Black_Rose's Reviews

Pros: Superb graphics – Great use of the analog stick- Good Soundtrack and sound effects - Nice sense of speed – It’s just plain fun

Cons:  Only two player multiplayer
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Wave Race is one of Nintendo's best and unfortunately underrated series, it made its debut back in the Gameboy in 1992 and the sequel was released for the N64 in November 1996, it was extremely fun back then and its extremely fun right now.

The Premise of the game is simple: Jet Ski water racing in various locations. Its fairly simple but there's a twist to this awesome racing game: Each course has a set of buoys, red and yellow; reds are meant to be passed right and yellows left, if you miss five buoys you're disqualified from the race; there are also smaller buoys around the course which mark the boundaries, if you leave the course for more than five seconds you'll also be disqualified. At first it's really hard and frustrating, but after you master the excellent control scheme it’s a breeze. This game makes the best use of the N64 controller's analog stick, because it’s intuitive and makes racing fun.

The racing is done in a set of around nine different courses, each with their own shortcuts and obstacles, as soon as you choose one of the four different players you'll find yourself splashing and bouncing around in the water, its really fun and the realistic wave physics give the game a visceral feel to it, there’s also a small set of tricks to perform, ramps that will send you flying, and sometimes (depending on the weather) aggressive waves that make the courses unpredictable. The game's excellent sense of speed and framerate will also make you feel like you're actually in the race.

The modes include the usual suspects in racing games: Championship mode, which can be beaten in two or less hours, but it's so fun it'll keep you coming back for more every time. Multiplayer for up to two players, yes only two players, it gives you a break from championship but it’s not nearly as good. Time Trial, where you can break your time records and save ghost data (Ghost saving is not available in the Virtual Console version) and a Stunt mode where you'll perform a series of tricks that will give you more points. It doesn’t sound like too much, but each of them is really great and will keep you coming back.

Now where Wave Race really shines is in the graphics, they're superb, It looks incredibly detailed (for an N64 game), the water looks realistic and beautiful with some of the best wave effects ever created in a videogame, characters and animation also look good and fluid. The backgrounds also look great, you'll see the shorelines, dolphins, whales and such while you race. There are also superb lighting effects, especially in Sunset Bay. Overall they do their job magnificently and really make you feel like you're in a tropical island.

Overall Wave Race 64 is a winning combination of great gameplay, graphics, sound and a development team with a lot of talent and all of this makes it one of the greatest racing games ever created.

Pros: Good graphics – Superb licensed soundtrack – It's the perfect game if you're felling bloodthirsty – Miami is wonderfully recreated

Cons: Bland animations – Bad camera – Uninteresting missions - Rewrites one of the most iconic scenes of the movie
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Scarface makes it's debut on the Wii with the world is yours, a port of a 2006 Xbox and PS2 game and it's the best version of the game, not that the old ones were great but the new control scheme really helps this one.

Scarface is based on the 1983 movie of the same name starring Al Pacino as the iconic Tony Montana, a cuban drug lord who's searching for the "American dream" and goes to Miami (where the game also takes place) where he fights mobster in order to become the best. The game is a sequel to the movie....A sequel? Didn't Tony Montana die at the end? Well yes he did, but the guys at Vivendi rewrote the whole final part of the movie –which also happens to be one of the best action scenes ever created-. This time Montana escapes the mansion attack but he losses all his money, drugs and his empire. And it's up to you to get revenge and regain your empire.

The way the story goes is simply ridiculous, not only rewrites the best ending in any movie but after that it doesn't really get any interesting. You'll take control of Tony shortly after the memorable "Say hello to my little friend" scene and try to escape from the mansion, after that you go to Little Havana and start dealing again until you get all your money back. It's very much like The Godfather game in the way that you'll have to take over business and kill as many enemies as you want. But it also borrows heavily from the GTA series because it's an open world crime game.

Unlike the Godfather you don't just enter a business and punch the owner until they give it to you. No, this time they will ask you to do something for them, which could be killing one of his/her enemies, defending the business from attackers, or –and this is one of the most stupid missions- pick up some papers with your boat in the ocean, but doesn’t paper in water get wet? Well, who cares. You also have to defend a helicopter while it's getting sharks out of the water to make shark soup. Most of the missions are stupid, uninteresting and boring.

But taking over business is not the only thing to do in the game. You also have to kill all the gangs- and there are many gangs, which mean shooting everyone you see in front of you. The action in the game is non-stop; you'll take out your enemies by using machine guns, knives, machetes and even the chainsaw. When you kill an enemy using manual aiming you get ball points, which are used to activate the rage or adrenaline mode (used by shaking the nunchuck). In this mode the game will momentarily transform into a first person shooter in slow motion, which makes it easier to kill your enemies; the more you kill the more life you gain.

