Sonic Unleahsed

As with all reviews, they do contain spoilers. This review covers the entire plot of Sonic Unleashed - so if you don't want to be entirely spoiled miss the fourth paragraph.

In recent days, Sonic the Hedgehog has fallen on hard times, with almost all 3D iterations of the franchise being met with universal disappointment. There have been some brilliant 2D games, but the home-console versions have always been nothing but lacklustre. The last really solid Sonic game was on the Nintendo Gamecube, with Sonic Adventure Battle 2. Sonic Unleashed takes Sonic in an unfamiliar direction: a solid 3D Sonic title.

Sonic Unleashed opens to the finale of an untold Sonic story, which shows our hero confronting his evil rival, Doctor Eggman and bounding around a fleet of spaceships to attempt to stop him. However, Eggman manages to trap Sonic in a powerful ray and whilst Sonic is in Super Sonic mode Eggman uses the power of the ray to disrupt the Chaos Emeralds. After disrupting said Chaos Emeralds, he then utilises their power to awaken a powerful beast: Dark Gaia from the centre of the Earth, thus splitting the world into a series of plates.

Whilst this happens, Sonic is sent flying down to the planet below, and as a direct result of the interference of Eggman, Sonic’s had some form of mutation that transforms him from his standard Sonic appearance into a Werehog during the night. Once he’s crash landed he bumps into a creature named Chip who has lost his memory, but Sonic and him pair up and start to look for ways to repair the planet.

They meet up with the usual suspects in the way of Amy Rose and Tails to prevent Sonic from changing at night, and in the process repairing the fractured world. Various characters are met along the way and more of the history around the Dark Gaia is unveiled; however, at no point is there a mention of Light Gaia until six of the seven continents are returned to normal. At which point Chip regains his memory and realises he is Light Gaia. The team end up saving the world, and Sonic is cured of his unwanted ability when they go to fight Eggman and the Dark Gaia.

This somewhat typical storyline has very little substance to it, and the fact that Sonic meets a character that ends up aiding him to save the world is incredibly clichéd. However, as with most Sonic games the storyline is little more than fodder to keep players moving onto the next part of the game with some explanation. Long gone are the days where Sonic games could simply just move onto the next zone.

Speaking of which, when playing as Sonic, the zones are short. This is due to the fact that Sonic’s speed has increased dramatically, unfortunately the length of the levels have not been increased to compensate for this. It’s as if the levels are over as they’ve just begun. This unfulfilling experience makes playing as the Werehog even less enjoyable, as they are too long.

In comparison to the Sonic zones, the Werehog zones feel slow and tired. The same basic mechanic of gameplay is used in all of the levels, and running through the towns at night may have their advantages – it’s just they’re not that fun. Trying to make Sonic Zelda simply doesn’t work and the Werehog parts of the game show this unfortunately. With simple tasks that require more backtracking than necessary, the Werehog zones are too long and tedious.

Even if some of the zones are tedious, and the Sonic levels too short, they all look beautiful. Although it’s clear that the opening introduction to the game is not actually in-game footage but CGI scenes, they look easily movie worthy. The actual in-game graphics naturally aren’t as good as the CGI scenes, but at all times the characters are distinct and visible. The character design is pretty much standard Sonic fare: basic but colourful; however, it’s the background scenes that make the game stand out. They’re brilliantly made, with the ocean shimmering very naturally, and the sky, be it day or night, looking almost real.

One of the biggest flaws of Sonic Unleashed in other formats has been rectified on the Wii. Between zones Sonic and the Werehog have to interact with characters in the towns. In other formats this has been done in a similar way to Mario or Zelda titles where there’s a fair sized overworld screen with characters to talk to. Fortunately this isn’t really a problem in Unleashed as the towns are similar to old “point-and-click” adventures where a few basic images discuss elements of the town to the player.

This is beneficial as it speeds up the transition between zones, but feels entirely unnecessary as there’s little point for them existing aside from pushing on the weak storyline. Although we’ve been spared the large overworld there’s still too much fluff that is simply not needed.

