Wii

Cook or be Cooked

December 11, 2009

Reviews / Wii / by Shawn Vermette Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Food Network has jumped aboard the Wii train with both feet, having quickly licensed out games based on a number of their top rated shows. Despite relatively good sales of a few of their games (mostly Iron Chef), most have been mediocre at best. Unfortunately, Cook or be Cooked is inferior to most of Food Network’s other offerings.

Cook or be Cooked tasks you with creating food using real recipes and judges you based on how well you mimic the specific movements required by each step and on your timing. You’ll also get bonus points for finishing multiple foods around the same time.

The controls are both too specific and too vague at the same time. If you try to do the specific movements requested by each step, you’ll likely fail to get full points. However, if you just waggle your Wii remote, you’ll almost always get the best score for each step.

The graphics quality is on par with most other games from Food Network, which is to say poor. The sound effects are good, with everything sounding as if you are truly in the kitchen. The voice acting needs work, but that may be more a result of a horrible script than bad voice acting, as the actors are actual Food Network hosts.

Additionally, Cook or be Cooked claims to have thirty recipes in it, but, in reality, it has a mere fourteen meals. It seems to be counting each individual food item in each meal as a separate recipe for that count.

If you enjoy any of the other Food Network cooking games, you’ll enjoy this one. However, it still doesn’t measure up to Cooking Mama in terms of actual gameplay.

ESRB:  E for alcohol references

Plays Like:  Cooking Mama, Iron Chef 

Pros: Recipes are good

Cons: Controls are iffy-waggling counts as just about every movement required; Graphics are low quality; Claims to have 30 recipes, but really has just 14 meals

Astro Boy: The Video Game

December 9, 2009

Reviews / Wii / by Chris Rasco Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Astro Boy has a long history that stretches back to the early 1950s in Japan where it debuted in manga form with a television series not long after. Most recently, the property saw a silver screen release with an accompanying video game that is loosely based on the original storyline.

Being a complete newcomer to the Astro Boy story line, I was surprised to find just how much of a departure the most recent version was from the original story. The story takes place in Metro City and takes us on a journey where a great scientific discovery with the capturing of the blue and red cores of The Fifth Element. Along the way, the son of one of the scientists is killed in a terrible accident and, in an effort to bring back his son, Astro Boy is created. Walking, talking, and acting like the boy he was modeled after, Astro Boy is ultimately rejected by his creator. The story continues as Astro Boy seeks to find his place in the world.

The video game, while sharing a very similar story to the movie, included settings and areas that didn’t directly appear in the film. It was close enough that it complimented the movie quite well from a plot and story standpoint.

Upon beginning your game you are given an option to select the control scheme you’d like to use: Standard or Motion. The two control schemes differ very little and ultimately I preferred the Standard control scheme even if the 2 affected actions utilized buttons that weren’t the easiest to use in-game.

Astro Boy features a nice “2.5-D” graphics system that shmup fans will find familiar. Much of Astro Boy plays just like a side-scrolling shooter, but there’s some action/adventure in the mix. The graphics were definitely not as crisp as I would have preferred, but were acceptable.

There are 2 gameplay options available in Astro Boy: Story and Arena. Story mode allows either a single player or 2 player cooperative play. This mode wasn’t terribly long, but was adequate given the price. The Arena mode pits Astro Boy up against wave after wave of enemies. After defeating the hordes of bad robots, your score is tallied and added to the high score list. Arena has ground and sky levels and features 1 or 2-player support with several difficulty levels.

My initial thoughts were that the controls felt very stiff and clunky, and I really didn’t enjoy anything about the game. I did revisit it with my kids and had a much better experience the second time around. We’ve played it both in single player and co-op several times since completing it, and it ended up being quite an enjoyable experience.

Astro Boy isn’t a blockbuster title, but it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s a movie tie in game that does a good job of extending the theatrical experience while delivering decent gameplay that is suitable for a wide variety of gamers; my five-year-old played through several levels on his own. It definitely falls short in the graphics department, but in the end it delivers a quality experience. If you’ve got little ones that liked the Astro Boy movie it’s a no brainer, but for most it’ll fall into the budget title realm.

ESRB: E10+ for Fantasy Violence and Violence fictive. It’s your usual action adventure fighting.

Pros: Fun to play. Easy for the kids to enjoy.

Cons: Graphics are not great. Story was somewhat short.

Plays Like: Standard side-scrolling adventure game with a little schmup mixed in there.

 

Pokemon Rumble

November 30, 2009

Reviews / Wii / by Chris Ingersoll Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Pokémon Rumble pits hundreds of “toy pokémon” in a battle royale against each other to determine the champion. Each pokémon can learn two moves, mapped to the 1 and 2 buttons (the Classic Controller is also supported). Using only those two moves per ‘mon, you are challenged to clear six stages filled with other ‘mon and one giant boss. The action is real-time, sort of like a side-scrolling beat-’em-up but with a top-down view. 