Enemies respond to the place you shoot them, but no matter the place you'll always see a fest of blood and guts flying around, it gives it a visceral felling to the game, specially using manual aiming and the chainsaw. There are also plenty of car chases and crashes. In one of the best action sequences of the game you'll have to take down a gang of thugs in the auto cinema, this part is really mind blowingly fun, though a little hard. This game is obviously not for kids because many of the side missions include coke dealing, to do this you have to get close to the guy and press and hold the a button, after this a circular meter will appear on screen and you have to hold the A button until it gets full and then let off, if you fail you wont be able to sell the drug. This is also used to fast talk cops and for money laundry. It's a really neat idea and better than just pressing a button.

The analog stick in the nunchuck is used to move Tony, lock on with the Z button and you shake it to use the adrenaline mode. To take the gun out you use left or right on the D pad and point at the screen and shoot with B, and every time you kill someone the rumble in the wiimote activates, as I said before it's very visceral and you actually feel like you're killing a mobster. The most annoying thing of the controls is the camera; you have to move the pointer to the direction you wish to rotate the camera. It's very hard to control the camera and the aiming reticule at the same time so you'll get killed many times because of this.

The city of Miami is wonderfully recreated; there are many business, houses, hotels and people walking around so it's very lively. And you can explore it with cars and boats, there's a lot of vehicle variety too and the fact that they are more contemporary than those in the Godfather makes it a bit better.

Visually it looks on par with the X box version, well a little better, but just a little. That doesn't mean it looks bad, there's a lot of great looking things in the game and the lighting is wonderful, especially in the sunset. Though there are also a lot of bad looking things, the water for instance looks horrible. Another thing that looks pretty bad are the character animations, they're pretty bad, though not noticeable when you're playing, you'll notice this during cutscenes and close-ups, it just looks like a polygonal mess. Other than that the car models look decent and the city interiors look great, but it feels really inferior when compared to games like GTA IV and Saints Row.

On the audio side is where Scarface shines. Not because of the voice acting though, the guy who plays Tony does a decent job imitating him, but the rest is just lame celebrity voice acting, it could've been better if it wasn't for the script, which consist of pure cursing; in fact if there's nobody around and you shake the nunchuck Tony will start cursing. Where the sound shines is in the soundtrack because not only do they have the original score from the movie, but also because it includes the best variety of licensed songs ever seen in a videogame. It has plenty of songs from various decades and styles. There's rock, pop, reggae, pop, reggeaton, rap and even country. Many artist are present here, from Judas priest's "Breaking the law" to Rick James' "SuperFreak" and Winsin & Yandel's "Callejeros".

Scarface: The World is Yours is a fun game, only and only if you're into GTA. It also helps that other than the Godfather there aren't many games like this on the Wii, though if i were you i would go for the Godfather because even if Scarface is pretty long and has a lot of replay value, the uninspired mission design, bad camera and horrible story brings this game down. It's good but just for a rental.

Pros: Some of the Gamecube's best graphics – The same incredible gameplay we’re used to albeit with a few changes – Great music – Still has a lot of the classic Mario charm.

Cons: The camera can be very annoying – Voice acting is awful.

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Super Mario Sunshine is the successor to the highly acclaimed and innovative Super Mario 64, but this one it's not innovative in any way, yet it's extremely fun and it's a must for any Mario fan.

The game starts with Mario and Peach taking a vacation in the tropical paradise of Delfino Island, but as soon as they arrive hell breaks loose. Apparently there's a Mario look alike creating havoc in the island and getting everything dirty with a paint-like goop, and Mario is sentenced to clean all the mess with a water cannon created by the professor E. Gadd (Luigi's Mansion) named FLUDD, as the story progresses Peach gets kidnapped yet again and you'll have to save her of course. It’s an overused story and it's incredibly simplistic and boring to say the least, but no points are taken from the game for that because after all Mario games have always been like that.

The gameplay uses the basic formula of Super Mario 64, you'll move around with the analog stick, control the camera with the C stick, use the R trigger to shoot water, enter a semi first person view with Y and change the nozzle with X. There are various types of nozzles in the game: one gives you a bust of speed, one is a rocket that will let you blast into the sky and the standard James Bond - like dual hover that let's you lift off into the air for short periods of time. The water cannon is a neat idea and it can be fun for a while but it wasn’t well executed and the game could live without it.

The game uses the same basic design of SM64 for the objectives and goals. There are different worlds divided in eight stages each, some of the objectives can be as dull as going to one place and kill the enemies while others include secret areas that work as an obstacle course of some sort, they are really fun (and a bit frustrating) but in the end they end up being one of the best parts of the game, specially because they bring that classic platformer style that makes Mario so good. That being said other objectives can be pretty dull and boring, such as having to find a Yoshi in a motel, those feel uninspired but they are few and far between.

Environments are quite beautiful too, the levels are wonderfully created and are really big but not to the point where Sunshine should be considered an open world game, yet you could loose hours of your time exploring the levels.

One of the game's most annoying problems is the camera which you control with the C stick, just because it's very hard to keep it in the right place. It won't get you killed much times, but it can make you fall from a platform and have to start over again, which leads to some frustrating moments. And when you are stuck between walls you'll only be able to see Mario's silhouette and by "only" i mean only, you can't watch anything but his shadow, making this incredibly annoying at times.

