PDC World Championship Darts 2008

“USING THE Wii REMOTE TO THROW THE DART IS THE CLOSEST THING TO REAL DARTS YET – GAME ON” – Phil Taylor, 13 Times World Champion.

Use the Wii Remote’s exclusive controls to experience the most authentic darts simulation to date. ‘The closest thing to real darts yet’ - PDC Darts 2008 has been carefully crafted, allowing players to throw using the Wii Remote as they would a real dart.

Immerse yourself in the realism of PDC Darts 2008; Go head-to-head with the greatest PDC Champions and be part of the year’s most fierce console Championship.

Features

• Use of the Wii Remote to play as you would play real darts, hold the Wii –Remote as you would a real dart and throw using the same movement of the remote.

• Wii Remote sensitivity option – change the sensitivity of the Wii Remote to tailor to your own throw style.

• Starring 16 PDC Champions: Phil Taylor, Raymond van Barneveld, Peter Manley, Wayne Mardle, Dennis Priestley, Adrian Lewis, Alan Warriner-Little, John Part, Colin Lloyd, Mark Dudbridge, Roland Scholten, Ronnie Baxter, Terry Jenkins, Kevin Painter, Andy Hamilton, Andy Jenkins.

• Carefully tailored format specific controls; the heavier the barrel weight, the lower down on the metre the sweet spot is, the lighter the barrel weight the higher up the sweet spot is.

• Enhanced animations to include throw style, walk-on and celebration moves of the best PDC players

• ‘As seen on TV’ Sky-sports inspired presentation for added realism.

• Male and Female player characters with editor allowing players to style their very own champion.

• Game stats displayed in-game, at the end of match and stored as high-scores and trivia.

Enough of the facts… its time to step up to the Oche.

Firstly I am a bit of a darts fan, and have been since I was a small child growing up in a mining village. I used to go play with my dad down at the local miners welfare club, grew up watching the greats like Eric Bristow etc…
On first slapping the disk into the Wii, i was impressed with the graphics, kinda nice for the Wii, followed this was the menu front end where you have the main selections for your game. :

Exhibition:
Within the exhibition section you are able to setup exhibition games with your mates or again your mates and the pre programmed players (who are not an easy beat), you get to choose how many legs / sets etc.

Tournament:
In Tournament mode you can play with up to 8 Human players in any of the official PDC Tournaments or even create your own Custom tournaments and leagues.

Career:
In-depth career mode based around the 7 major tournaments in the PDC calendar reflecting real world PDC tournament locations. Create a character and begin career ranked 64th and work your way up, or play as your favourite professional and qualify automatically for all tournaments in the PDC calendar

Party Games:
There are 12 Party games that range from 2-4 players, unlike the other modes where players play 1 on 1 to knock the other out, this mode player’s play all in the same game to win.

Options:
Wii Remote sensitivity option – change the sensitivity of the Wii Remote to tailor to your own throw style, plus all of the normal sound controls etc.

Ok on with the game, I went straight into an exhibition match and crikey I was bad I got my ass kicked all over the place. It took me about 20 minutes of trying to get the right balance of darts to throwing action, I found this frustrating to begin with as the dart board itself is on the left and the player on the right of the screen, but to throw you need to aim as the middle of the screen to get to where you need to be. Personally I didnt find this very natural, there should be an option to have the dartboard full screen.

**Update** I have since found out that you can full screen the board itself by pressing B on the Wii remote - now that will make things a lot more natural, 180’s here I come.

After sorting this out though and locking on to the way the game is played I did find myself starting to enjoy it, although not managed to sink a 180 yet but I have had plenty of 140’s to keep me enthused. A note to anyone who buys this game is - “Stick at it - once you master the controls you wont regret it”

One item of the game I found hilarious is darts commentator Sid Waddell’s hilarious and off-the-wall witticisms, I was doing so badly to begin with and he proper slated me with quotes such as “bag o nails” and “not worth commenting on” this to me added to the atmosphere of the game, that encoupled with the excellent crowd noises perfectly timed to whats happening on screen made the whole experience a great one.

Multiplayer is available in Exhibition, Tournament and Party Modes.
In Exhibition you play head to head with a friend.
In Tournament mode you can play with up to 8 Human players in any of the official PDC Tournaments or even create your own Custom tournaments and leagues.
There are 12 Party games that range from 2-4 players, unlike the other modes where players play 1 on 1 to knock the other out, this mode player’s play all in the same game to win, if you played the previous versions of PDC you will notice that these have drastically improved.

