from the Hunters Guild by simply talking to the guild member in Moga Village. Quest difficulties range from easy tasks like fishing or hard challenges such as taking down a massive monster, although you won’t face your first “big” monster until the second tier of quests.

To aid you in these quests you can go hunting in Moga Woods for various resources which can then be forged in to new weapons, armour or decorations in Moga Village. These modify certain stats, so you may want to create different sets of armour and weapons for specific quests; you might even be required to go underwater to get some monster guts. There are five basic weapons on offer, all handle differently and determine whether you can carry a shield or not. Do you want to be a hand-to-hand fighter with a massive great sword, a bow-gunner who attacks from a distance or a lancer keeping back from the business ends of the various dinosaurs? Certain items can also be combined to make others; the amount of choice and customisation in the game is quite literally stupefying.

In addition, your avatar can be customised with different clothing and facial decorations. Most of the weapons and armour can also have decorations attached, which work in a similar way to Materia in the Final Fantasy games. They usually boost one stat significantly, so getting the right combination is vitally important, otherwise you’re going to be the filling in a Jaggi sandwich.

Online play is fully supported and looks just as good as the single player campaign. Communication can be via USB keyboards or for those of you like me, who have it, can use the USB Mic to communicate – this is vital when your team of four is trying to take down a massive monster. The smaller monsters don’t actually show up to other players, so you will bizarrely often be looking at your team-mates hacking thin air, and similarly on their screen they’ll be seeing the same thing when you attack. However, the big (and I do mean BIG), monsters appear on all screens at once.

You can play the multiplayer online missions by yourself but you haven’t really got a hope due to the monsters being multiplied by 4. You can meet other players in the main hub world and go questing together, which is nice, and cuts out the faffing about with friend codes. Plus, all the extra content you get online is absolutely free, unlike the Japanese players who have to pay a monthly subscription fee. Special quests are launched every so often but don’t fear if you miss an online quest as they are on a cycle, so usually come back around again. As a bonus, the loot you get online for the same missions is vastly superior than playing in single player. If you just want to hang around in a tavern you can, and be social without leaving the house.

Control-wise, I’ve played with both the Wiimote and the Classic Controller and the former is the far easier of the two control methods. That said, it’s much easier to go through the menu screens with the classic controller. It’s going to be one of those marmite things; some people swear by the Wiimote, some just swear at it. It is frustrating when you’re trying to catalogue monsters by pointing at the screen and dragging them into the notebook as this leaves you massively vulnerable.

Graphically, you’ll think you’ve stepped in to Jurassic Park the first time you go to Moga Woods. Even the music is reminiscent of the films of the Michael Crichton novel. The only thing I don’t like is the writing (or should I say text). They’ve gone for that tiny, high-resolution writing and used it throughout the game. It took my eyes a while to get used to it and I play on a 32 inch screen. There is also a bit of the “prehistoric mist” effect going on, and while I don’t think this is to mask any graphical problems it does get annoying after a while.

There are a few different versions of the game you can purchase: a solus pack containing just the game, a pack bundled with a black classic controller or a collector’s pack which comes in a suitably-attired treasure chest. Personally I went for the controller option as my GC games are still accessible whilst the console and controllers aren’t.

My one bugbear with the game is that it’s an incredibly slow burner of a title. You do feel like you’re achieving things when playing but the build-up to go and hunt your first monster is very long. For those of you who can’t get near your Wii for about an hour at a time I would suggest giving this a miss. Getting up to the level 2 guild quests (to face your first big monster) took a bit of time.

Don’t get me wrong, this is one of the best games I’ve played, it just takes its time, so if you have the time this is highly recommended. Multi-player is easy and simple to set up even if you haven’t played online before. I’ll be playing this one for a long time to come yet.

Pros:

• MMORPG on the Wii, never short of players.
• Combo system to create new items is innovative and exhaustive.
• Customisation of characters.
• Wii Speak compatible.
• Free online quests (European gamers).

Cons:

• Incredibly slow pace to begin with, real level grinder.
• Some weapons not really that effective.
• Can be a pain to try to register monsters whilst being prone to attack.