Graphics in Sunshine are superb, the whole island looks incredibly detailed, the characters animate well and the signature colourful worlds we’re used to see in the franchise. The “paint- like goop” that I explained before looks absolutely fantastic. The lightning is just as good and this is the best use of the lens flare in any game i’ve played. But this game stands out in the water effects, they are some of the gamecube, the water is realistic, crystalline and looks gorgeous. So inviting you'll just want to dive and swim; ahh the cold, refreshing water. The graphics might not be the on par with Resident Evil 4, but they are definitely one of the best on the Cube.

The music is also impressive; the old tunes are combined with some new ones to create a tropical soundtrack which really fits the game; my personal favorites are the Delphino Plaza and Ricco Harbor songs. However the voice acting is ridiculously awful with the exception of Mario who only does his trademark Yipee!! And Wahoo!!! The rest is lame, especially Peach's voice, it's just annoying.

Mario Sunshine could’ve been better; yes it’s not as innovative as the ones that came before it and yes the camera and voice acting are terribly annoying and hold it back from being a “perfect” Mario game. But it’s best to see it for what it is instead of what it could’ve been and it is a great platformer that keeps the same Mario charm and could please any fan of the genre.

The Good: Pick up and play gameplay - Fantastic multiplayer - Arcade football at it's best

The Bad: Boring Single player - Not enough characters - Things get a little too hectic at times

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Mario sports games have always been excellent, ever since the N64 days with Mario Golf and Mario Tennis. And the original Mario Strikers is not an exception, taking the world's most famous sport to the Mario universe with extremely good results.

Taking cues from previous Mario Sports games like Mario Baseball and Mario Power Tennis developer Next Level Games gave this one a classic Mario twist. The objective still is beating your opponent by scoring goals, but you'll be using several items (bananas, red shells, etc) to do so and of course many special skills trademark of each character.

Unlike real football Mario Strikers is a five-on-five game. The first thing to do before starting a match is choosing a team, which consist of a captain, a goalkeeper and three sidekids. Captains can do super strikes, which are a more powerful version of the normal shots and are unstoppable, these give you two goals instead of one. That's pretty much all you'll see in the game, the gameplay is pretty basic.

Game modes are lacking, you get Cup, Super cup (which is a harder version of the normal cup), Grudge Match and Strikers 101. The single player game is nothing worth mention, it's really boring to play this game by yourself since you don't get to do stuff you could in normal football games like upgrade your team and such. The real fun comes in the multiplayer but more on that later.

The stadiums don't affect gameplay and only feature different surfaces. There's an electric fence that prevents the ball from leaving the field, so there are no outs. There aren't any fouls either, so you can smash your opponent as many times as you like.

The multiplayer component of the game is by far it's best feature, playing with your friends really make it worthy of buying. The matches can get hectic at times, since you and your opponent will be smashing and throwing items at each other while trying to score a goal. Sometimes Bowser comes out of nowhere and starts creating havoc, making the game even more hectic. You can also create tournaments for up to eight people, making the multiplayer experience even better.

The visuals in Mario strikers are far from impressive, they are not as colorful as, say, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, everything is more grey and the characters don't have their classic clothes, but at least they get the job done. The audio is quite good too, though the music can get repetitive I really enjoyed some of the tunes.

As you've probably figured by now the game is far from being a sim and that makes it a disappointment if you're expecting a Fifa Street – like experience, what this game does however is bringing the sport to an arcade style that makes it a really fast paced game, which is fun to play with friends and that in my opinion is better than it's sequel and one of the best multiplayer experiences on the Gamecube

The Good: Great graphics - Superb controls and gameplay - Incredible soundtrack - Great Value - Creepy enviroments - Awesome boss fights and enemies.

The Bad: Even though the graphics are great there's not an upgrade from the gamecube version - Ashley is very annoying.
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Back in 2005 Capcom released a game for the game Gamecube that became one of the sigle greatest games ever created, that game was Resident Evil 4, gamespot's game of the year and an overall superb game in every single way, and maybe there's a chance you've played it for both the Gamecube or it's PlayStation 2 port, so unless you hated the game there's no reason whatsoever not to play it again because the Wii controls breathe new life into it making this the best version of the game by far.

If you unfortunately haven't played Resident Evil 4 then here's how the story goes: You're Leon S. Kennedy (who fans of the series will recognise for his appearance in Resident Evil 2) a US government agent searching for the president's kidnapped daughter. Your search takes you to a little village in Spain were you'll find half man-half Zombie people called Ganados. The story is great and really interesting with some incredible plot twist, some occasional clichés and interesting characters, there's also a new (for Nintendo owners) side story called Separate Ways where you'll control Ada Wong, plus the classic Mercenaries mode is back. Overall superb story, but it's so different from previous Resident Evils that some of the fans of the previous game will have a hard time appreciating it.

The gameplay still holds itself after all this time and the new Wii controls makes this a joy all over again. Just like the other versions you'll control Leon from a third person perspective and there's a lot and i mean a lot of weapon variety to be found. You'll use these weapons against the Ganado who are very creepy enemies and they are very strong, you'll shoot them wherever you want: in the knees so they fall, in the head so you can see a gruesome show of blood and guts.