There is a practice mode for those who want to get used to the game . The board is designed as a training board, so the trebles and doubles are thinner, which forces you to improve your aim. Aiming higher or lower on the board to compensate your throwing technique is something to master.

All in all its a great sports sim with a very well planned out atmosphere, it helps with the rendered characters looking like who they really are.
This is a must for when you get the lads round for a drunken sports evening, just remember the Wii-Mote strap or your plasma will be no more….

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Gameplay - 7/10 - Smooth playing, controls great wehn you get used to them.
Graphics - 6/10 - Great character renders, crowd lacks a bit - venues look great.
Sounds - 7/10 - All authentic Championship darts sounds Sids great.
Overall - 7/10 - Well worth a buy for any darts fan, once you master the controls your well on your way to being a pro, especially in a crowd of mates having a laugh.

Speed Racer Overview:

Based on the upcoming Wachowski brothers film of the same name, Speed Racer will be released on the Wii(tm) and Nintendo DS(tm) in May 2008 with the film’s launch.  The PlayStation®2 system version will launch with the DVD in Autumn 2008.

Set in a hyper-realistic world where car culture is the culture, players compete in the World Racing League (WRL) against up to 19 other racers across rollercoaster-like race tracks.  Players will enjoy a combative racing experience like no other when they take control of the T180 race car, achieving amazing speeds and mastering four independently turning wheels that allow drivers to engage in “car fu” to jump, flip, and outmaneuver their opponents.

Speed Racer captures the action, look and feel of the high adrenaline arena racing developed for the movie in an accessible, fun-filled game that allows players to actually get behind the wheel and on incredible tracks straight out of the world of Speed Racer.

Speed Racer started out as a cartoon a few years ago which has turned into somewhat of a cult anime series, now the series is back!  Speed Racer is here for Wii and DS. With 20 cars, extreme speed, Car-Fu action, stunt racing and loads more to boot - voice-overs from the film, including Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch), Racer X (Matthew Fox) and Trixie (Christina Ricci).

The game starts by asking you to choose single player or a two player, split-screen race. In single player mode, there is Championship, Single Race or Time Trial.
If you Select championship, there are three different classes. You start the game in class one, and progress to each further class, which unlock as you win more races, offering increasingly difficult tracks / opponents.
You then choose the driver, of which five out of 20 are available from the outset. Each driver has a series of ratings, including speed, acceleration, handling and speed, with the good all rounder being Speed Racer.

When you start to race you will find it really easy to play, using the Wii Remote, you hold it horitzontally to steer your car around brightly coloured, rollercoaster-like tracks filled with loop-the-loops, corkscrews and jumps at speeds over 350mph, slight turns are sometimes all you need to get round the super fast bends and loops. After playing it for a short time i can see the resemblance to Wipeout and F-Zero and it does seem just as solid.

It took me a while to get used to the “Car - Fu” style of driving where you can quickly move the Wii mote right or left to performa shunt, and then by pressing a directional on the D pad it will perform a “Car - Fu” move which there are a variety, each character seems to have a variation of Fu’s… One thing i must point out is whilst the Car-Fu ‘ ing is fun, it does really slow you down if you get it wrong and the unforgiving opponents do tend to kick your ass, but get it right and you get boosts a plenty!
Dotted around the track are “Speed Ups” to be in with a chance of winning its worth getting to know the track and trying to hit as many of these as possible.

The Speed Racer music compliments the intense racing action. The different characters say things as they pass, get passed, or try to pass. Most of the comments made are kinday cheesy but it all adds to the atmosphere. Its definatley worth experimenting with the different drivers as i found that just using speed Racer got boring quickly,  the other drivers seemed to make up for this with the different feel to the handling of the cars etc.

The cars look fantastic, the racing is fun, Car-Fu lets you bash your opponents of the wonderfully coloured tracks, its like a mind bending acid trip for your eyes….  The Ally/Rival system that lets you team up with other racers and score bonus Boost for smacking your rivals around is fun too, although it can make pulling Car-Fu moves tricky, on that note its definatley worth teaming up with more and more people as it helps you within the race.

All in all the game is fun, the tracks though nicely done seem too few and the longevity of the game will not be that long if you play it all the time, but with a few mates around using the split screen it will have a bit more lasting appeal.