Some of the enemies you KO will fall down and be added to your team when you pick them up, giving you additional options; the ones that don’t will leave behind cash that is used in the various terminals in the hub worlds to recruit new team members, teach new moves (randomly selected from moves typically available via TM in the games), or whatever. You can also release lower-powered and/or undesired team members for additional cash, and sometimes for surprise bonuses as well. You can switch ‘mon at any point during the stage, although there is a delay as your Wonder Key winds up the replacement. If three of your pokémon faint during a stage, you lose and are kicked back to the hub world (although you do keep anything you had collected up to that point).

You keep clearing stages and acquiring new toy pokémon until you’ve collected one with a power level over the threshold for the current Battle Royale, at which point that gate is opened. Battle Royales are wild timed melees filled with pokémon. Beating enemies here will give you additional time, and eventually you will have to take on the toughest bosses around in order to clear it, claim your reward, and move on to the next level. You can only switch out in a Battle Royale when your current pokémon faints, so make sure you’ve got the right tools for the job here!

At first the game just uses the 151 pokémon of the original Red/Blue/Green/Yellow games (Mew is actually freely available via password from www.pokemonrumble.com), with Mewtwo obviously being the grand champion. Defeating him will unlock advanced mode, which features pokémon from the current generation (Diamond/Pearl/Platinum). I don’t know if there’s a level beyond that yet, but even if there isn’t I still got my 1500 Wii Points’ worth out of this game. There’s even a free demo available in the Wii Shop if you want to try before you buy (it ends as soon as you qualify for the first Battle Royale).

ESRB: E10 for Mild Cartoon Violence. The usual pokémon cockfighting is a bit more pronounced now that it’s in real-time, but it’s still very abstract.

Pros: Fast-playing action

Cons: No actual leveling up; you simply replace weaker pokémon with stronger ones as you catch them and discard the rest

Plays like: An arcadey beat-’em-up or shooter (bordering on “bullet hell” at times).

A Boy and his Blob

November 29, 2009

Reviews / Wii / by Chris Ingersoll Make a comment! / Tweet it!

In 1989, Absolute Entertainment published a bizarre puzzle-platformer called A Boy and His Blob for the NES. It featured a refugee alien blob that could change into a variety of shapes when fed different flavors of jellybeans by his young earth companion. The two would have to utilize the blob’s various functions to bypass obstacles and collect money and additional jellybeans, eventually purchasing some vitamins before blasting off (via a root beer jellybean’s rocket transformation) to the planet Blobbonia, where they must do battle with the evil emperor who had enslaved the peaceful blobs (by firing the vitamins at him after feeding the blob an orange jellybean, turning it into a “Vitablaster”). The game was incredibly difficult, partially due to the limited number of jellybeans available to you; if you wasted the wrong ones or had the blob positioned incorrectly, you might not even be able to finish.

The original A Boy and His Blob was an obscure title at best, but its quirky appeal made an impression on most of the kids who played it. When the announcement came that Wayforward would be creating a new version of the game for the Wii, using hand-drawn animation, those kids — now adults — were treated to a wave of twenty year-old nostalgia.

In addition to the graphical upgrade, the game play received several much-needed tweaks as well. Instead of one large, spanning world (plus Blobbonia) the action has been divided up into over 40 smaller levels spread across four sub-areas; each sub-area has a hub from which you can access any of that world’s levels or freely move to any previous world. Each level allows you only a specific subset of jellybeans, ranging from one to twelve flavors of the fifteen present in the game; you have an unlimited number of these jellybeans at your disposal, allowing you more freedom for experimentation and error. 

On the subject of “error,” you also have unlimited lives and the game’s checkpoints are generous; this is fortunate, as you will die frequently, especially in the second half of the game and during one of the handful of boss fights. The boy is very fragile, falling to even a single touch of one of the enemies or several hazards (including water and falls above a certain height unless cushioned by one of the blob’s softer transformations). He is also frustratingly immobile; he moves at only one speed (which is slow), has little jumping ability, and cannot duck. If it weren’t for his nearly pin-point accurate jellybean throwing ability (holding down the B button shows your trajectory, which you can adjust like a pool simulator), he would basically be useless.

Not that the blob (who was named Blobbert in the original game; I don’t think he really has a name this time, nor does the boy) is much better. Although he is somehow immune to any damage, he moves on his own and as such isn’t under your direct control. As a result, he will sometimes get himself stuck in awkward places. You can steer him a bit with well-placed jellybeans (which he will seek out if he can) or use the C button to call him to your side; the call button is also used to return the blob to his usual amorphous form, which is the only way to get him to assume a new one. If you ever get too separated, you can throw him a balloon jellybean, which will allow him to catch up (and serves no other function; you always have berry as one of your flavors on every level); if you can’t reach him with a jellybean, calling him three times in succession will cause him to transform into a balloon on his own. 