Leon is controlled with both the Wiimote and Nunchuck, movement is done with the nunchuck's analog stick and use the Z button to run. Aiming mode is entered with the B button, you won't be able to move during this mode but thats ok considering how slow some enemies are (that doesn't mean you won't get killed from time to time) and you'll control a circular reticle for aiming instead of the laser of the previous versions and shoot with A, it's very intuitive and there's a visceral feel to it. The knife is used by holding C and then pressing A or waggle the remote, and for reloading you'll hold the B button and the D pad or wave the remote. There are also some puzzles from time to time to give you a break from all the action and they're not incredibly hard but they do their job very well.

The game still looks superb even if it basically looks like a Gamecube game, the creepy enviroments and ugly enemies look better than ever, specially the Village levels because they look so detailed and spooky but that doesn't mean that the rest of the game looks bad, the sewers and the castle still look superb. The cinematics are superb and make this game feel like a movie. The classic cinematic battles are here, but this time instead of repeatedly pressing a button you'll have to wave the Wiimote, so don't you dare to put it down during a cutscene because it'll get you killed, it feels great and it adds a lot more to the experience.


The enemies and bosses are some of the best in videogame history, El Gigante still looks incredibly scary and Del Lago is sure to create some heart pounding moments, the Ganado and the mutated enemies like Garrador will give you some great gaming moments too. Overall they are all memorable.

The music stands out as one of the best soundtracks ever, it's very atmospheric and creates a sense of suspense and some ambient noises that will sure keep you fearfully waiting for the next enemie to appear. The voice acting is good too, except for one little annoying thing (Ashley) but other than that it's superb, specially the spanish speaking enemies you'll encounter during the adventure screaming things like Agarrenlo! Or Un forastero!

All in all Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition is the best version of the game, from it's intuitive controls to the great graphics and sound and cinematic feel, this is worth a look even if you've played this classic before.

The Good: New innovative control scheme that works well – Decent online mode – Great animations – Pro Evo is back on a Nintendo home console

The Bad: Music is a bit repetitive – Lack of many licensed teams
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Football/Soccer on the wii has been nothing but a disappointment so far, first with Mario Strikers Charged which was decent but not really great and then with Fifa 08, which turned out to be the worst game in the series in years, and let's not even talk about Kidz Sports: Soccer. But now Konami decided to release their venerable Pro Evolution Soccer franchise in a Nintendo home console for the first time in years, and it's not only the best soccer game for the Wii, but also the best of this generation so far.

The first thing you'll do in this game is a long but necessary tutorial, and this is a must do, why? Well because Pro Evo 08 is completely different from every other soccer game out there. There's a pointer on the screen that helps you select the players and move them, you can also move with the nunchuck and that works better, but the pointer is necessary when it comes to pass, you'll do this by aiming at the player and pressing the B buton. Shacking the nunchuk makes the player shot the ball, swinging the wiimote makes him throw a chip shot. That's about it for basics, they seem a bit complicated at first but they are pretty easy to do and you'll master the controls easily.

This is the best controlling so far in any football game, because you can control every single player on screen with the pointer, still there's a flaw in defense, because you don't really do much, and this is probably the worst part of the awesome gameplay. You just press A on the opposing player and the closest defender will attack him, you can tackle by shacking the nunchuck and holding the Z button and that's about it. It's not really effective when you're being overwhelmed by opposing players, so that's a bit disappointing sometimes, still, it works well.

The game can get confusing at times, especially with so many lines being drawn on the field, but it flows well and it's a bit more tactical than other PES games, but don't be fooled, it doesn't loose the arcade, simple styIe that makes PES so fun.

When it comes to game modes, PES is a not short of them. There's single match where you can play against the computer or another player. League, where you can play some of the big leagues in the world like the spanish primera and the calcio. In Cup mode you can create custom cups and play in especial ones like the Konami cup. Champions road is the main mode of the game and the one that will take more of your time, you start a custom team and you play in leagues so you can earn trophies, get new and better players and upgrade their skills, is not as good as Fifa's manager mode but is a great main mode. In training you'll train...duh. And the last one is the online mode, which is lag free and pretty good, even if it's a bit basic.

The game only supports two players, which is good because otherwise the matches can get extremely confusing. You can also save replays and save your custom teams on the wiimote. The game doesn't really have many licensed teams to play with, there are a couple of leagues that have the complete teams, but the rest are made up, some of the examples are found in the english league where you'll see teams like London F.C. and Man Red. The funniest part of this game is playing with your Miis, you can bring them to the field with their gigantic heads, they're not the best players, but damn they're funny.

The presentation is great, the menus look good and are easy to navigate, and the game intros are good. You can set the menus in one of three languages (spanish, english and french) and the commentators will change depending on which you chose. All the commentators are great, so no matter what language you chose you'll hear great comments.

On the visuals side of things this game looks great, especially the character animations and physics, they're very realistic, there are some jaggies and graphical glitches here and there but they're forgivable. The music fits the game, but is a bit repetitive, especially the main menu music, which is just na, na ,na, na over and over again.

