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WiiWare Review By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman On May 12, 2008 Ninendo added a new branch to its Wii Shop channel. Appropriately named WiiWare, this new branch gave independent developers an outlet to release compact retail games to gamers via download for very reasonable prices (ranging from $5 - $15 per game). Of the 10 titles that were available (at the time of this article), I had a chance to purchase and review 6 of them. The other 4 titles will never be reviewed by me, since there are already similar games in my Wii collection (ie: Family Table Tennis to Wii Play’s Ping-Pong). I’m going to be doing a more straightforward review of these games, rather than my normal “Games to Play While Drunk or High” approach. I’ll be judging each game in 3 different categories: design/presentation (audio and visual), gameplay, and value. So without further ado, let’s get on to the reviews. Critter Round-Up
Critter Round-Up is essentially a clone of the classic arcade game Qix. While, I was quite excited to have access to a “twitch” puzzle game, I was ultimately disappointed by Critter Round-Up. The premise of the game is simple, you move around in an enclosed pen with several types of animals. Your job is to lay down additional fencing in a way to separate each animal by species. This is easier said than done, as the animals all want you dead (or more appropriately knocked on your ass) and you move significantly slower than the animals. The game is spaced out over 50 “campaign mode” levels with bonus modes such as: marathon (play ‘til you die) and 2 animal based minigames. Presentation 6/10: The game is ok to look at. I’d describe the graphics somewhere on par with a mid to late generation PS One game. However, there are times where the zookeeper/farmer/animal wrangler looks somewhat “blobbly” and as poorly detailed as a Playmobil man that's starting to melt. Also, there are instances in which the colors of some of the animals make it hard to see where and what they are. Most notable of this are the “Austrailia” themed levels. Not only do the rats and koala things look similar with their medium gray color scheme, but there’s often times a drab mud pit with the same shades of gray as the said animals. Some may say that this is meant to heighten the challenge of the game; but if I wanted a challenge like that, then I’d play a game without my glasses. The music was not at all memorable. To the point where I couldn’t even tell you if it was good or bad. This in itself would be considered very bad, since shitty music is better than music my subconscious has totally blocked out for whatever reason. The sound effects get somewhat tedious, since it’s either: footsteps, a woodblock sound when you lay down fences, or the animals making their respective animal noises. Gameplay 5/10: As I hoped for a nice action puzzle game like Gals Panic (they need to make one for DS or Wii), I was “treated” to a sluggishly slow and somewhat frustrating Qix and Zookeeper hybrid. The game also tries to add a little bit of the Wiimote’s motion sensing capability into the game. However, the way it’s implemented simply adds to the frustration, as you must shake the Wiimote to break down pieces of fence. This wouldn’t be bad in itself as it’s basically just a replacement for tapping a button, but often times the motion just doesn’t register in the game. I would have loved an option to remap the buttons, so I could change that function to either the A or B button on the Wiimote, rather than having to piledrive my Wiimote towards my crotch. Sadly, even if you’re a fan of puzzle games like this, you’ll be finding the near slow motion gameplay and frustrating controls make this only good for a few levels/minutes of play at a time. Value 3/10: For being $10 and by Konami, I was really expecting more from this game. A lot might have been forgiven if the game was priced at 500-700 Wii Points rather than 1000. While that doesn’t make it a better game, it would aid in the value. Despite my overt criticisms of the game, it is playable and somewhat of a good concept. Perhaps, I would call this game a fat girl with a cute face. As I could play with it while drunk, but I would never give it my full attention while playing and I’d talk a lot of shit on it in public. Overall (not an average): 4 out of 10 gray colored koala things (some of them might be the gray rats… We’re not 100% sure) Defend Your Castle