Fortunately the controls are intuitive and with either Sonic or the Werehog the Wii Remote is precise. There is some Wii-Waggle, such as climbing up polls or jumping from ledges to ledges, but this is mostly kept to the Werehog zones leaving the Sonic zones unspoiled. The accuracy of the controller is spot-on, keeping additional waggles to the minimum.

Final Verdict - 7/10
Sonic Unleashed is certainly a step forward for the Sonic franchise, with great graphics, intuitive controls, a fairly grabbing premise and great level design. Unfortunately, it’s marred by the concept of the Werehog. Sonic simply need to continue this trend of returning to it’s grass roots and before long we’ll be getting 9 and 10/10 Sonic games again.

Best Games of 2008

By Ian Brown

Before we enter the New Year, with the traditional sound of Big Ben bringing the UK into 2009, it’s time to reflect upon the top games that we’re going to be leaving behind from 2008. This year for UK gaming has been pretty good, with some more unique titles such as Etrian Odyssey and Baroque being licensed as well as the good old fashioned AAA games from Nintendo.

Unfortunately, the latter is so niche that it can’t possibly be included in a list of games to be remember – although I wish I could let myself do that! However, there were plenty of other fantastic games that need to be remembered and replayed in the early parts of 2009, and in no real order those games are:

Etrian Odyssey

Translated by Atlus USA and then released and distributed in the UK by none other that Nintendo UK, Etrian Odyssey is one of those games that you’ll either love or hate. It doesn’t hold your hand at all, and is the epitome of dungeon crawler to the oldest sense. With only a few save points and a lot of backtracking to get further on in the game, it’s made for gamers who have many hours to spend gaming their days away.

See our review of Etrian Odyssey here.

LostWinds

LostWinds came out very early in 2008, or at least it feels like a very long time ago now! With one of the finest uses of the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to date on any platform, this WiiWare game entered the gaming realm with much fanfare and press activity.

A short and enjoyable game where you control both the wind and the main character at the same time with the use of both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuck, although it sounds hard it really isn’t. The controls are intuitive and fluid. A must have on the WiiWare.

See our review of LostWinds here.

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

The first Sonic game in a long time not to be made by the internal Sonic Team at SEGA but by BioWare, which alone generated a fair bit of press for our little blue friend. Fortunately the press was all positive and rightly so.

Taking Sonic away from the super speed that we are accustomed to, Sonic became more of an RPG with turn-based battles, a large, interchangeable team and various characters from across the franchise. Sonic Chronicles was met with some criticism from the anti-Sonic factions of the world, but on the whole this was a great game. In fact, one the first few levels have been passed Sonic is a fabulous game.

See our review of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood here.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

After causing a little controversy with the multiple reviews from our US team, Super Smash Bros Brawl came out in the UK – but far too late. Even so, it managed to gather the attention of all core-gamers of the Wii in the UK and sold incredibly well.

Continuing on from previous iterations of the Smash Bros. Franchise, Super Smash Bros. Brawl contains dozens of unseen characters in the past, and for the second time in the same year did the once unforgivable – merged Sonic and Mario in one game.

See our Super Smash Bros. Brawl review here.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

When Nintendo released Brain Age a few years ago, it was the start of the casual game influx that’s existed on all formats ever since. Professor Layton was an attempt to try and pacify core-gamers whilst maintaining the forward thinking of the casual titles. Fortunately this worked and Professor Layton combines Brain Age type puzzles in a very story rich environment with traditional goals for core-gamers.

Owing to this, it’s been marketed at core-gamers and casual gamers alike and has achieved a fair amount of success – showing a “left of centre” game can be for everyone and be good.

See our review for Professor Layton and the Curious Village here.

Opoona

Created by Koei, Opoona is a RPG that’s aimed a slightly younger audience initially. With its very unique look, addictive storyline and simple gameplay, Opoona was criticised for being “too easy” for older RPG player. Fortunately this is all erroneous as once players actually get into the game, the difficulty does increase and you’ll want to save Opoona’s sister and get them off the planet they crash-landed on.