Pro Evo 08 is a successful game, and it's so great that it's back on a Nintendo console after all this time. Konami did a really great thing bringing it to the wii and making it one of the best and most complete football games of all time, in fact if it wasn't for Fifa 07 this would definitely be my favorite. So if you enjoy football you'll love Pro Evo 08 on the wii.

The Good: Beautiful artistic and sound design - Great story – Long adventure with lots of tasks to do – Fantastic gameplay

The Bad: Minor graphical and gameplay flaws – It ends

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Of the many ports that have been released on the wii, none has been so awaited like Okami. This game first appeared on the Ps2 back in 2006 and as great as it was it didn't sell very well, this time the game gets a second chance on the Wii and it should definitely be played by anyone who's into adventure games or anyone who's looking for a breathtaking experience, because that's what you'll get from playing this masterpiece.

First thing you'll notice about Okami is the magnificent presentation, the colourful menu that looks like a Japanese painting, soon you'll notice that the whole game has that unique look that makes it so special, a watercolor painting right there on your tv, there are few words that can describe the presentation of the game.

Okami is heavily influenced by japanese folklore not only in it's beautiful visuals but also in the story. Here you'll take control of Amateratsu, a sun god who is reborn as a white wolf and has to stop an evil eight-headed monster called Orochi, who has poisoned the magnificent land of Nippon. It's pretty straightforward, but somehow it can be very involving with all the subplots and funny, unique and charming characters such as Susano and your little green companion called Issun, who works kinda like Midna did in Twilight Princess; Amateratsu (or Ammy as Issun calls her) is a pretty good leading character as well. There's a lot of dialogue here, and as the characters don't speak you'll be doing quite a lot of reading, which is fine because the dialogue can be funny and sad and it's not frustratingly long like it was the case in Super Paper Mario.

Gameplay-wise Okami takes a few cues from The Legend Of Zelda games but it's very far from being a rip-off. The basic movement controls are pretty much the same as the wolf segments of Twilight Princess, except that Ammy is faster and more agile, and if you're used to play the third person adventure games on the wii you may get confused when you realize there's not a pointer, but that's not a big deal. Just like Link, Ammy will find herself traveling in a huge, vast and colourful world full of different towns, sidetasks and minigames as well as temples.

Spread all over the land are some kind of floating green scrolls if you touch those you'll engage in battle, to fight you only have to shake the wii remote; this works great, especially if you have the beads as main weapon, the reflectors are a bit annoying and hard to get used to as first but you'll get the hang of it quickly. Battles end really fast because of the great controls and also because the enemies are fairly easy, after you're done with a group of enemies you're awarded with bonuses depending on the time it took and the amount of damage you've inflicted. Boss fights are also easy, the huge bosses don't give you much of a hard time, they're pretty straightforward, much like Zelda you only have to use your newly acquired technique to hit it's weak spot and repeat many times.

But this wouldn't be a proper adventure game without some clever puzzles and Okami has many of those. They're cleverly done and some of them will make you spend an hour searching only to realize the solution was right in your face the entire time, pretty much like it happens in the Zelda games. There are also some RPG elements in the gameplay, such as the ability to increase your stats, energy and ink. You can also get items that are very useful in battle like the exorcisms slips that can damage nearby enemies and new fighting techniques from a weird martial arts master.

Even when Okami has so many obvious things in common with the Zelda series, it still feels original, this is because of the game's main and most unusual item: the celestial brush. With this brush you can blow things up, slice enemies, rejuvenate the land and even control elements like wind, fire and water, for example to make night into day you only have to draw a circle in the sky, that way the sun will come out. To use the brush you only have to press and hold the B button and use the Wiimote to draw the desired shape, it works wonderfully and it's probably the best thing about the game because it makes it unique. The brush can also be used to solve the different puzzles and the different brush techniques are given to you by the animal gods, which also happen to be some of the funniest characters in the game.

Okami's visual design is simply unmatched by any other game, with the exception of maybe The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but the art styles are different, so they can't really be compared. Okami looks like a japanese painting come to life, with all the different colors that cover the land. Everything about it looks amazing, the land is colourful, except for the cursed zones that look grey and creepy which makes it extremely atmospheric. The characters are wonderfully done and very well animated and even the smallest visual effects are amazing like the small trails of grass and flowers Amateratsu leaves as she runs. Other effects are breathtaking, like when you restore a near death sapling with your brush, when it revives green meadows cover the landscape, flowers bloom and the vitality returns to the land. It's probably the best effect of the whole game.

The sound design is just as great as everything else about the game, the original music is wonderful, it's filled with classic japanese instrumentation and each part of the land has it's own song. The sound effects are just as amazing and well done and while the characters don't really speak they are not less memorable or charming because of this. All in all the sound design is on par with every other part of the game.

Okami is such an amazing experience from start to finish that you'll have a hard time forgetting it. Just everything about it is amazing, from the gorgeous visual style, to the well made gameplay and sound, in fact it's so good that it'll make you forget any minor flaws it has like the few combat issues, and it's worth the more than 30 hours it takes to beat, and believe me you'll comeback for more.