Defend Your Castle is basically a revamped version of the flash game of the same name. The gameplay is very basic, yet incredibly addictive. Hordes of stick men come marching in to attack your little gray rock fort, you are to pick up each stickman and fling them to their deaths using the pointer/cursor function of the Wiimote. That’s pretty much the entire game. However, the enemies do get tougher as the stickmen add: hearty ogres, catapults and troops with battering rams to their ranks as the levels progress. You also have a chance to upgrade your fort with: archers, magicians, suicide bombers, and beefier walls. Presentation 7/10: While the graphics are mostly the same as the flash game, the overall design is very good. Everything has a “made from household objects” theme to it and is quite clever (ie: the stickmen’s heads are clothing buttons, their battering rams are popsicle sticks and even the cursor you pick up the enemies with are bread bag clips). The art is clean and simple, albeit just a touch primitive. The overall theme of the game makes me feel like I’m playing a digital version of the toy army games my friends and I used to play in the backyard. As with the graphic set, the developers decided to use expressionistic quirky sounds over hyper realistic effects. From the explosion of your “cannon” (which is basically a man making a “wet” sounding “boom” into a studio mic) to the little “ouch” that comes from a stickman as they land from being tossed, the sound effects will have you giggling to yourself over how cute they are. Though Defend Your Castle lacks a scored soundtrack, this may be a good thing. Since, I couldn’t think of an appropriate type of music they could have offered for the soundtrack without it being either repetitive or sounding over produced for a game of this nature. Gameplay 8/10: The gameplay is pretty much the same as the flash version except for one huge difference; you can now play with up to 3 of your friends. While this may not sound too impressive, it adds an amazing dimension of competitive and co-operative play. As each of you work together to protect the fort from the invading stickmen, there’s also the competition aspect of working to be “king of the castle” (having the most kills). The point and click function of the Wiimote is perfect for this game, this is what I was hoping that developers do with Wiiware; make games that are fun and actually work (rather than being bogged down and virtually unplayable with gimmicky Wiimote gestures). The extremely basic gameplay makes this a true winner of a game, as anyone can pick the game up and excel at it; from your non-gaming drinking buddy to your Wii obsessed friend. Value 7/10: Many have brought up a good point about the purchasing of this game. Why pay $5 for a game you can play for free via the Wii’s built in web browser? This is a somewhat valid point and if you’re on a tight budget, there’s really no reasoning with you here. However, I feel the ability to play with 3 of your friends makes the purchase well worth it. Note that the flinging motion does kinda wear on my wrist, but I found myself playing this for half an hour here and there quite a bit. Even though you’re just flinging men to their doom and rapidly clicking on their heavy artillery, there’s a lot of replayability in this game. So much in fact, that I felt compelled to gift Defend Your Castle to staffer Josh and Gavin (the dude in the 2nd camera test video), just so I can have access to it at the RwN: Chino Hills HQ or while blazing with Gavin without having to cart my Wii over. Overall (not an average): 7 out of 10 button headed stickmen Dr. Mario Online Rx
Of all the games that were to be released on WiiWare, this is the one I was waiting for. If you don't know the concept of Dr. Mario or its many clones, then shame on you. Dr. Mario takes the falling block concept of Tetris and gives it a color matching twist. You start out with a playing field that's partially full of “virus” blocks of 3 different colors. Your job is to rid the playfield of all the virus blocks. Using 2x1 “pill” blocks that are in various combinations of the 3 virus colors, you must make 4x1 block line sequences incorporating virus blocks of the same color. Doing so eradicates the virus blocks in the line sequence along with the pill fragments used to make the line. Multiplayer follows the same premise, except you can win a match by either clearing the playfield first or causing your opponent to fill his playfield with unusable blocks and sequences. Presentation 7/10: Being that one of the first incarnations of this game was on the grayscale Gameboy, there's not too much complexity in the design of the game. In the WiiWare version everything has a nice digital 3d rendering to it, but aside from that the gameplay is based on matching pills in the primary colors. The incorporation of miis (the Wii's avatar system) is a nice touch and let's me be clever making miis based on Doogie Howser and Dr. House (however, this is based more on your personal creativity, as I've seen many miis which I assume are based on the real life faces of the people I play online). The biggest flaw of the game's design is the menu interface, while it's pretty straightforward; there are