The only negative side to this game is that it’s not been translated particularly well. However, that does not detract from its brilliant gameplay.

See our review for Opoona here.

Samba De Amigo

Kudos to SEGA for bringing back a title that was much loved on the fan-favourite Dreamcast. A game that’s entire purpose is to shake the Wii Remote and Nunchuck in time to the beat, it’s DDR with your hands. Naturally this means that it’s a lot of work involved, and people have developed exercise programs around a videogame, but that’s not what makes this game great.

The sheer fact of watching other people play this game, and the Latino music is great alone. It’s pure, unadulterated fun at it’s finest.

See our review of Samba de Amigo here.

Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer

Another game from SEGA! Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer is a title that will bemuse many people. It’s a remake of an old classic originally on the SNES, SEGA remade it for the Nintendo DS and hoped that this roguelike would sell well. Rumour has it, that the sequel will not make it to our shores for popularity reasons, so if you like roguelike games, but want something a little more forgiving than Etrian Odyssey give Shiren the Wanderer a try.

See our review of Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer here.

Mario Kart Wii

The latest iteration in Nintendo’s second best selling franchise – Mario. Mario Kart Wii takes all of the good things for Mario Kart Double Dash!! Of the Gamecube, and the best of the online functions of Mario Kart DS and merges them into Mario Kart Wii. With the option of purchasing a plastic accessory to make the Wii Remote a Car Wheel, or just using the classic options, Nintendo has catered to all with this game.

It also introduced something entirely new – motorcycles. You are now able to play with motorcycles instead of karts, and they’re really easy to use. Of course the normal impossible AI remains, but it’s worth buying and playing lots.

See our review of Mario Kart Wii here.

Boom Blox

Made by Stephen Spielberg and distributed by Electronic Arts, Boom Blox had two powerful names to help sell this title to casual gamers, and it turned core-gamers off immediately by being made by EA. This stigma is starting to dissolve now, but not early enough for Boom Blox, which is a fantastic game.

A brainteaser at least, and an addictive game of skills at best Boom Blox requires the player to destroy lots of things. This is done by using the minimum amount of destructive instruments, such as bombs, or removing structural walls, but causing the maximum destruction. The fact that players are given medals encourages them to go back and try and beat their previous score, and this carrot works very well.

It’s always on sale these days, so pick it up immediately.

See our review of Boom Blox here.

Please note all images were created by me.

FIFA 09: All Play

Another year passes; the summer’s nights end and FIFA announce their latest Football season to the world. With this new season comes hordes of rabid fans, each supporting their favourite teams, and all players of the top teams have multi-million pound contract, for kicking a ball around a field. With this new season comes the latest EA football game: FIFA 09 All-Play for the Nintendo Wii. EA are often blasted for their sports games, as each year it seems like they just tack on a few more players, a few more scenarios and very little else.

FIFA 09 All-Play for the Nintendo Wii is an entirely different experience to previous football games. There’s little premise to the title: the player just follows the international football scene and they choose a team to be and play that team to the top of the league table. However, the Wii version makes use of the Wii Controller in an entirely new way. The player navigates the players around the screen with the Nunchuck, and then they have to move the Wii Remote’s cursor around the screen to select the area where they want to the ball to go.

This may sound uninteresting and awkward but it’s really not. There’s an astounding accuracy to this; however, it does depend upon how hard the player waves the Wii Remote around, as a sharp movement can cause the ball to go flying across the screen -- in the direction where the player selected. The option of simply passing to the closest player on the pitch it also still around, and that’s at the tap of the A Button. Something that many previous iterations of the series suffered from badly was poor player and ball control, and this mechanic has been entirely corrected with the Wii Controller. The option of using the Gamecube Controller exists and unfortunately, the poor ball control still exists to a degree. In some respects it’s easier to control the players, but the ball work is simply lacking after playing with the Wii Controllers.