If for some reason you missed this game back in 2006, this is your new chance to play this masterpiece, and it's definitely the best port on the Wii and one of the best on the system so far. So play Okami and prove for yourself why this is one of the best games of our time.

The Good: Addictive gameplay – Really fun – Multiple paths to choose from – Lots of unlockables – You can upload your scores and watch leaderboards via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection

The Bad: Too Short

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Ghost Squad is one of those games you don't expect to be good. I mean let's face it: What's so good about a three year old port of an arcade game, specially considering how bad these wiimakes released last year have been. But Ghost Squad manages to do what most Wii ports don't  and that's being actually fun.

In the game you'll play as a member of a U.N. squadron called GHOST (Global Humanitarian Operation and Special Tactics) who's after a terrorist group called The Indigo Wolves. These terrorist plan to kidnap the president of the USA. The story is cliqué, but it brings you several fun moments with funny characters and it's just fun because it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Ghost Squad is an On Rails shooter, and a very good one. You aim with the wiimote as you move and shoot the bad guys with the B button, that's the way the game goes. It's a very traditional arcade shooter, but it also brings some new tweaks to the formula like: Hand to hand and knife combat, done by moving the targeting reticle to the place where you want to punch and press the assigned button. And also you'll be defusing bombs and land mines. It may not be innovative but the gameplay is just plain fun, and you'll keep coming back for better scores.

The game only consist of three missions, yes three. They took me about 45 minutes to beat. The first mission takes place in a hotel, where you'll have to rescue the president. Second mission takes place in the Air Force One, where you'll also have to rescue the president. And the last one takes place in the Indigo Wolves' jungle base. Luckily each mission has different paths to choose from, each has it's different set of objectives and will give you certain amount of points for completing them. This increases the replay value of the game to a certain point, after a while it can get repetitive. There's also a mode to play without the targeting reticle to get more points, it sounds hard, but it really isn't.

Ghost Squad also has tons of unlockables, like different weapons and costumes, they dont have any effect is the story but it's just fun to see your character dressed like a panda bear.

The main arcade mode is up to 2 players, but the real multiplayer fun comes after unlocking the party mode, which includes two sub modes up to 4 players. The first one is “Ninja Mode”, where you'll have a set of ninja stars and your enemies have been replaced with ninjas. The other mode, which is the funniest one by far is called “Paradise mode” where the terrorist are replaced with bikini girls shooting with water guns (yes they are as dangerous as they sound), this mode is really worth unlocking because it is really fun in multiplayer. You can also upload your scores via Nintendo Wi-Fi connection and you can see the local, regional and worldwide leaderboards.

Graphically it looks just like the 2004 arcade game with flat character models and blocky things everywhere, there wasn’t a graphical improvement when porting it to the Wii, this however is part of the arcade charm the game has so it doesn't take any points from it. The game sounds just as it looks, which means the arcade beats are really good and the voice acting sounds like it comes from the Cartoon Network show Johnny Bravo.

It can also be played with the Wii Zapper, but it doesn't really add anything to the experience and can be played just fine without it.

In the end Ghost Squad is a really fun and addictive game, but it's just too short for it's own good. It's fun enough for a rental, but i wouldn't recommend buying it as the experience wears off really quickly.

The Good:

• Outstanding visuals
• Superb gameplay
• Incredible soundtrack
• Great Value
• Great story
• Huge world to explore with tons of minigames and sidequest- Great dungeon design - Interesting (and lovable) characters.

The Bad:

• Sailing and the constant use of the Wind Waker is annoying
• One last tedious fetch quest

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Back in 1999 Nintendo released what would be one of the most innovative games ever created called The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, it gave a whole new feeling to the series and it was regarded as one of the best games ever created, and after a disappointing (by comparison) Majora's Mask everyone was expecting the next Zelda game to shine. And the hype went up after a Spaceworld demonstration of the game in 2000, that demo featured a fight between Link and Ganondorf and incredible realistic graphics for it's time; However the next year in SpaceWorld 2001 Nintendo shocked the world when they showed how the game would really look like: It would use cartoon-like graphics, this created a lot of skepticism because of it's kiddy look, and Nintendo proved everyone that you don't need super realistic graphics to make a great game.

The story begins with a little kid named Link (or whatever you want him to be called) who lives in Outset Island with his sister and his grandma, it's his birthday and now he's old enough to wear the hero's clothes (honoring Ocarina of Time's Link, now known as the hero of time), and just like that hell breaks loose. A giant bird throws a girl in the woods of the island and it's followed by a pirate ship, you rescue this girl who turns out to be the pirate leader, now the giant bird kidnaps your sister and you must team up with the pirates to rescue her; and in a classic Zelda way everything gets bigger and you'll have the faith of the world in your hands. The story feels classic and new at the same time and there are some great plot twist in it making it one of the best stories in a Zelda game.