Gameplay - 7/10 - Easy to play, good modes for all ranks of player, best in a crowd.
Graphics - 8/10 - Great Car Designs and Tracks a must see!
Controls - 7/10 - Wii-Mote controls easy to use
Sound - 8/10 - Great voices, fantastic music atmosphere is brilliant
Overall - 7/10 - This is a must for any Wii owner who loves this genre of game, you wont regret the buy esp with all the unlockables.

King of Clubs is an innovative action-puzzle game, combining the challenge of the traditional ball-rolling puzzler with the classic tacky seaside pastime of mini-golf. As an evolution of the puzzle genre, each level has multiple solutions, and as further equipment is unlocked, new paths through each hole become viable. Building on the great tradition of sorry-looking mini-golf courses, the game is set in a dilapidated theme-park which takes decaying kitsch to new extremes.

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King of Clubs is instantly accessible and even the most casual gamer should have no problems getting to grips with the game. You simply aim your shot, set the amount of power you want to apply via the d-pad swing your Wii Mote away you go.

However don’t expect an easy ride with this title, the holes are full of traps that you will have to navigate through, after all it is crazy golf (just like at those days out with dad at the seafront at blackpool) and that is exactly how you could class many of the courses. At first it takes some time to get into the gameplay but once you are in there is loads to do, you can collect cash on the way round which boosts your savings to buy extra stuff like clubs and balls. 
Many of the holes also feature quick routes to the hole, to enable you to quickly get the upper hand over your opponent, although these routes are often highly hazardous adding to the challenge of the game.

As mentioned above, King of Clubs features plenty of content to keep you occupied, the games single player mode features career, tournament, speed golf, survival and practice modes.

In Career mode you play through each of the courses which is made up of various number of holes, the aim of the career mode is to beat the course record and earn cash that can be used to purchase news balls, putters and mulligans among other things from the club shop.

This means that once you’ve raised enough cash to buy the whole selection, a number of different options for completing each hole become available. For example, if one course requires you to negotiate your ball through a network of pathways, you might need four or five putts to get from tee to hole. But by using a wedge club and sticky ball, you might be able to jump directly in a single shot. Each of the holes can be made in one, and there’s a special course ready to be unlocked if you can manage to make all the courses with one shot.

In addition to the various single-player modes, which include career and practice options, there are a number of ways to play offline with your friends. But currently, there’s no plan to include online functionality on any of the platforms.

Good funny touches like when someone is havng their turn you can by using your remote send sounds and comments to their remote to put them off. Loads of options and degrees of difficulty to balance out good gameplay between friends of different abilities.

The Wii controllers also play their part in the accessibility of the game. The menu options are accessed by using the D pad and the A button. You can use the Wii Remote’s motion sensor in a straightforward manner to adjust the power of your shot and execute it.

Gameplay - 8/10 - Easy to play, good modes for all ranks of player, best in a crowd.
Graphics - 7/10 - Not next-gen, but they are stylish and totally suit the game
Controls - 7/10 - Wii-Mote controls easy to use but can be frustrating
Sound - 6/10 - Great voices, fantastic music atmosphere is brilliant
Overall - 7/10 - This is a must for any Wii owner who loves this genre of game, you wont regret the buy esp with all the unlockables.

When i first saw this game i instantly thought “Street Fighter” and when I played its got so many similarities apart from this is MUCH MUCH Better!

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core boasts over 20 deadly fighters and includes an alternate EX version of all the existing characters. On top of all this, the game also has two reinvented fighters, A.B.A. and Order-Sol, according to sources have never been seen outside of Japan.
Casual fighting-game fans should be able to get into the game easily, Its not hard to pull off big, combination attacks by bashing away on various buttons. The ever faithfull Guilty Gear fans will get the most out of the new game because it has a few new features that make higher-level play a bit more interesting. Just make sure you have either a Classic or GameCube controller handy, because even though the game supports the Wii Remote with Nunchuk attachment, it’s best played on a more traditional controller.

If you have played any of the other versions on the PS2 etc you will notice that Guilty Gear XX Accent Core delivers a range of all-new moves, including the ‘Force Break’, a special move which eats the tension gauge when used and moves which that stick opponents to walls or slide across the floor of a level.

In addition to major gameplay changes from previous installments, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core features the first major gameplay change for the series since the original release.  GGAC makes use of the Wii controller (although preference of mine is using the classic controller as it feels better and seems quicker reacting), allowing players to move characters with the control pad on the Nunchuk and use the Wii Remote for easy and harder attacks all of which make the gameplay awesome.