FIFA 09 All-Play has also developed brilliant player physics. Unlike older versions of the game where players were able to run through each other, if two players collide they really do collide and the recoil is clear to see. The movements of the players are fluid, fast and look entirely natural. There’s no random jerking around the screen -- it looks like real humans running around the screen. As there is a new level of motion capture of the players, no two goals look similar, which is a great feeling.

The graphics and player animations are excellent. The players all look as close to human as is possible on the Wii, and everything is incredibly distinct with clear definitions between different textures and players. It's a disappointment that when the camera pans out the graphics do slip a bit and it goes out of focus a little, however. This is likely to be a way of countering the slowdown from the amount of players on the screen – something this game does not suffer from at all.

FIFA 09 All-Play also has a plethora of teams from around the world: most of the major clubs from England, Germany, France and Spain are on there, as well as the smaller clubs from across the globe with a few national teams thrown in for good measure. This gives the player ample choice as to who’s going to make it and who isn’t.

However, there isn’t just serious football being played on FIFA 09 All-Play, there’s also the option of casual party game football, which takes full use of the Mii Characters. It’s like playing Eight Aside with a few friends, but the option of putting some famous footballer in the wrong position and then just kicking balls at them exits. This is fun in itself, but also seeing supersized Mii heads running around the screen in a light-hearted kick-around is also fun. For the more serious gamers there’s a good degree of online support and the online games have minimal lag and play really well.

The Footii match and the Mii options that make the game feel more casual are a great addition for people who don’t enjoy football and the casual audience, but to people who’ve been playing the series for over a decade it will simply be an area that’s ignored.

As with all sports games there’s still the annoying commentary -- for many that adds to the game and for others it’s infuriating. Luckily, the option still exists to turn it off for those of us who fall into the latter category.

Final Verdict - 9/10

Hating football and playing football games isn’t the best thing to do. After being forced to play this genre of games for ten years, FIFA 09 All-Play is easily the best sports game I’ve ever played. With a strong single player mode for serious gamers and a light-hearted and purely fun multiplayer casual side, it makes it an all rounder and a great game to play.

FIFA 09 All-Play

Another year passes; the summer’s nights end and FIFA announce their latest Football season to the world. With this new season comes hordes of rabid fans, each supporting their favourite teams, and all players of the top teams have multi-million pound contract, for kicking a ball around a field. With this new season comes the latest EA football game: FIFA 09 All-Play for the Nintendo Wii. EA are often blasted for their sports games, as each year it seems like they just tack on a few more players, a few more scenarios and very little else.

FIFA 09 All-Play for the Nintendo Wii is an entirely different experience to previous football games. There’s little premise to the title: the player just follows the international football scene and they choose a team to be and play that team to the top of the league table. However, the Wii version makes use of the Wii Controller in an entirely new way. The player navigates the players around the screen with the Nunchuck, and then they have to move the Wii Remote’s cursor around the screen to select the area where they want to the ball to go.

This may sound uninteresting and awkward but it’s really not. There’s an astounding accuracy to this; however, it does depend upon how hard the player waves the Wii Remote around, as a sharp movement can cause the ball to go flying across the screen -- in the direction where the player selected. The option of simply passing to the closest player on the pitch it also still around, and that’s at the tap of the A Button. Something that many previous iterations of the series suffered from badly was poor player and ball control, and this mechanic has been entirely corrected with the Wii Controller. The option of using the Gamecube Controller exists and unfortunately, the poor ball control still exists to a degree. In some respects it’s easier to control the players, but the ball work is simply lacking after playing with the Wii Controllers.

FIFA 09 All-Play has also developed brilliant player physics. Unlike older versions of the game where players were able to run through each other, if two players collide they really do collide and the recoil is clear to see. The movements of the players are fluid, fast and look entirely natural. There’s no random jerking around the screen -- it looks like real humans running around the screen. As there is a new level of motion capture of the players, no two goals look similar, which is a great feeling.