Publisher: SEGA

Playing as Jack Cayman, you end up stuck on Jefferson Island of Varrigan City, which you were transported to on the third day of terrorist rioting there. The only rule is kill or be killed as it’s time to compete in The World’s toughest game show. Each player is backed by a sponsor and it’s only a matter of time before Jack is approached by the mysterious Agent 13 to offer his financial backing, and it seems that large sums of money are being wagered on the outcome of this “game”. All contestants (anyone who got stuck on the island) are told they will die if they attempt to leave the area as they have contracted a virus; be the last one standing and you earn freedom, survival and a huge cash reward.

Lucky for you, Jack is as tough as old boots and has had a chainsaw attached to his prosthetic arm. This is a hack ‘n slash beat ‘em up from way back in the day, stylishly brought up to date by using black and white visuals (plus red blood) and well-drawn characters. You’ll think you’ve landed in Sin City as the simplistic art style and colours lend themselves to the platform well. Remember when you used to get pen and ink style cheats for games? It’s exactly like that, just with shading.

Throughout the levels you’ll have countless waves of goons to dismember in any way you see fit. Feel like putting a signpost in their head, running them through with your chainsaw or slicing them in half with a dumpster lid? All of these are possibilities which you can also combine to rack up the points. Remember, pain means points, and you are aiming to earn enough of them to take on the Boss of the level. Unsurprisingly these guys have massive energy bars and take a while to defeat until you learn their attacks.

There are even specific level fatalities – ever wanted to peg someone on a massive spike, get them zapped by an alien spacecraft’s tractor beam or sliced up by concealed blades in the wall? Now you can, it’s all up to you how you decide to disect your enemies. Of course you can just chainsaw them in half as well, but you need to check that your fuel gauge doesn’t run down too far otherwise your blade stops leaving you vulnerable. Power-ups are scattered throughout the levels in the form of a Happy Onion, which restores your life force and the chainsaw gauge, Happy Pills and Power Pills (to restore health), and lastly the all-important Jack Balloons to give you more continues.

During the levels you’ll encounter the Black Baron who will set up a Bloodbath challenge. These range from throwing goons into a jet engine or throwing enemies onto spikes positioned somewhat fortunately on naked woman billboards (No, this game does exist, honest!). The Black Baron seems to get killed just before every one of these challenges, so I have no idea how he comes back every time. Bloodbath challenges can be played in two player mode, so you can enjoy Zombie Golf with a friend. Unfortunately the main adventure isn’t two player, although that might create way too much carnage. To play the Bloodbath challenges in multiplayer you’ll have to clear them in the main game first.

MadWorld’s tongue is stuck firmly in its cheek. Whilst Jack is doing away with the enemies and hostiles commentary is provided by Joe Dimaggio and Greg Proops. They both have brilliant lines to spout during the game, however these are unfortunately triggered far too often; what was originally funny ends up being repetitive and not so funny. On Area 66, I sniggered the first time Greg asked “How do you sex an alien?”, with Joe answering “As often as possible”. Funny the first time, after that, no. I’m sure there’s more room on a Wii disc than there was on a GameCube disc so I don’t know why there weren’t a few more lines in the game, and that is my biggest grudge. The audio itself is good, with meaty sounds for smacking people, nice chainsaw effects and realistic screams of death.

My only other negative is the AI on the default level, where enemies tend to stand around and line up to be killed. This somewhat distracts from the game, as on the next difficulty up they start wading in a lot more efficiently, and, let’s face it, who wants a game that’s easy to complete?

MadWorld is a bit on the short side for my liking and once you’ve learnt the finishers and implanted one signpost in an enemy’s head it all seems familiar. The changing locales are good, ranging from Chinatown, Area 66 (read 52 for that), Mad Castle and Casino World. However, I didn’t find myself wanting to play through the adventure again after I had finished it the first time, even if it meant I could play with two chainsaws or a Katana. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good game, it’s just I can’t see a lot of people playing through it multiple times. Still, you can usually find it for a fiver (or less) on most internet sites and if you like your beat ‘em ups there’s nothing wrong with it. If you’re not a fan I don’t think this will convert you.