The graphics for a 2D fighter are beautifully done, with some great work of colours and depth. This enhances the gameplay, as does the background music and sounds. The playable characters artwork has also been reworked, plus two new music tracks, Launch Out and Keep The Flag Flying, were added.  If your a gamer who hates opponents who sit defend all the time then there are enhancements built into the game to counteract the punch dodging fools, it makes defensive players less powerful over the course of a fighting round. The only way to win over your opponents in Guilty Gear is relentless aggressive play, but Accent Core’s new additional moves seem to add a bit more give-and-take to matches, assuming your fingers are fast enough to make use of them.

Each character has 3 game modes based on the Guilty Gear, Guilty Gear X, and Λ Core fighting systems, all modes have something great to offer so there is something for everyone from a beginner to a veteran gamer.
Gameplay wise there are 5 different modes: Arcade, Medal of Millionaire, Versus, Survival and Training, all of which will keep you entertained for hours.

Unlockable bits of the game

EX Ending art
Successfully complete Arcade mode to unlock an EX character to unlock the corresponding artwork.

Guilty Gear Generations character versions
Accumulate 48 hours of game play. Note: Hours can be accumulated easily while the game is left idle in Training mode.

EX character versions
An EX character will be unlocked every hour after 48 hours of accumulated game play, starting with Potemkin in the same order as Survival mode.

Fight against Boss Order Sol
Successfully complete Arcade mode without losing any rounds.

Fight as Gold characters
Accumulate 48 hours of game play. Then change the color mode to Slash at the character selection screen and choose your character with Dust. Note: This can also be done with EX characters. Note: Hours can be accumulated easily while the game is left idle in Training mode.

Fight as Shadow characters
Accumulate 48 hours of game play. Then change the color mode to Reload at the character selection screen and choose your character with Dust. Note: This can also be done with EX characters. Note: Hours can be accumulated easily while the game is left idle in Training mode.

GGXX Slash and #Reload stages
Unlock all EX characters. The GGXX Slash stages will gradually become unlocked over time after 48 hours. After a stage has become unlocked, you can also access the #Reload version of it. To do this, hold Respect while selecting the stage and music.

Final Point

Guilty Gear Accent Core is a must for anyones Wii system this is the best fighting game available at this point for the Nintendo Wii. The game is incredibly fun, the graphics are beautiful (looks completely like a good anime cartoon), the music is cool, and there are so many options that I felt overwhelmed at first.  So, buy this game because it’s the best fighting game on the Wii, one of the best fighting games on any console, and it’ll encourage more cool Japanese arcade ports to the Wii.  

Gameplay - 8/10 - Easy to play, good modes for all ranks of player
Graphics - 7/10 - Not next-gen, but they are stylish and totally suit the game
Controls - 8/10 - Wii-Mote and nunchuck GC and Classic what more could you want?
Sound - 8/10 - Great voices, fantastic music atmosphere is brilliant
Overall - 8/10 - This is a must for any Wii owner who loves this genre of game, you wont regret the buy esp with all the unlockables.

“Rising Star Games is very excited to be bringing this latest project from Suda 51 to the European market,” commented Martin Defries, Managing Director, Rising Star Games. “He is without doubt a legendary creative powerhouse within the gaming industry. No More Heroes is shaping up to be a widely anticipated Q1 title for both the trade and consumers alike. It’s a massively engaging and immersive gaming experience for the Wii. This is exactly the right product to broaden the format’s appeal to a wider, more serious gaming audience.”

Key Features

• Innovative controls – recharge your weapon by shaking the Wii Remote!
• Travis’s fighting action is uniquely controlled via Wii Remote and the Nunchuk
• Customise Travis’s style with over 170 items of clothing to choose from
• Play at your own pace with a free roaming environment – chill out at home, head out on assassination missions or hunt down otaku goodies
• Laugh-out-loud comedy, story line and wacky characters!

Violence, sex, things to see, things to collect, spectacular graphics and even better sound, a sense of humour, a sense of purpose, an insane logic running through every fibre - and enough swearing to get your telly banned by the BBFC. Killer7 creator Suda51 is back, all right.

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Travis Touchdown, is a cool dude, who loves gaming & anime, who wins a lightsaber in an online auction and sets off in a mission to become the world’s number one hitman so he can get the girls. From the minute you take control of him, thrown into the deepend, a short cutscene tells you story so far and pressing the A button takes you straight to the house of Hitman Number10.