The graphics and player animations are excellent. The players all look as close to human as is possible on the Wii, and everything is incredibly distinct with clear definitions between different textures and players. It's a disappointment that when the camera pans out the graphics do slip a bit and it goes out of focus a little, however. This is likely to be a way of countering the slowdown from the amount of players on the screen – something this game does not suffer from at all.

FIFA 09 All-Play also has a plethora of teams from around the world: most of the major clubs from England, Germany, France and Spain are on there, as well as the smaller clubs from across the globe with a few national teams thrown in for good measure. This gives the player ample choice as to who’s going to make it and who isn’t.

However, there isn’t just serious football being played on FIFA 09 All-Play, there’s also the option of casual party game football, which takes full use of the Mii Characters. It’s like playing Eight Aside with a few friends, but the option of putting some famous footballer in the wrong position and then just kicking balls at them exits. This is fun in itself, but also seeing supersized Mii heads running around the screen in a light-hearted kick-around is also fun. For the more serious gamers there’s a good degree of online support and the online games have minimal lag and play really well.

The Footii match and the Mii options that make the game feel more casual are a great addition for people who don’t enjoy football and the casual audience, but to people who’ve been playing the series for over a decade it will simply be an area that’s ignored.

As with all sports games there’s still the annoying commentary -- for many that adds to the game and for others it’s infuriating. Luckily, the option still exists to turn it off for those of us who fall into the latter category.

Final Verdict - 9/10
Hating football and playing football games isn’t the best thing to do. After being forced to play this genre of games for ten years, FIFA 09 All-Play is easily the best sports game I’ve ever played. With a strong single player mode for serious gamers and a light-hearted and purely fun multiplayer casual side, it makes it an all rounder and a great game to play.

Opoona

The Nintendo Wii has had a distinct lack of RPGs available in its first full year on the shelves; this has been noted by many critics and fans alike. This startling trend started on the N64; however, as there are so few RPGs on the console, all games that are announced are met with media frenzy and Opoona is no different. Opoona has been out in the US since early 2008, and has finally been brought to Europe by Koei.

Opoona screams cult following. Following a completely unique path it tries to combine traditional RPG aspects with lifestyle simulator pieces in a futuristic, space age world. The universe is defended by a single race that are all very round and have a ball that they are able to use to power up and destroy the evil that is slowly creeping back over the universe. Opoona and family are traveling on holiday for the first time and their spaceship is attacked, causing them to crash land on a planet call Landroll.

Opoona is separated from his family, his parents are critically ill, and his siblings are taken to different parts of the planet, who he later finds. Opoona has to quickly adjust his way of life to this electronic lifestyle of the Landroll and take the abuse that the locals will give to him for being an alien. Unfortunately, Opoona also has to pay for his parents’ treatment and is headhunted to become a Ranger. A Ranger is someone who will battle against the evil that is encroaching the peace on Landroll. The metaphor is as transparent as looking through the window. The game is all about independence, growing up and dealing with people who are different to yourself; however, this isn’t new territory for an RPG.

Opoona has a rich and interesting culture that has clearly been crafted with much care; unfortunately, a lot of this care and culture has simply been destroyed by some poor localization and translation. There are various typos ridden across the game, directions from characters advising Opoona to travel through a door that doesn’t exist to their right and characters whose names change halfway through the game.

This is all forgiven by the game’s brilliant battle scheme. The game can be controlled entirely one handed, by the nunchuck. When in a battle (which are all randomly generated), the player simply needs to push the controller in any direction and power up the Energy Bonbons and then release. Depending on how powerful the charge is and what direction the Energy Bonbons has been charged in will entirely depend on how it launches and kills the enemy. Throughout the battle scenes the Z and C button are used to use items and go back, and outside of battle they access an extensive menu screen where Opoona can buy new items, watch TV, check his bank statement, his e-mails and just about everything.

The controls can take a little while to become accustomed to, and at the first attempt can be a little confusing and hard to navigate through. However, it just takes a few goes at the one-handed control system and everything just falls into place very easily. The controls themselves are very responsive and there’s no delay time at all.