Publisher: Deep Silver

A criminally overlooked gem of a game on the Wii. You, Eric Simmons, start off at the bottom of a snowcapped mountain in the Himalayas, and you have come here in search of your missing brother, Frank Simmons. He ascended the mountain and has not been seen or heard from since. You set off from your base of Lhando (a deserted city) at the base of Chomolonzo, a sacred mountain which the sherpas refuse to climb. You’ve vowed to bring back your brother dead or alive….

The first person you meet is Thod-pa, who takes you through the customary tutorial bit of the game, which is done very well and doesn’t feel patronising at all. Thod-pa is the last remaining Monk on Chomolonzo, the rest have fled the city in fear of the curse that has started since Frank disappeared. Thod-Pa will also instruct you in the game’s equivalent of medi-packs; dotted around the game are shrines where you can burn incense sticks to regain health. Incense? Yes, I said incense.

Control wise this game is the usual set up of Nunchuk and WiiMote. Every button is utilised, the most interesting of these is the C button on the nunchuk. As you explore the mountain, forever venturing upwards, you will encounter restless spirits which you must dispatch. Hitting the C button allows you to look into the Bardo, the Tibetan equivalent of limbo, which lets you can see and attack these spirits but only for a limited time. You can just use a melee attack by pressing the B trigger but this isn’t as effective.

Once you’ve attacked the spirit and weakened it enough a series of motion sensitive controls will appear. You have to complete these to banish the spirits, this is called a compassion ritual. It’s an interesting game technique and works extremely well. Your other main choice is whether you run up the mountain and disturb more spirits or walk up the mountain slowly and only fight who you need to.

It can be quite frustrating if you are attacked from both sides, as you can’t complete a compassion ritual if you get hit. Still, this just adds to the tension. When you come across flying spirits a bit further on in the game you will have to press C, then aim and use the B trigger to fire projectiles at them to get them to come to ground. The controls seem complicated but they are extemely intuitive and you won’t have any problems. If you do die the game has the checkpoint system, however if you die before saving you might go a bit further back. Although, I found the game was split into manageable chunks.

Storywise the game progresses well through the medium of flashbacks and voiceovers. With surprisingly good voice acting, credit is due to the Deep Silver and Sproing crew for this. While there are only a few characters in the game they all have their part to play and there are enough bizarre twists in the tale to keep you thinking what the heck is going on.

Graphically this is impressive, apart from the occassional invisible barrier and a massive amount of fog on some stages. After conferring and Googling I can confirm that it is quite foggy up there at the top of the World. The effect when entering into the bardo is great and really does feel like you are looking into a secret underworld that’s all around you.

Throughout your adventure you will pick up different weapons, which all handle differently. Some are heavier to swing but more powerful; let’s just say it’s nice to see some realism in weapon usage. These weapons are upgraded as you find more journals and items of evidence that support the backstory. Some will enable you to pin down spirits whilst others simply increase the power of the weapon.

This is strict one player territory. You’re on your own, with a supporting cast of NPCs: you’ve got Edward Alexander Bennet, who organised this ill-fated expedition; Jomo Menmo, a female sherpa who conducts ritauls at the most haunted places on the mountain; plus of course your friendly guide Thod-Pa and a few others but I’ll leave those as a surprise. I think if they had made this two player the atmosphere would of gone downhill (or mountain?) a lot. This is a game for playing early or when you can’t sleep when no-one else is around.

Overall it’s a nice twist on the survival horror genre. It doesn’t have my pet hate Resident Evil controls, left and right to turn. It doesn’t have zombies and it doesn’t have guns. For a change this is a very good thing, the atmosphere is great, the graphics are great and the controls are well thought out. It’s also well supported by an excellent back-story. An excellent choice, get your climbing boots on and get up that mountain.

Publisher: SEGA

Anyone remember the hype surrounding this? Yes I thought so. Absolutely hyped to the rafters with comments such as “Best looking game ever”, “You won’t believe it’s on a Wii” and my personal favourite, “This isn’t on a Wii, the console would melt.” I personally couldn’t give a monkeys about graphics with games. Those in The Conduit are good at some points, however, there are some pig ugly moments like the train carriage on the first level which looks like it’s been lifted out of Duke Nukem 64. Whilst most of the graphics get the job done they aren’t as outstanding as claimed, although they are a lot better than the standard of Wii games on the whole.