Unlike the original title, the game never tells you what flavors of jellybeans you’re using to trigger transformations. A few are legacies from the original game (licorice = ladder, apple = jack, tangerine = trampoline, root beer = rocket, cola = bubble, coconut = coconut), and a few new ones are mentioned in the manual (pear = parachute, bubblegum = bouncer, berry = balloon, banana = anvil), but others (cannon, shield, and two final transformations I don’t want to spoil) have absolutely no indication — heck, there are two different flavors listed for the cannon transformation on official sources (the box says cream, the website says caramel; given the color of the bean in the game, I believe the box). In fact, there is no text in the game at all, nor is there a tutorial like you would expect from most games. There are occasionally billboards with hints drawn on them, but that’s all the help you get.

The cartoon-like presentation of the game, coupled with the complete lack of any in-game text, may lead you to believe that the game is a walk in the park, and for the first fifteen levels or so this will be the case. The difficulty ramps up starting with the second boss fight, however, and a lot of frustration will set in by the time you reach the third. The game’s demands simply can’t always keep up with the limitations of the controls (and in the case of the third boss, some hit detection issues as well) and you will die cheaply and repeatedly. The final few levels make up for this somewhat by being epically awesome (entirely due to the last transformation), but getting to that point is quite the chore, especially given the somewhat plodding pace of “level – hub – level”.

If you can overcome the game’s limitations, you should get a fair amount of enjoyment out of A Boy and His Blob. If you’re especially hardcore, you can even seek out the three treasure chests hidden in each level; finding all three will unlock an additional challenge stage, effectively doubling the game play value. Each challenge stage you clear will unlock various special features like art galleries and development notes. The game is already bargain-priced at $40, which messes with our rating system a bit; ultimately it’s worth a look if you want a different experience on the Wii, but not anything I’d go out of my way to pick up right away.

ESRB Rating: E for mild cartoon violence; your primary method of dispatching enemies is to drop rocks or anvils on them, or else using the hole transformation to drop them into pits.

Plays like: Other than the original, the level-based puzzle-platforming reminded me of Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’s Treasure

Pros: Gorgeous presentation, classic nostalgia, and quite possibly the first game ever to feature a “hug” button.

Cons: Maneuverability issues cause too much frustration

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo

November 29, 2009

Reviews / Wii / by Andrew Passafiume Make a comment! / Tweet it!

It is always nice to see a good side scrolling action game every now and again. In the case of the latest release in the Dragon Ball series, Revenge of King Piccolo is not a good side scroller. It is as generic as they come, and it feels like it belongs on one of the older Nintendo systems, not on the Wii. 

The game’s story follows a young Goku throughout the entire Dragon Ball series as he is on the hunt for the legendary Dragon Balls. If you are a fan of the series, you will note that the game does follow the series close enough, despite how much it skips around. If you are not a fan of the series, you will most likely be incredibly lost. 

In terms of the presentation, the game is a mixed bag. All of the voice actors from the original English dub of the anime reprise their roles, and the voice acting is generally good. The game has the same anime style cell shading you would expect from any other game in the series, but at this point it just does not hold up to more recent releases. The game looks like it belongs on the PS2, and with very repetitive and annoying music that does not represent the stuff you would hear in the anime. And let’s not forget the “cutscenes” that feature just cutouts of the characters, which are generally very static and do not tell the story at all.

The gameplay itself is rather tedious, and is a very basic brawler. You move from left to right beating up on the very similar looking enemies, and every once in a while you face a boss. The bosses do not require much strategy at all, and they all can be taken down rather quickly once you figure out their very basic pattern. On the plus side, the controls are easy enough for anyone to get into, so the game could be enjoyed by much younger audiences. 

The game progresses through six different levels that are each divided into smaller sections, and due to a lack of challenge it does not take long to get through a chapter. The entire game might take you 5-6 hours top to finish, and that is not much considering it is covering practically the entire anime. But with the gameplay designed as bland as it is, you might be thankful the game is not any longer.

You get a select set of combos (and a special move, which for Goku is his signature Kamehameha Wave), but none of them make much of a difference in the end. The enemies all are practically the same, and there is little to no strategy involved in most of the combat (with both bosses and regular enemies). 

The game does feature a tournament mode, which uses the same basic controls from the adventure mode but applied to a fighting game style. The controls and combat seems to suit this mode more so than the standard side scrolling beat ‘em up found in the main story mode. Sadly, with a very slim picking of characters and not much else to do in the mode, it will not hold your attention for too long. 

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo feels like a game that is stuck in a completely different era. It plays like an old school beat ‘em up, but at the same time, we’ve come to expect more from our games, especially one that is at full retail price. This might be an enjoyable rental for a young one to pass the time with, but overall this is a game that even Dragon Ball fans will have a hard time enjoying. 

ESRB: Rated E10+ for ages ten and up; rated for some cartoon violence and mild language

Pros: Follows the Dragonball story pretty closely; good voice acting; simple controls make it easy for anyone to play; tournament mode can be fun

Cons: Boring, static cutscenes; repetitive and tedious gameplay; the game looks pretty dated; annoying music; very sparse on content

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