A very quick tutorial shows you your fighting moves and then you make it up as you go along. The ranked assassins guard themselves with loads of ball - axe - knife holding freaks who at their best will just slow you down a bit, they are laser katana practice before the real master assassins face you in battle I must say all of the assassins i have encountered so far have been fantastic, Completely bonkers and full of blood lust.

When you need to save, head for the big S, and that will take you straight to “the bathroom” yeah you heard… the bathroom, Travis takes a dump to save … how funny is that? ; when his charge is low in the katana (press 1) and he holds the katana at waist height and yanks on it until the batteries recharge.  Some of the other rankedAssassins to kill are Death Metal; Letz Shake; Destroy Man, they get more and more bizarre as you go along and all have different fighting styles / tools.

Its not all about fighting though, Travis has to earn money to enter the prize fights, and to do so he has to take on part time jobs to fund the entrance fee, you can get these at the local job center or various other places, the first major job you do is collecting coconuts, hmm thats easy I hear ya say…  think again batman.. you have to kick and punch the hell outta coconut trees and then carry the buggers back to a coconut seller hehehe it aint no easy task. There is a love interest in all this Sylvia Christal - The very sexy agent from the UAA. A mysterious beauty who arranges the ranking battles of the UAA. Frequently mixes business with pleasure she keeps popping up (and out) quite often which drives Travis insane with lust….

Travis gets around on the biggest bike I have ever seen… it tops 120 on on the GTA style roads when you hit the jet thruster, but be carefull you will come a cropper if your not careful on yer chopper… your able to roam around the city just like in GTA and there is loads to go play with :).

 You will come across various flashing chests that harbor health and battery power, plus what looks like a pirates treasure chest thats filled with money, smash these with your katana to empty out the gaming goodness.
If you want to style Travis up a little, there is a shop that opens up called Area 51, the owner is a bit of a dick but the clothes are wicked… choose all new styles for Travis making him keep his cool…. jackets,  jeans, t’s and sunnies all available at the right price…

The gameplay is superb, fights are repetitive but you just love em and cant stop, pressing B on the wiimote gives you wrestling moves and A charges up the katana for more powerful moves. You learn more moves as you get through the game and they get more and more bizarre. There are some special moves you can pull off, these happen when you doing a Jamie Oliver on the closest of enemies which slice and dice faster than he ever could. The power of the special move is determined by the roll of the slot machine, you will see this in the game.

When an assassin is defeated you are presented with your score board which is fantastically reproduced retro 80’s coin-op scoreboard which fits the game beautifully.
The music score behind the game is very well presented and really gets you into the game, I found myself dancing around whilst slicing and dicing to some nice drum and bass.

My closing statement on this game is:

Travis Touchdown is the man we all want to be, he’s a rock hard geezer with a laser katana, he dont take crap from anyone plus he loves the ladies, who doesnt want to be like that? This is one game on the Nintendo Wii that you should buy, not only for yourself but for your Wii, it breathes a breath of fresh air and fun into your everyday life, letting you live out your bloodlust as a cool hitman who loves the chicks and aint afraid of a bit of blood spatter. Music is cool, no idea why they changed the blood from red to black for the european market and still kept in the swearing go figure… but this does NOT detract from the wonderfully styled graphics easy to use controls and exciting gameplay.

GO BUY THIS NOW!

Gameplay - 9/10 - Easy to play, controls feel natural, hack n slash loveliness
Graphics - 8/10 - Not next-gen, but they are stylish and totally suit the game
Controls - 9/10 - Wii-Mote and nunchuck are very well suited for this game
Sound - 8/10 - Great voices, fantastic music atmosphere is brilliant
Overall - 9/10 - I loved this game and so will you, its what you have been crying out for, Its fun, ridiculous and hilarious - a must for any adult Wii owner.

This game gets a stonking pimpmywii.co.uk 9/10

“USING THE Wii REMOTE TO THROW THE DART IS THE CLOSEST THING TO REAL DARTS YET – GAME ON” – Phil Taylor, 13 Times World Champion.

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Gameplay - 7/10 - Smooth playing, controls great wehn you get used to them.
Graphics - 6/10 - Great character renders, crowd lacks a bit - venues look great.
Sounds - 7/10 - All authentic Championship darts sounds Sids great.
Overall - 7/10 - Well worth a buy for any darts fan, once you master the controls your well on your way to being a pro, especially in a crowd of mates having a laugh.