Storywise it’s the usual. I’m getting bored of writing this but, waking up from a concussed state you (Agent Ford a secret service agent) are instructed through a training mission. Your goal is to exterminate the aliens invading the U.S. which are currently going by the name Drudge and are said to be under the control of Prometheus, a mastermind criminal scientist (formerly working for The Trust) that has stolen an alien artefact called the ASE from them. Instructing you is John Adams, who is the leader of the organisation The Trust. You were chosen as you saved The President and you are the only man they can trust. I’m going to stop using the word Trust now as I’m confusing myself…

How does it play? Very well, not as highly polished as the shooting sections of Red Steel but definitely passable. The controls allow you to customise them to your preferred sensitivity; I thought the default was adequate so left them as they were. You have the usual range of weapons from the human world, pistols, shotguns and rocket launchers (suspiciously GoldenEye like rocket launchers). Whilst on the alien side you have Hive Cannons, warp pistols, shriekers and strike rifles. Everyone will find their own favourite weapon and there’s one for everyone (It’s like being in America!). Also included are a selection of grenades just to round things off.

The artefact that the game is based around is the ASE, or the All Seeing Eye. With this alien technology you can hack computers, disable alien technology, traps and read hidden messages on walls, plus you can open up hidden bonus areas. Some drudge are invisible and need to be scanned by the ASE before they become visible and succeptable to your weapons. This little metallic sphere was said to be what seperated the game from others. It’s a neat idea but I don’t think they made enough use of it throughout the game.

I did enjoy playing through the game but once you’ve finished it you won’t want to play back through it unless you’re a completist and want to get all the data discs and unlockables. There is replayability there, it’s just a question of whether you want to or not. I moved on to the really good online play after the story.

Where this game really stood out for me was the multiplayer online modes. Bizarrely there’s no split screen mode for those of you wanting to trounce you little brother or sister at home and to play this with others you must venture online. As with Mario Kart you can ask for Friends only, regional from Britain or Worldwide if you feel the need to take your bloodrage global. The one thing I will say about the online play is you could be sat in a lobby for a long time, not always, but I usually have about a three minute wait. Obviously having friends on at the same time would be best. Online there’s no lag and no problems, I have never lost connection and the game has never frozen. Plus if you have registered your friend you can speak to them through WiiSpeak, providing of course you have the microphone attachment. You’re meant to be able to talk to people you haven’t registered in several of the multiplayer modes and proximity wise in Free-for-all, however this has never happened to me yet!

Overall it’s a polished effort it just lacks in a few areas. In the single player campaign you will be sick of looking at grey buildings and walls, fighting the same blokes in camouflage gear along with the same five aliens. It gives you the Scooby Doo complex of running past the same scenery sometimes. It’s not going to convert anyone into a FPS fan if you’re not already, but those of you who enjoyed Red Steel (minus the broken swordplay of course) this is a good filler whilstt you wait for a better shooter or the return of GoldenEye. Multiplayer is a must, if only because I had someone shout “Die” at me in Russian and then swiftly be shot from behind by one of my teammates. For me this is currently the best FPS on the Wii.

Published by: Nintendo

With all the World Cup nonsense going on I thought I’d dust off one of the only 2 football games in my collection. Red Card on the GC being the other. You probably won’t remember this game. It’s from way back when people were still saying the Wii was a novelty console…anyway.

If you’re looking for serious simulation of the beautiful game then, well, this isn’t for you. This game is sort of the Mario take on games like NBA Jam, with Power-ups, mega-strikes et al.

If you tend to romp through Mario games then this is for you. The difficulty bar is noticeably higher than I’m used to on a Mario game: whilst I was able to beat the AI easily on the first couple of rounds they noticeably got harder nearer the final. This however isn’t a bad thing.