many menu options that have similar names. So while I actually wish to add a new friend code to my buddy list, I sometimes find myself trying to find the online status of an already existing friend. In the game's defense, I've only had it for 2 days and I'm sure I'll eventually get to know what's where on the menus (however, I feel that getting used to a game shouldn't include learning how to navigate its menu system). The audio in the game is pretty much the same as the previous versions. Albeit, the songs do seem “remastered” or at least not produced on an 8 bit soundboard. The sound effects are also all the same including the: “blip” of rotating a block, the “thud” of a block dropping, and even the little victory fanfare is there. Gameplay 9/10: What can I say about the gameplay? This puzzle game has been around for the last 16 years on numerous platforms. If you're a puzzle fan this game is your wet dream. Since, not only does it have local head to head matches, but there are also 1 on 1 wifi/net battles available. Admittedly, the main bulk of this game lies within the online/multiplayer aspect. Though, the single player, “clear the playfield mode” is great as well, as I find myself using it as a stress ball or just something to break my focus from the worries of my life. There's also a game version that uses the cursor function of the Wiimote. Rather than waiting for the blocks to slowly gravitate to the bottom of the screen, you are given the opportunity to manipulate the pills clicking and dragging them with the Wiimote. By yourself, it's not much different from playing the classic mode. However, it does add a novel touch when you and (up to) 3 friends are frantically moving pills to clear the playfield at the same time. Value 9/10: Like I mentioned before, the online aspect is one of the biggest draws of this game. When you get tired of playing with yourself, there's always the option of getting the crap kicked out of you by a random Japanese kid; that alone can keep you coming back to the game day after day. While $10 may seem a little steep, I anticipate this game to stay on my Wii channels menu even after the other titles are backed-up to my SD card for memory management. Overall (not an average): 8 out of 10 primary colored viruses. Final Fantasy – Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
This is a game that you’re either going to love or hate, there’s not going to be too many people who are in the middle of the road on this one. With that being said I’m going to give gameplay and the overall score of this 2 separate scores (based on the love and hate side). The game is a weird hybrid of: the Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles series (the semi-watered down, made for Nintendo spin-off franchise), SimCity, and Animal Crossing. My Life As a King progresses in real time, with each digital day lasting about 15 minutes or so. Your main objective is to build and maintain a city (or in the game’s case kingdom) ala SimCity. Starting with a vacant field you begin to build houses, thus allowing residents to move into the town. This is where the game takes a twist from being just another cookie cutter city builder simulation game; once you get a few houses built, you’ll find that the youth of the town want to start a militia/exploration company. You then send your young explorers out on their first quest to explore a dungeon and bring back the riches they find. At the end of the day they either come back to town victorious with armfuls of treasure or near dead with their heads hung low. Keep in mind that you never see the company fight, nor do you have control over the way they fight or even what they buy to equip themselves with; in this game you play as a king and all you do is delegate. There’s numerous things to do while waiting for your troops to return from their various quests, such as: chat with the townsfolk, build some new buildings, fund some new technology for your citizens and troops, or just enjoy a view of the city from the sky tower. Presentation 9/10: The visuals on this game are great. Square-Enix didn’t cut corners or dumb the graphics down for this WiiWare title. While, I haven’t played any of the 3d Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest/Warrior games since FF8, I must say that these graphics put a lot of “full retail” games for the Wii to shame. The 3d models are very smooth and don’t have that low polygon blockiness to them. The only thing that kinda bothers me is the lack of variety between the characters. While, it doesn’t matter too much when you chat with townsfolk (even though Justin, Hans, and Timothy all look like the same old man with MC Hammer Pants and a goatee), it does get annoying when you have to find 1 specific black mage out of the 3 you hired and they all look the same. The music is very well produced and is exactly what