Throughout the battles there is a strict two-minute time limit and if Opoona goes over this timer he automatically looses and has to pay for his hospital bills and to be picked up from wherever he fell. You can’t always guess how to kill the opponents in battle, so it can be literally just waiting for Opoona to be hurt before the correct attack can be administered

The visuals throughout the game are, frankly, odd. The quality of the graphics is high, and there are some brilliant landscapes, and the vastness of all of the cities and outside areas are very impressive. It’s just the characters in the game that are a bit of a let down. All of the characters have a thick black border around them, in a very cartoon style; however, the lines around the circular characters aren’t anti-aliased and will often have a stray pixel just a little too far away from the character. However, the colours are all vibrant and the character design is great -- it’s just the implementation when moving that lets it down a little.

The biggest letdown of the game is the overly structured feel. It feels very linear, and although there are chances for Opoona to do his own thing, the main missions have very little room for change or error and everything is very mission-based. Although there are times when the missions fall into the background, they are too far and in-between.

Final Verdict - 8/10
Opoona is one of those once-a-generation type games -- for many hardcore RPG fans this will be a bit of a letdown, but for others it could easily be heightened to the level of the Mother series if another game does come out.

Super Swing Golf

Since the beginning of the Wii’s time, there’s been a plethora of games that attempt to make use of the Nintendo Wii’s motion control. For the most part, the majority of these games have been, frankly, awful. There’s the occasional “diamond in the rough”, but most of those games will “never see the light of day”. Fortunately, this trend was put to an end about a year and a half ago when Tecmo created Super Swing Golf. A sequel to the first game was made and the second game is the first outing of the franchise in the UK, which has been distributed by Rising Star Games.

When the game is first loaded up, the player is introduced to the world as a novice player; to be fair there is a tutorial that will show the player how to put the ball and basically what to do, step by step. The tutorial is pretty extensive but not too long so, fortunately, boredom does not set in too early. The player is able to skip this step, and the controls are very intuitive; however, if this is your first golf game, you should definitely play through the tutorial golf is annoyingly over complicated despite how easy the controls are to pick up.

There are the standard modes of play, as well; in Single Player Mode, there are three main modes of play: VS CPU Mode, Tour Mode and Practice. As the names of each mode so aptly describe, the Tour Mode is really the place where most players will spend most of their time, as it’s where their careers can really flourish, although the Clubhouse, which is the store, will also receive some form of attention as well. In regards to Multiplayer, there are five options of play: Balloon Pop, Darts, Driving Contest, Stroke Play and Match Play. Although most of the Multiplayer will be ignored (as there is no form of online play), playing with friends and family is good as the controls are really so easy to pick up.

Like all games of it’s type, Super Swing Golf will expand the more it is played. At first there is a limitation on what sort of items you can use and what courses you can play on. As the game progresses, more options open for the player and more worlds will become available. This will continue the lifespan of this game somewhat, but ultimately, the items don’t push the player far enough to really want to complete every single course.

Super Swing Golf may follow all of the standard Golfing mechanics in terms of swinging back the Wii Remote and forward again, but that’s where the similarities to real life golf end. After all, if you wanted a serious golf game, you wouldn’t buy an anime styled character over Tiger Woods. The game in itself is super cute and the players are all happy and will always utter words of encouragement. The surroundings are very bright and colourful and although it’s clearly an unreal world, it feels somewhat natural, too. The cute, bright and artistic style is very comforting and does give the game a somewhat childish feel. The graphics themselves aren’t bad at all, although they are not top-notch graphics. The Wii could produce better, but they are certainly better than Gamecube graphics, which is unfortunately important for many gamers.

For experienced players, the game allows for judgment of wind and various other factors that golfers need to take into account in real life; however, for novices, Super Swing Golf spoon feeds a little and will allow the player to literally count how far away they need to make their swing. Fortunately, this is not 100% accurate, and the natural factor of life also comes into effect, so the game really can’t be easily cheated.