The game plays like this: Pick a Mario character from the usual suspects such as Mario, Luigi, Peach, DK, Daisy, Bowser, Wario and Wa-Luigi. As per usual they all have different skills and who you should pick depends on how you play. For example Bowser is good at shooting and defense, whereas Yoshi is a very balanced all-round charcter. This main character then serves as the Captain of your team, and you then need to pick 3 sidekicks from the Mario universe: Toads, koopas, Birdos and various others.

As with other Mario games there are various competitions to go through and win. Your first destination in Road to the Striker Cup is the Fire Cup. Each tournament is played in a group stage, where everyone plays each other, then a knockout phase, then to the final. There isn’t much to it other than that.

The ABC mode is a tutorial mode which explains everything from the very basics of the game to the more complicated Captains abilities. It is a very useful and well thought out mode. Striker Challenge mode, as its name clearly suggests, gives you set requirements to beat. Beating the challenge unlocks a player card and a cheat you can then activate in the game. Hall Of Fame does exactly what it says on the tin, letting you show off your trophies and awards.

In terms of longevity it will last and also has the added bonus of being one of the first Wi-Fi titles on the console, which is a joy compared to PBR’s and Next Level obviously knew what they were doing. You can have up to four players playing at once if you have the equipment.

You can even organise a MSCF World cup over your Wi-Fi connection. Online you have a ranking system similar to Mario Kart: 10 points for a win, 1 for a loss and 1 for each goal you score. Whilst MSCF doesn’t have a lot of players online now (due to its age), you won’t be waiting long for a game.

Graphically it looks good and you’ll be wondering with that intro if someone has plugged an HD cable in the back of your telly if you haven’t yourself already. It is only Mario and co but their armour and close ups are very crisp in detail and there aren’t any fog or blurring effects at all.

Each of the different pitches has a theme, from the slightly oddly named ‘Vice to The Dump’ to others such as ‘Galaxy’. In Galaxy the pitch is floating around in space but don’t let that worry you as the walls are all electrified, meaning that if your team member gets slammed into one of them they’ll be stunned for a few seconds afterwards.

Power-ups, as usual for Mario games, are scattered over the pitch and these range from the humble (but ever present) banana to the very nasty chain chomp. Along with throwing shells, elecrtrifying people and quite literally hacking them you also have the captain abilities to contend with. As your team passes the ball around it will change colour. If it gets to white then your captain occasionally gets a special ability. Yoshi, for example, has the ability to turn into an egg and roll through opponents and into the goal, hopefully with the ball. Bowser on the other hand has the ability to breathe fire and set everyone and the ball on fire. So just when you think you might lose you could get one of these charged attacks and turn the game on its head. It may be slightly unfair depending which side you’re on but makes for exciting matches.

The only fly in the ointment are the captain’s mega strike animations. Every time someone charges up a mega-strike you have to watch the whole animation. As the matches are only 3 minutes long, with no half time, this gets annoying after a while.

All in all a superb little game by Next Level Games. You should be able to pick this one up fairly cheap now.

Publisher: Nintendo

Yes, sorry this has to be done. Love them, hate them or completely in the dark about them, the Pokemon gravy train rolls on.

First up if you know nothing about Pokemon, here’s a little intro. There are 493 (at present, I’m ignoring the new gen for the minute) Pokemon. Each one has strengths and weaknesses according to what type they are. For example, a fire type is strong against grass (grass burns) and weak against a water type (water puts out fires – Think rock, paper, scissors). There are now 15 different types and dual types of Pokemon available. The catch is you can only use six Pokemon in a team at any one time. With this team you battle other “Trainers” from around the computer or real world.

You can upload your Pokemon from your DS copy of Diamond or Sapphire to do battle in the various stadiums of the game and each stadium has different conditions. One lets you only battle with immature Pokemon of level 5 and under, another sees you trying to beat 100 opponents in a row and another takes the form of a round robin system and so on. This is the only sort of variation you get in the game. Compared to both the previous games on the GameCube this Wii game is a travesty.

You can control the game in one of two ways: use the Wiimote as a pointer and select everything with A or turn the Wiimote sideways and use the Wiimote like a control pad. The nunchuk isn’t used.