PoP: RS is great! Really easy to get to grips with, and I love the camera controls:

tilt the Wiimote to pan the camera 360 degrees
use the D pad for the same effect, plus up and down
press 1 for landscape view
press 2 for 1st person view

Combat is very easy, although I have found the combos to be a bit hit and miss but the stealth kills are great, especially when you initiate them from above your opponent (on an overhead beam, for example).

Traps are fairly bog-standard and don’t yet present much of a challenge, which to be honest, I am pleased about. I’m not of the school of thinking that likes to be tortured by games!

The Dark Prince is uber cool but the downside is that his life evaporates incredibly quickly. Fortunately there appear to be many things that can be broken to replenish his life-sand.

Moves are as always, excellent. Since I haven’t actually played Two Thrones (I’ve owned it for PS2 since it was released!!), I don’t know if RS has new moves. Certainly there are ones that are different to SoT and WW and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that some have been coded especially for the Wiimote. The dagger grab, for example, makes excellent use of said controller.

Visually the game is excellent, although it must be said that in a couple of instances, the camera has automatically changed its angle, leading to the Prince’s doom! Thank goodness for the Recall!

The FMVs look nice, although there is a distinct change to in-game visuals just before you regain control of the Prince, which isn’t exactly seamless. TBH the graphics for the Prince could be better - environments are beautiful, which makes it all the more obvious that he looks a tad flat. However, in-play, he is very fluid, which is after all, what counts. And we all know that pretty games aren’t necessarily good games! Moreover, if this is the only negative thing I can find in this game, it’s not a big deal at all.

Perspective is put to good use in this incarnation but I’d prefer it if when in landscape mode, it didn’t switch back to normal the moment you move the Prince. Sometimes being in landscape mode is very handy!

Music is good, although I’d prefer a little more of it and the voice overs range from mildly annoying (because they are so quiet you have to strain to hear them) to “If you don’t shut up, I’ll have to kill you”! Overall however, there isn’t much to complain about.

I really like PoP: RS - it has everything I want from a game; good visuals, excellent gameplay, nice sounds, combat (but not to excess), puzzles and adventure. Generally I’m not a fan of platformers but this game is so expertly realised that actually, I don’t really notice the platform elements too much.

I’d easily give this 85 - 90%.

I was so excited when I bought this game, Spider-Man (SM) 1 was OK but laid the foundation for controls. SM2, in my opinion, was amazing. It was like playing a superhero Grand Theft Auto with an entire, and accurate (apparently), city to explore and live in.

Web swinging was fun and easy to learn thanks to it’s control system and the option to change the way it worked. The one let down of SM2 was the fact that the missions were very boring and unbelievably repetitive.

Not much has changed in SM3. The basic plot follows the film although scenes, script and order of events have changed slightly so as not to spoil the film or to offer something new.

Graphics
Crap. That’s all I can say really. There’s no shading, instead everything has a garish white stripe that flickers on and off. Buildings disappear regardless of distance and their textures are appalling - grey slabs with black “windows”. All of which flicker, jump about, flash, annoy you. In-game characters look like identical to those in SM2 (reference to the PS2 title) if not worse, they’re badly animated and appear 2D at times.

The enemies all look exactly the same to each other depending on their gangs. There are 3 different models for each gang but between each gang they’ve all got the same roles (some dodge, some have shields/weapons, some are big and strong).

But back to the graphics. Oh my God are they crap. Terrible. Absolutely rubbish.

Audio
Another down side to this game, there’s not much music and when it does play it’s the exact same tune from SM2. All of the original actors lent their voices which works well and keeps with continuity but the developers must’ve spent their entire budget on them. The enemies, like gang models, have different voices but they’re used terribly. The same quips from Spider-Man and his opponents are used constantly, Spider-Man’s in particular rarely make sense and are out of context.

Spider-Man gets smacked to the floor by a fat bloke holding a lamp post - “Yeah no one can stop me now!” says Spider-Man. Haha?

Gameplay
Web swinging is very hard, I’m mean next to impossible. The remotes work well though and it can be fun to imitate Spidey’s movements across the skyline and between the buildings. But wait! I’ve shot a webline straight forward and yet he flung it backwards causing me to stop dead and fall to the floor. Haha that was funny, I bet it won’t happen again. Oh it did. And just again.

After 20 bajillion times of this web swinging becomes tedious. It wasn’t until a few hours after I completed the actual storyline (about 4 hours or so I think) while doing gang missions that I really got a knack for it. And it’s still slow and difficult to control.

Fighting is generally okay although it’s basically shaking the remote about, there’s no skill or timing really needed. In big gang cuffufles everything slows down a little and you spend a lot of the time jumping away and webbing back down, repeating the same “sniping” strategy to pick off outside targets.