As with the style itself, the game injects a level of unreal fun into the game by the means of the Clubhouse where players are able to purchase new types of Golf Clubs, such as umbrellas and various other objects that you would never usually find on a golf course being used as clubs.

The mix between lift music and light jazz is far from annoying and is very catchy. It sets the mood of the game off very well, something which is light and enjoyable in almost every sense.

Final Verdict - 8/10
Although Super Swing Golf has various mechanics of a serious looking golf game, the actual style itself will put many gamers off, which is a shame. As for those of you who like golf and own a Wii, this really is a must-have.Although Super Swing Golf has various mechanics of a serious looking golf game, the actual style itself will put many gamers off, which is a shame. As for those of you who like golf and own a Wii, this really is a must-have.

Baroque

The year is 1998: Ocarina of Time has just come out for the Nintendo 64 and the gaming world is fast approaching a new era of dominance -- the time of Playstation over Nintendo and CD over cartridge. During this time, great change the Japanese developer, Sting, created a rougelike called Baroque for the SEGA Saturn. Owing to the failure of the Saturn, the game was ported across to the PlayStation a year later, something the West forfeited.

Fast forward ten years and Sting finally made a port to the PS2 and to the Wii. Atlus USA decided that it was time to include this title in their already vast collection of obscure and difficult Japanese games, and fortunately for those of us in the UK, Rising Star Games decided to publish it.

In the future, a cataclysm known as the Blaze has destroyed the world, leaving behind a fragmented, damaged humanity which only exists by clinging onto delusions known as baroques. Long after this disaster occurs the player-named protagonist awakens without any memories of the past, the future and has no ability to speak. The only things that the player is able to do are feel the immense guilt that’s been left with him -- he is also able to think and move, fortunately.

And even if you don’t find out straight away, Baroque reveals tiny slithers of information to the inquisitive player the more that players try to speak with the deformed humans around them. Eventually the player learns what the fate is of those who are unable to handle their baroques: they become meta-beings and go to live in the Neuro Tower and basically become monsters.

The protagonist’s sin is so large that it is directly related to the blaze, and to atone for this sin the player must travel to the Neuro Tower and venture to the bottom floor. The player will only find out that they have to go to the Tower and venture to the bottom floor when they try and go out into a dessert looking area and are stopped by a vision of the Archangel who hands over the Angelic Rifle, which is able to kill anything, even God, in one hit.

However, clearing the Tower isn’t what’s required of the player: they need to know when to die. Death isn’t the end in Baroque; it’s just the beginning. Throughout the entire game the player must decide when it’s the right time to die, although the punishment for death is a harsh one. As with most roguelikes, all of the items and skills that the player has developed will be reset.

Fortunately, the deeper into the Tower the player goes, the more Warp Points appear. These places are where certain items can be thrown out of the Tower and they will appear with a Collector close to where the protagonist can always be found at the start of each new life. There’s also a large element of religion, false gods, gods and various other confusing and emotional storylines inside of the main “atone for your sin” storyline, as well. This is the main reason why players will continue with this game.

The first play through will be painful for many gamers, and even for the aged dungeon crawler fan Baroque is unbelievably awkward. As so little information is revealed to the player, the first few hours are confusing, painful and will lead a lot of players to reconsider continuing with the title. This is a shame as although it’s slow, this game is a piece of storytelling genius.

The health system is equally as complicated, rather than having the standard HP and MP bars, there’s the standard HP bar and then there’s the VT. VT is the player’s vitality and this continually goes down, even when the player is not moving. However, as long as the player has some form of VT the HP will continue to replenish itself upon being attacked. Unfortunately, as soon as the VT runs out the player’s HP will start to decrease along with any attacks they receive. There are items that will help keep the VT up, but it’s a complicated balancing act as some items improve VT and damage HP and vice versa.

This can all be forgiven by the vast amount of weapons, power ups, and healing items that can be collected. There are dozens of different weapons and ways of using items to kill the enemies around the floor; alternatively, the player can summon the enemies into one room and then run and try and find the portal to the next floor.