My main problem with it is this: it’s a Wii game by the same damn company who made two better games on the GameCube and there’s no story, no plot and no capturing. It’s just mindless battling, your Pokemon don’t even earn any experience for battling and you can’t even trade with Pokemon with anyone in the game or online. I can only think of a couple of reasons you’d want to slog through this game.

One: Spend some time and you’ll got Pokecoupons to spend in the shop to buy some rare items, which you can then take back into the DS games with you. Two: Two rare monsters hide within the game, although these are unlocked by inputting a code, so no effort required there then! If you have been using the Global Trading System on the DS you will probably already have them anyway. Oh, and you can get a Pikachu that knows Surf. Wow! Like that hasn’t been in 3 games before.

This game reeks of “must have a Pokemon Wi-Fi game for launch”. It’s quite frankly lazy, the boys and girls in the development lab must have been hanging their heads in shame. The most frequent screen you will see when playing online is the ‘connection lost’ screen. Plus there’s a ridiculous time limit of one whole minute to choose between four moves, and if you need a whole minute you must be playing with your tongue. I have never had a problem with Wi-Fi games on my Wii bar this one.

Now the good points. It looks ok, some of the moves have nice lighting effects but really it’s like polishing a gilted turd. It’s nice to see the Pokemon in 3D rather than squinting at a DS screen, but things like sending a rival’s monster to sleep and then not having it closing its eyes just brings me back to the sheer laziness of it. When someone emailed the Official Nintendo Magazine to ask, and I quote, “Pokemon Battle Revolution should I get it, is it any good?”, their answer was a succint “Meh.”, which for me speaks volumes. I really hope they do a follow up proper game, this time with a different development team.

In conclusion it really is a shame. I’m going to put my hand up now and say yes, I have been playing pokemon since the days of Pokemon Yellow and yes, I have enjoyed battling and capturing, just in case you thought this was a “it’s a kids game I’ve not played it” review. This however is memorable because of it’s badness. Do yourself a favour and save cash for a proper release of a colosseum game if it ever  happens.

In fact, here are the Pokemon unlock codes so you don’t have to play through it. To put in the codes, go to “Self Introduction” in your profile, and type in the following:

Magmortar: B416-X4HT-VTWF
Electivire: BA16-X4SH-E2AT

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Ok, so we all knew us Wii owners weren’t going to get the same Dead Space treatment as the more powerful consoles. But you know what? Visceral have done an absolutely stonking job.

Dead Space: Extraction is actually a  Wii-exclusive prequel to the 360/PS3/PC Dead Space game. Things kick off when your crew is dispatched to retrieve a marker, which are alien columns that no-one seems to know the purpose of. After the marker is moved all hell breaks loose on the colony, you start hallucinating and everyone starts talking and gibbering to themselves. Your characters then get a shuttle to the Ishimura spaceship where the exact same thing is happening. The game takes a twist whereby you never know when you, (by that I mean the character you are currently controlling) will meet your maker, as you play the game from various different people’s experiences.

The game is an on-rails experience and you can choose the path at a couple of points through the game which adds a bit of replay value. Though, that said, the levels you play through are huge. Graphically for a Wii game this is an excellent show of what a studio can do given a bit of time and support; the skin textures actually look like they should (take note CSI developers!) and the animation is crisp and clean without fuzz. Weapons actually feel powerful when you shoot them and the fun that can be had with the ripper as you direct the shiny metal disc of death is far too satisfying.

Most notable however is the sense of atmosphere they’ve managed to create with this game. One or two shocks do come at certain points throughout the game, usually when you’re trying to charge your glow-light by shaking the Wii-mote. Having things scuttling towards the screen up a ventilation shaft in the dark is quite unnerving.

My problem with Dead Space Extraction is the difficulty level is set way too low: easy appears to be very easy and Hard is easy and so on. Also, I don’t rate the unlockable content very highly. As you progress through the game you’ll unlock various bits of a very badly drawn comic. It all looks like concept art, but concept art that I’ve drawn with my feet. Other than the main game which admittedly should take you a while to blast through, find everything and complete the challenge missions you unlock, there’s literally nothing else to do, which is a shame really. I mean you can keep aiming for the 5 star ratings on each level but that’s about it. I would be tempted to put up the rating a bit with a few more modes.