I would expect from a Final Fantasy game. However, the limited rotation of songs will have you drowning out the in game music with your personal mp3s and/or audio CDs by the time your town hits 3 weeks old. The sound effects are pretty much the same ones used in every other Final Fantasy games, so there’s not too much to say there. Gameplay 8/10 (if you love games like this) 4/10 (if you hate games like this): This game really isn’t for everyone. While, it is a city building simulator, there’s a lot of “digital chores” to do. Maintaining inner-family relationships, personally talking to your troops before they leave to boost their morale, and managing your delegations all harkens back to Animal Crossing type gameplay. Though, most people will find it fun and intriguing, a few will see this as simply being made to run in a human sized hamster wheel. Even though the game is played at a very relaxed pace with little to no action. I find it addictive, as I’ll catch myself saying “I’m just going to check the daily finance and exploration report, then I’m going to close the game,” only to continue playing through another digital week. Value 6/10: At $15 this game is somewhat of a hard sale and having to purchase $20 worth of Wii Points (since you can only buy Wii Points in $10 increments) to buy this game doesn’t make it any easier. Also, the fact that there’s optional pay content in the game makes some feel like they’re being nickel and dimed here. However, the pay content isn’t essential to fully experience the core gameplay of this little gem. Most of the additional content is: costuming for the king and his aide, buildings that make the game easier (like “level up” houses for your troops), or houses for the non-human races (which is pretty moot, since your humans can do everything the other races do and more). The one purchase I do suggest is the dungeon pack, it costs $3 and adds another 11 dungeons to your quest list thus lengthening the game significantly. But for $15 the game does have pretty good replay value. Once you beat the game (and yes, there’s an objective story mode with a definitive ending), you’re given the option of New Game +. This new mode is basically a harder difficulty setting for the game, forcing the player to be more careful with his diplomatic choices and building positions. Overall (not an average): 8 out of 10 townsfolk with MC Hammer pants and goatees, if you like RPG/Sim/Mock Life games like this. LostWinds
It seems as if LostWinds was made for Nintendo and fans of Nintendo franchises. It plays somewhat like a mix between Super Mario Galaxy, the Zelda games and Metroid; mixing platforming with some adventure-puzzle game elements. You play as a young boy named Toku who stumbles upon a magic crystal containing the goddess of wind. Using sweeping Wiimote gestures you control the wind, allowing Toku to run faster, jump higher, and move things that he normally could not do on his own. The entire game takes place on one large map/level, where you gain access to more of the map with each “wind skill” you develop, much like the Metroid or later Castlevania games. Your job is to progress through the map, unlock the secrets of the wind, and eventually confront the monster that put the wind goddess in the crystal. Presentation 8/10: This game is beautiful. Everything is nicely rendered and is well designed. The effects are spectacular, from manipulating the fire in torches to making a wave in a stream with a Wiimote flick; they all look amazing and almost “real.” The only negative point is while everything is very nice and well designed, half the game is underground/in caves and tunnels, so you don’t really get to see the full potential of that great design. The music is very nice and fits the ancient oriental motif to a tee. The songs are peaceful and serene, which may kinda be a bad thing in this game as sometimes they make for a good lullaby. Just like the music, the sound effects are very well produced. Their ambient nature makes them non-intrusive and more natural feeling. The one thing that does get kind of annoying is the “there’s an enemy near” song, since many times I feel like telling the game “Yes, I know something is trying to kill me and it might succeed… I don’t need you nagging me about it.” Gameplay 7/10: While just a little under polished, this game does make pretty good use of the Wii’s motion sensing capability. Making Toku jump, run and sometimes fly with the Wiimote is incredibly fun. And while I never tried it, I’ve read you can get a buddy involved to double your wind power. However, sometimes doing the triple and quadruple jump is a little hard to pull off. Especially, if you need to get Toku to a spot that he can barely reach by these means, but those instances are few and far between. In the game’s defense, I may just be suffering from my typical problem of being