While fighting Spidey’s enemies the responsiveness vanishes and I spent a lot of the time madly waving the controls with no action from Parker.

Conclusion
The game has it’s moments where things are fun but the bugs, bad graphics, bugs, repetitiveness, bugs and crapness of the game get in the way far too often.

Oh and they’ve thrown out the acrobatic moves from SM2 that let you learn more adrenaline (special attack power) and generally made you look cool playing the game. And once you’ve finished SM3 you get a chance to kill all the gangs, there’s roughly 30 gang hotspots and normally about 4 missions per spot so that means repeating the same missions 120 times or more. Not good. Especially when you start a mission and then instantly fail it!

Oh yeah there’s also the ongoing effort to find all Spider Medals and Meteor Fragments - the first reward lets you play as black suit Spider-Man which would make things cooler but it’s a huge endeavour to find all the medals. The Meteor Fragments, all 100 of them, get you a bright yellow congratulations sign appear. That’s it.

This game, in general, INSANELY SUCKS. If you’re a huge fan of the film, like me, buy it but leave all even moderate expectations behind or that’s where you’ll want to leave the game.

4/10

And I did the whole review without making a joke about Spiders and bugs.

Intro
Well my brother bought this when I first got the Wii and he played it for about 10 minutes before giving up. I was playing Red Steel at the time, once I finished I moved onto Zelda. I avoided it at first because of the slating my brother gave it but it’s actually very good! The reason why he hated it was it that this was his first experience with the Wii, he’d barely even touched WiiSports before it - and for someone who’s addicted to Call Of Duty (COD) 1 for the PC, he was disappointed that he couldn’t control it.

It’s a difficult game to get used to, but my experience with Red Steel was really useful even if it was just to get used to moving in a three dimensional virtual world using the remote for orientation.

Graphics & Audio
Now this is an awesome looking game. It beats the Hell out of COD1 on my PC and at all times looks stunning. There’s many different NPC models and they all look great and very realistic.

If anything the game is very dark and grimy to create a realistic environment - lots of smoke, craters, bomb remnants - it looks disastrous but that’s the point. This can create problems with light though, sometimes everything was too dark to actually see the enemy - especially with light from other sources in the room reflecting on the television. I had to play most of the game in a dark room to see anything (and yes my tv is set up properly ).

But when you break out of the destroyed cities and towns the lush green fields of the country look great and chapters set in forests are really detailed.

The title sounds great too. Lots of explosions, thundering cannon fire, stereo gunshots - it’s got it all. I suppose the trouble is though that the voice acting, although done well again, was often drowned out by gunfire. Now again this is realistic of what war is - LOUD - but it does sometimes affect the gameplay. This is where the objective screen comes in handy so if you miss an instruction and if it’s important it’ll be there for you to recap.

Gameplay
Now the game itself is divided into chapters, each one is basically a huge environment. Cities, towns, farms, mansions - it’s got all of your basic war locations. Nothing really new but it’s not like developers can rewrite history to improve gameplay.

Anyways, it’s your basic FPS. You point and shoot, but what makes it different is there really is a huge sense of team dependency. If you try and storm that machine gun turret you’re going to die. And that’s a fact. You’ve got to look for cover, watch your team mates and give your support.

The AI they use is pretty good, they sometimes have the habit of running in front of you and then standing in a doorway so you can’t go through but they generally have a good basic intelligence.

The enemy AI is somewhat more stupid, at least on the easy setting I chose , and often just stand in front of your troops waiting to die. But there is some realism in the fact that they often retreat and regroup when your own team force forwards and if you fall back they’ll take up the space and even run for cover.

There really aren’t that many weapons though for a COD game, maybe there’s slightly more or less I can’t remember, but nothing really stands out. Again this may be a sacrifice of gameplay for realism and historical accuracy. Chances are if you kill a Nazi they’re carrying an MP40 or a Kark rifle or whatever they’re called. But there’s still enough variety to keep the game going although with two spaces for guns it’s easy to deal with any strategical situation - use a rifle for distance and accuracy and an automatic gun for close quarters and fierce fighting.

Grenades are handy and the physics used are perfect, and it’s hilarious picking up enemy grenades and just throwing them back at the guys who just lobbed ‘em.

Controls
Just your bog-standard FPS controls, you can crouch, lie down, jump and lean side to side. Pretty standard stuff. The remote works well in that you control the gun well and it’s pretty accurate, if maybe a little too accurate - I’m a rubbish shot even after a week’s constant play.