Overall: A fairly solid 7, there are some disappointing things but it’s definitely one of the better shooters out there for your Wii.

Publisher: Nintendo

Mario Kart is one of the essential purchases on the Wii system; yes there are some essential games on the system, despite the masses still reckoning the Wii to be for kids only.

The Nintendo fans waited with baited breath for this release. Will it be good? Or will there be another gimmick in it like the ‘two players to a kart’ silliness of Mario Kart: Double Dash on the Gamecube.

“Is that a motorbike? And is that Roselia from Super Mario Galaxy in Leathers?” was a slightly worried question from one online poster. Yes, yes it was a motorbike and indeed it was the large woman from Galaxy in leathers.

So lets take a look under the hood. What do you get in the box? Well, you get a nice plastic wheel to stick your Wiimote in, its comfortable to hold and you can still use it as a pointer or use the D-pad on the Wiimote for selections. Plus, a cut out in the back allows you access to the trigger. By and large the wheel works well but it’s nowhere near as precise as the analog nunchuk control or the classic controller. There really are a glut of control options, so pretty much play with whichever you feel comfortable. You can even break out a gamecube controller if you can find it under the dust bunnies, your parents’ Lionel Ritchie vinyl collection and the dead pigeons in the attic (Hardcore players play with the wheel by the way, no excuses!). Handling is good and won’t take anyone, even a novice, long to learn and the controls are easy really, being a 3 button game. As per usual you can powerslide and snake to power up a short speed boost to give you an advantage, but only if you’re playing in the manual setting, though. If you play with the automatic setting then the mini turbos are barred.

The single player progresses in the normal way. Choose a character in one of three weight classes: light, medium or heavy. If you pick a light guy you have a low top speed but acceleration is high, medium weight racers are your all rounders and heavy just the reverse: slow acceleration but high top speed. The usual suspects are in the character roster – Mario, Luigi, Wario, Donkey Kong – although Pirahna Pete has been binned as well as Paratroopa Koopa. Pete must be annoyed as they’ve kept his car in the game. Anyone know why a plant needs a go-kart?

The one thing that got everyone worried was the inclusion of motorbikes in this iteration. They do handle differently and take a couple of tries to get the feel of. They do work and it’s nice to have the option, pulling wheelies enables a short burst of speed on the track. If they put planes and hovercrafts in the next game I shall be worried and so would Rare’s lawyers. Although after several months of playing MK with only a Bike I now find it very hard to use the karts! The other new additions are the 3 new power-ups: the mega-mushroom which makes you massive and able to squish other players; the lightning cloud which gives a burst of speed, but if you don’t hit another racer to pass it on will eventually shrink you with a thunderbolt; and last but not least the POW block, this one knocks everyone about unless they are in the air. Yes the blue spiky shell is still in it too so don’t expect to win by massive amounts on later levels.

There are 8 cups with four tracks each on offer (Oh plus Mirror Mode *sigh* I really wish racing developers would stop it now) at three different engine levels: 50cc, 100cc and 150cc. Your aim is to win gold (d-huh). At the end of each race you get awarded points depending on where you finished from 15 points down to…er…0 I think. You get ranked on your overall performance in the cups and you want to aim for 3 gold stars, which is very hard (especially when you get blasted just before the finish line) and adds longevity.

Time trials return in the usual way, you can save your ghost and race it. However for the people without any friends (Stop looking at me…unless you’re blonde, 28, 3……….sorry) you now have the option to race against Staff Ghosts. The people who made the game actually put themselves in it. Nice! The ghosts range from ridiculously easy to harder than an admantium-encased steel rock. The only downside is the game doesn’t really tell you whether you’ve beaten the ghost or not, aside from winning there and then. Once you’ve beaten the first ghost on the track you unlock the second ghost, who is usually faster than a fat kid after an Ice Cream truck. It would be nice for an on screen icon to represent which ghost it was, the first or second, you are trying to beat.