The gameplay is essentially the same as Ocarina of Time, you move around with the analog stick of the Gamecube's controller, lock on to enemies with the L button and use the Y, X, and Z buttons to item placement, the sword attacks are done with the B button and you move the camera with the C stick, so it's pretty much the same as Ocarina. This time there's a new item which is the focus of the game, it's called The Wind Waker, and you have use it to control the wind's direction, it's cool at first but the fact that you have to use it so many times gets annoying after a while. Other parts of the gameplay involve sailing around this huge and vast world full of sea and island (you'll have to conduct the wind with the Wind Waker to move from place to place).

There are many towns and Islands in the game, with tons of sidequest and minigames and they're full of lovable cartoon characters. The dungeons in the game are fairly easy compared to other Zelda games, that doesn't mean you wont have a fun time going trough them and solving their puzzles, the boss fights are also easy but they're incredible, especially the last one. You can also connect your Gameboy Advance with the game with an item called Tingle Tunner, with that he will give you hints and some new abilities, but they come with a cost. The game can be finished in about 15 hours, but these could easilly become more than 20 because of this last item fetch quest which will have you collecting rupees, sailing, looking for maps and stuff like that, and this is incredibly tedious and may turn some people away from completing the game, Thankfully the last temple is good enough to make up for that.

The music is superb, the new tunes are combined with the old ones making an incredible soundtrack, maybe one of the best in videogame history. There is no voice acting at all, though you'll hear the character's noises when they "talk", it's classic of the series and the characters are not less interesting because of that.


The graphics are the best ever created for a videogame, plain and simple, they are a work of art. They are not realistic at all, the cartoon cel shaded graphics fit the game perfectly, the characters are extremely expressive and this is what makes them so lovable, maybe more than other Zelda games, and there are some great effects like when the wind blows in a direction, everything blows with it. This is along with Okami one of the best artistic jewels in a game.

Overall this is a game that can't be missed by any Gamecube or Wii owner, an incredible action adventure game unmatched in artistic quality. And now that the sequel Phantom Hourglass is out, why not picking up this game and beat it again, and if you haven't play it, please do yourself a favor and go get it

The Good:

• Fixed camera and framerate allows you to see the action better
• Superb (and responsive) controls
• A more cinematic story mode
• Plenty of characters to choose from
• Great artistic graphics and character models
• A lot of gameplay modes increases the replay value
• Fun multiplayer
• Tons of voice acting
• Colourful presentation

 

The Bad:

• Laggy online play
• It tells the same old DBZ story all over again

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Dragon Ball Z games have never been exceptional, just look at DBZ Sagas. But the series picked up after 2005's DBZ Budokai 3, delivering some really fast paced action with plenty of elements from the series. After that came the first game in the new series Budokai Tenkaichi which was good but not great. It wasn't until last year that Atari redeemed themselves with was by the time the best DBZ game, Budokai Tenkaichi 2 had everything you'll want from a DBZ game: A lot of characters, great graphics and fast paced game play with a long story mode that covered all the DBZ mythos. But now with this game the DBZ game franchise has reached a new high; and it's really surprising that it has so many new elements because anime fighters tend to be rehashes but this one is just too good and improves many things that were wrong with last year's game.

This game is not a classic fighter, the gameplay is seen in a behind the back perspective, the camera and framerate have been fixed for this one, so it wont be as annoying as it was last time. Movement is done with the analog stick in the nunchuck and the basic attacks are done with A and you throw Ki attacks with the B button. So far the same as last year, but the changes come when you start fighting, this time you'll cover by holding A+B which may be confusing at first, specially for series veterans but once you get the hang of it it's pretty easy, also the smash attacks are no longer done by holding the A button.

The game has two types of attacks: Normal ones are done by pressing B button and throwing Ki at your enemies. The signature attacks (Goku's Kamehameha or Vegeta's Galick Gun) are done by holding a button on the D pad and doing your character's movement, this time you actually have to do them instead of just moving the wii mote up or down. The new tweaks in the motion controls are great, because this time is much more responsive than last time and you'll actually have to pull off a Kamehameha. Though all these changes make the gameplay a little slower paced (just a little) and more confusing to newcomers and veterans alike, but they also make the game deeper and better plus they also got rid of that annoying pointer. And just in case you dont like the wii controls, you can play with the gamecube controller and classic controller.

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 has also tons and tons of characters taken directly from the series, 161 characters to be exact. Did you ever see that guy that appeared for two seconds and was killed right away? No? Well here's your chance to see him. Though not all the characters are different, some of them are various versions of the same character; for example: Goku has more than ten different versions of himself, there's Kid Goku, Teen Goku, Semi Adult Goku, Adult Goku, SS1 Goku, SS2 Goku, SS3 Goku, SS4 Goku, Great Ape Goku....Too many Gokus really. Thankfully each has his/her own set of combos and attacks. Though you'll some times ask yourself what the hell are Cui, Frieza Soldier, Nail, Vegeta's father and Babidi doing in the game.