The feedback’s good also, the remote vibrates from every gunshot, impact and explosion to the head. It’s very immersing and atmospheric.

But then there’s the downsides.

I’m not sure why it happens but there are short periods of absolute crappiness. When there’s a lot of action over a large distance, like for example you’re rushing a huge mansion and there’s up to 20 or so characters shotting the Hell out of everything in sight, the game dies.

Frame rate drops slightly which is understandable and it’s never for any more than a second or so (any longer and you’d be shot to death) but there’s another problem. The controls completely freeze.

It’s neither my remote nor the batteries, I’ve changed them both, but they just don’t work. And always at the worst possible time. I’ll rush into a room and I’ll suddenly lose the ability to shoot, the button just doesn’t respond and then suddenly my character with dart about the room without me controlling it often simply running for maybe 3 or 4 seconds face first into a wall while I’m being shot.

I don’t know where the problem is and it may be just my hardware after all but it absolutely ruins the experience and makes the game unplayable. Especially when I’m driving Vera, the British Army’s Jeep. It’s terrible to control anyway with the two remotes held like a steering wheel but it gets worse when suddenly I lose the ability to turn corners and the car just drives continuously into a brick wall. This happens so much that I’ve lost patience and I often have to restart the chapter because of the unresponsiveness or reset the console if worse comes to worse and all buttons stop working.

Overview
In short an excellent game, brilliant graphics, brilliant sound, brilliant controls but my experience was plagued with very buggy sections that forced me to quit.

When it’s not working 4/10.
When it is working 9/10.

Far Cry Vengence Review.

Introduction:
I’m not new to FPS games at all and have played through plenty of PC and console FPS’s like Doom (PC), Unreal (PC), Exhumed (Saturn) Duke Nukem 3D (PC/Saturn), Far Cry (PC, XBOX & XBOX360) Halo 1 & 2 (XBOX) Metroid Prime 1, 2 and Hunter (Gamecube/DS).
When I first saw the Wii’s controller I always wondered how an FPS would work with this unique scheme, now I’ve found out.

Graphics:
FarCry is a game I’m familiar with on 3 different systems so far, so I’m not new to the CryTek engine or its graphical capabilities. It was one of the most beautiful game engines when released and still to this day has some impressive visuals. It looked good on the XBOX but thanks to a quick port apart from being in high definition it didn’t seem to push the 360, so what have Ubisoft done for the Wii?

The Wii version is not for those who like eye candy. It’s sad to say but like others have said, this game is behind last gen visually. Gone is the beautiful pixel shaded water of the CryTek engine. Gone are the beautiful shadows, textures and high quality foliage. What are Wii users left with? A game that regularly slows down, a game that likes blurry textures and ugly, blocky shadows which seem to come from nowhere! Overall, a game that looks worse than most last gen games.
Where did it go wrong Ubi? Was it rushed? Is the Wii not powerful enough? Whatever the reason, it is a shame and I believe that the Wii should be able to do better than this.

Gameplay:
One of the things that can have a massive impact on how a game plays is the AI. Well, the guys on these exotic islands have some of the worst AI I’ve seen. If you were standing next to a comrade, only for him to be gunned down would you stand there staring into space? These guys do! The AI is basic at best, which is a shame, with the visuals at an all time low, you’d hope all that wasted processing power was calculating some pretty hefty AI to help make up for that fact.
Now, onto the vehicles. When I first played, I couldn’t steer the Jeep that I got in for love nor money. I was hitting trees and generally getting nowhere fast until I worked out something in the controls, which I’ll share with you soon, to make it a ton easier.
Other gameplay mechanics are simple things like, 3 suicidal guys standing in front of a stack of logs, just waiting for you to shoot the support away, sending the wood flying towards them!

Sound:
I haven’t got a high end sound system, nor am I an audiophile so I’m probably not the best to comment on sound. The weapons sound good and the explosions rumble my sub. There are some oddities tho. Music skipping part way through like a stuttering CD and as the guys you’re shooting at utter the same few sentences, sometimes the sound is just cut before they stop speaking. Very unnatural and it can be slightly off-putting.

Controls:
I’ve saved this for last for a reason. Nintendo made FPS’s playable on a hand held with Metroid Prime and the DS’s touch screen and they have given FPS’s precision control with the Wiimote and nunchuck.
Ubisoft have done a fantastic job with the controls, the precisi