Multiplayer is where this game is an essential purchase for anyone with a Wii. Split-screen 2 player grand prixs or four way races, plus some battle options. You may end up fighting over the wheel though. I always felt the battle options were a little tagged on with MK. Unless you’ve got a 4 way match or 16 people all looking for a battle I tend to stick to the racing.

Online: You don’t need to swap friend-codes, you can just go online and play the faceless masses. You do have an online ranking that gets added to or taken away from depending on the skill levels of the people you are playing. If you beat someone supposedly massively superior to you that gives you a lot of points and the reverse is true: get beaten by someone’s Granny and you’ll need to race a lot again to bring it back up. For those of you who have gained stars on all cups, that’s shown proudly beside your name. Quitters be warned that quitting mid-race hammers your ranking (and to use the old tongue “Just isn’t sporting”).

Swapping friend codes allows you to set a time trial then send your ghost off through the internet ether to a friend’s console for them to try and beat. There’s even dedicated leaderboards for each track (Although if you go Youtube you can see how to totally confuse the game and get to the top of a leaderboard. But you wouldn’t do that would you?). You also get monthly competitions that are downloaded through the Mario Kart Channel automatically. The online system is good and reliable so you won’t be stuck in a lobby for ages (The Conduit I’m looking at you!) waiting for a game, or get disconnected and frozen out of online play. There’s an added bonus of 2 at a time online play from each console; saves kids fighting!

Unlockables: Well there are 24 characters in all, 14 to unlock through various conditions, usually by winning a cup or beating a set number of time trial goals. Plus, after a while you’ll be able to whizz around the tracks as your own Mii avatar.

Overall: I can’t recommend this highly enough. The only downside I can think of is the annoying rubber-band AI. On the faster levels you never seem to get away from the pack but that does make for exciting races. Although it’s annoying it is genuinely the only minus point I can think of. The online community is always up for a race somewhere, plus constant downloadable content for the game (usually a monthly competition) make this one that shouldn’t gather dust. It’s a good reason to get your Wii online.

Developer: 2D Boy

Publisher: Nintendo

First up I just have to say I’m a bit of a download cynic. After I’d put in all my points to Club Cintendo and decided not to get a Mario Kite or Zelda Beach Towel my thoughts turned to games.

The back catalogue of retro games is getting nicely swollen. There are a few duffers out there but hey, that’s life. Anyway, with my first 1000 points (which translates at roughly £7) I decided to try out World of Goo.

What is it? Well it’s what I like to term a save ‘em up. Heard of Lemmings? It was a game where you had to direct small rodents safely home; World of Goo is very similar which is no bad thing. Anyway, in the World of Goo (I would shorten that, but I think W.O.G isn’t very PC…..ahem, back on topic), your goal is to get your goo balls to the safety of the pipe and on to the next level. In your travels you will encounter different goo balls with different abilities. Black goo can link with two other goo balls, red goo is explosive when lit, yellow goo sticks to surfaces, green goo is re-usable…..and there are quite a few other types. I’ll leave it to you to find them.

So how do you play? Well the goo is sticky, and you can link different goo balls up and form structures which the remaining unattached goo then travel along to reach new platforms, though you do have to watch out for gravity: a badly built construction will inevitably fall. Dangers to avoid on your travels include bottomless pits, turbines, fans, cogs and machines, amongst a lot of others.

The difficulty curve is excellent, starting off with a few easy tutorial levels. You do have five level skips at your disposal, should you get stuck and not be able to work out what the heck to do. This comes in handy and lessens the frustration somewhat. The “one more go” factor is indeed strong in this game, a mark of quality in my opinion.

Graphically it isn’t astounding but if you were expecting multi-light sourcing and particle effects you wouldn’t be playing this game now would you? Some people complain of slowdown whilst they play the game but personally I have never experienced it.

Musically this game is awesome. Even the wife has remarked she loves the soundtrack. Believe me she knows her audio! The tracks have a sweeping epic feeling about them and always suit the level you are playing.

Overall: I can heartily recommend this game. It’s a little on the short side for experienced puzzlers like myself, although if you go for the O.C.D. award on every level by trying to save every goo it will last longer. Plus it means you can compete with players around the world to build the largest tower of goo. At £7 and of this quality can you afford to say no?