Unsurprisingly the Dragon Story mode is back, this mode will take you from the beginning of Z to the end of GT and some of the movies. If you remember last time it was pretty long, with about 12 hours of gameplay and it made you relieve every single imaginable battle from the series, in fact way too many battles, in fact they were so many that it would make a sane person go insane in just a couple of minutes. This time the story is told through in-game cutscenes, there will only be two people on screen but you'll hear others talking while you're battling, there will also be some great button mashing sequences where you'll have to press the assigned button, like it happened in Resident Evil 4 or God of War. It's more cinematic though it's also shorter, which is more of a blessing than a curse because last time fight after fight after fight got incredibly tedious and boring.

Ultimate Battle mode is a tournament mode for one or various players, in it you will play in some of DBZ's most recognisable tournaments like The world tournament, the cell games and the Yamcha games. Dragon World Tour includes two sub modes, one is Sim Dragon where you'll have to simulate the life of a fighter before going to a tournament, it's not perfect but since it's not the main mode its forgivable; in mission mode you'll be assigned several missions based on the characters, for example one mission is named king of demons where you'll play against Picollo, Garlick Jr. And Dabura.

Other game modes include: Duel, split screen multiplayer battles for 1vs1 or team battles. Dragon net, which is online play with friends or random, sadly this mode is really laggy to the point where is basically unplayable. In evolution Z you'll assign Z items to the characters you want. In Training you'll....well train your characters, it's really recommendable to come here before trying anything else so you get used to the controls. In Data Center you can unlock characters and upgrade them. Finally there's the Character Reference book, where you can see everyone's story.

Graphically it looks great, the cell shaded graphics really fit the game, and it surprisingly looks better than last year, everything looks sharper and there are many new effects, more colourful and beautiful. The character animations are also better and they look just like their anime counterparts, the special attacks that make DBZ more famous look brighter and better than ever, and the aura surrounding the characters looks badass. The interface and menus also look more colourful than last time.

Sound is just as good, there's tons and tons of voice acting in the game, both english and Japanese, though is kinda disappointing that they didn't add the latin america voice acting for us. The original music is also good, but they don't really use many tunes of the DBZ soundtrack and that's a bummer.

Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is deeper, more colourful and plays better than it's predecessors, sadly the online play is not as good as it should've been, but it still is wonderful and it's not only the best DBZ game so far but it's also the best wii fighter, behind Brawl of course.

The Good:

 

• Multiplayer gives it a little replay value

The Bad:

• Only 2 hours long
• Awful frame rate and camera
• Mindless button mashing combat
• Ugly graphics
• Only a few characters to choose from
• No Majin Buu saga

 

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When you have terrific fighting games making it one by one into the best sellers list, what do you do? you make an awful repetitve beat em' up using a great licence.

This game is meant to take you all the way back to the Saiyan saga (yet again) and recreate the Dragon Ball Z story with more action than previous fighting games. Sadly it doesn't do that. Instead it delivers a repetitive button mashing experience.

The gameplay is absolutely mindless, you only have to press two buttons: Y for kicks and A for punches and that's pretty much it it, you fight waves and waves of dumb enemies with two buttons, well you can unlock combos, but they don’t really add anything to the gameplay. You can also use the X button to throw ki power and if you hold it you can do a special attack like Goku's kamehameha or Vegeta's Galick gun, though it's disappointing because they only have one special attack.

The whole game can take only two hours to beat even in the hardest difficulty. The only real thing that takes time is defeating the bosses, and it's not because they're hard, it's because their life bar is really, really long.

There's very few replay value because you don't really want to do the same thing over and over. And the game only takes you from the Saiyan saga to the Cell Games, it's like they completely forgot about The Majin Buu saga or Dragon Ball GT. The only real replay value comes from the two player co-op, which is fun if you play it with the right person. But again, it’s very repetitive.

After beating the main story mode you'll unlock the Pendulum Room, which is basically the same as the story mode, except this time you are free to choose the character you want. But there aren't really many characters, lt says there are almost 20, but they're different versions of the same (Goku, SS Goku, Saiyan saga Goku, etc...).

 

If you’re new to the Dragon Ball Z series then you won’t have a clue on what’s going on here, sincer there isn’t any explanation of what’s happening except for two minite clips from the show that pop up every once in a while, it was clearly made for the fans.

The graphics are lame, the may look like the series at first but when you take a good look at them they're blocky and they make you feel like you're playing an N64 game. The music is good though, but just like everything else it’s repetitive. The voice acting on the other hand is horrible, the actors are uninspired and it just feels like they’re bored to death to do the same lines again.

The game doesn’t perform well at all. It's filled with bugs and graphical glitches, for example: you may get stuck between two enemies or walls and you can't really do anything but reset the game and sometimes your character just freezes while your partner is doing a special attack without any reason, the only way to unfreeze your character is by doing a special attack yourself.

All in all Sagas is a very disappointing game, it had a lot of potencial by bringing the DBZ franchise to a more action oriented gameplay than the fighting and RPG game we’re used to see year after year, but there isn’t any real value, that being said hardcore fans of the franchise will enjoy it since there’s nothing else like it out there except for the two GBA games. But for everyone else it’s not worth it. All in all this could be a good side mode for a fighting game, but as a game on it's own it just doesn’t deliver.