a left handed Wii user. As I must decide on using the nunchuk in my left hand, thus having to use the Wiimote with my weaker hand causing imprecise gestures; or putting the nunchuk in my right hand and then losing the joystick/D-Pad control I spent 24 years developing with standard controllers. However, the one very real issue of the gameplay is that the game is short. It lasts anywhere between 2-4 hours depending on how long it takes you to figure out where to go and how quickly you figure out each puzzle. Value 6/10: For $10 a game that last a few hours may seem somewhat of a rip-off, but let me put it in perspective for you. When you went to the theatre to watch that big blockbuster title, how much did you pay? When you went to that TGI Fridays style sit down restaurant with you pals, how much was your fajita plate and beer? The one thing that really dropped the value was the “…To be continued” at the end of it. It made me kinda wince once I learned that to find out the “real” ending of this story, I’d probably have to pony up another $10 somewhere down the line. I hate to say it, but there’s not too much replay here either. Once you beat the game and collect all 24 hidden idols (the game’s sidequest), you’re probably not going to go back to it; at least for awhile that is. Overall (not an average): 7 out of 10 wind skills. Star Soldier R
The Star Soldier series is very well known in Japan (and I think Europe as well). However, if you’re from the US and didn’t have a TurboGrafx-16 you’ve probably never heard of the franchise. Star Soldier is a vertical scrolling shooter, much like Raiden, Raptor, and those other shmups (shoot’em ups) released in the 90’s. In this version though you’re only given 2 levels. That’s right you only have 2 levels to play. Here’s the rub, you play the game against the clock; trying to get the best score in either a 2 or 5 minute run. With online worldwide and regional ranking boards, you’ll find yourself trying to up your rank whenever you have a free stitch of time (I was at one point in the Top 200 in my region and in the Top 500 in the worldwide rankings. However, I think Hudson is currently running a cash prize tournament, so people have really been trying to step up their game). Presentation 7/10: The graphics in Star Soldier R are pretty clean. Everything has a nice digital 3d effect to and there’s no graphic slowdown (which is sometimes common in bullet hell/manic shooters) to note. The enemies are very well designed and don’t blend into the background or have other similar looking items (such as the power-ups) that can be confused with them. Even the “backgrounds” (or floor, as this is a top down view) are very nicely “drawn.” Most notable is the weird gray planetoid thing you pass over with a large pit in it, resembling some sort of mock Death Star. It really shows that Hudson knows how to do video game design, to the point where they can even make an achromatic ball look amazing. The music is the typical fair you’d expect from a space shooter. The fast beat arcade style techno and house gets you in the mood to start shooting down some alien ships right off the bat. I must admit, if you play a few consecutive runs to try to beat your last top score, the one track in the game is going to wear on you pretty quickly. The sound effects are all generic scrolling shooter noises and don’t really stand out at all. Gameplay 8/10: The controls on this game are superb. They feel very tight and well polished, exactly what I would expect from the latest game in a 20 year old series. The game engine is very simple on the surface with only 3 buttons and the D-Pad, yet it’s deceivingly complex as you become more acclimatized to the game and strive to get a higher score. Also, the bonus system is quite clever, as there are multiple ways to defeat certain enemies (resulting in a significantly different amount of points depending on how you killed them). One of the best examples is the Delilah twins, if you take them out one at a time you’re given a fair 5,000 points each. However, if you kill them simultaneously you get a whopping 80,000 points for your diligence. Value 5/10: As I mentioned before this isn’t really a “full game” per se. Spending $8 (the price of a nice SNES or Genesis game in the Wii Shop) for a game that essentially lasts 5 minutes does seem kinda ludicrous. However, if you’re an INFP personality type (like me), you’ll find a new obsession trying to top the regional and worldwide rankings. Aside from that, you might feel very let down if you were hoping for a full fledged sequel to the Star Soldier games. Overall (not an average): 6 out of 10 Delilah twin sets. Hopefully, this myriad of reviews will help you find a good game to purchase off the WiiWare and even more so may it save you from a near worthless purchase.
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