In terms of the game's graphics, they really aren’t anything special. The models on all of the characters are great and the characters themselves are well designed but they’re by no standard close to what we would expect today. The same is said for the general presentation of the Tower itself. It’s a randomly generated dungeon, similar to Shiren the Wanderer; however, there are only about four different types of dungeon so when the player is delving deep into the dungeon it can feel a little samey. The controls aren’t too bad -- they’re a little basic but on the option of the Classic Controller or the Wii Remote are great. There’s a very small amount of Wii Waggle, and with either option the controls are primitive.

Unfortunately, the camera angles are absolutely atrocious in Baroque. They’re so bad that they can actually be a distraction from killing enemies in the game, which is a huge shame as there are so many of them to kill. For those of you who like obscure games, think The Legend of the Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon on the N64 and then think ten times worse and you’re in the territory of Baroque’s camera angles. Fortunately the enemies themselves don’t require any thought to kill, it’s literally a hack and slash type game with a great storyline.

The voice acting and music in Baroque is top notch. Although there’s limited animation in the characters themselves, the voice acting is superb and doesn’t sound false or painful in any way. The music is eerie and horrible and will stick with the player for some time as well.

To see more screenshots from Baroque, click here.

Final Verdict - 7/10
Baroque is a marmite game: you’ll either love it or hate it. It’s a piece of interactive fiction genius and although the gameplay can be a little poor at times, the entire package is great and is well worth picking up if you enjoy a hard, dungeon crawler challenge.

The Incredible Hulk

The latest move to game adaptation is here, and this time around it’s in the form of The Incredible Hulk. From the second blockbuster film comes the second Hulk game. The first film may have been a monumental flop, but the videogame was of a decent quality and The Incredible Hulk had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, most of these expectations are missed by miles.

The basic plot of The Incredible Hulk is that you need to save New York City, predominantly Manhattan, from the grasps of the Enclave, which are some form of ultra powerful group with huge weapons. There is then the occasional spin to this plot, which will involve saving Rick from someone in the Enclave, which prohibits the continual assault on New York. These little missions will normally only last a short period, but after completing each mission the option of completely destroying the surroundings becomes open to the player.

This complete destruction is the most enjoyable thing in The Incredible Hulk. Almost all of the buildings can be raised to the ground and the majority of the bridges and other important areas of the town are fully destructible. The more of the city that the Hulk destroys, the more his “Threat Metre” goes up, and as such it means that various Enclave and Army robots and soldiers will appear to try and kill the Hulk. Though, it would be nice to see that the Hulk is being killed or the city that is being destroyed. Throughout the entire game a thick “gamers fog” has been applied throughout -- where objects far away cannot be seen until they pop into view as players get close enough -- this may have been acceptable ten years ago in Ocarina of Time, but even then, this level of "fog" would have been questioned.

To further add insult to injury, the huge levels are obscured not only by this fog, but also by terrible graphics. The textures of the buildings are all of a sub-N64 quality and in some places the “joins” can be seen between textures. This is not only in contrast The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction from the Gamecube, but also in contrast to the textures used for the sky and grass in the game, which all look distinct and vibrant.

The mishmash of quality continues to the cut-scenes and the menu selections. All of the cut-scenes in The Incredible Hulk are of a high visual quality. It looks like the developers have simply lifted the cut-scenes from the Xbox360 and the Playstation 3 versions of the game, yet the actual content inside of these cut-scenes is abysmal. They very loosely follow the film and are normally so short that they aren’t worth watching. Similarly, the menu selection screens look good, but in reality give very little information and are actually fairly hard to gain access to as the introduction to the game comes before being allowed to select what you want to do.

Speaking of which, the controls are very prohibitive and will restrict the Hulk’s movements greatly. Simply because this is a game that’s been designed for a traditional controller, with more buttons than the Wii can accommodate for, there are some problems. So to try and fix this, the developers decided that it would be a good idea to incorporate the "Wii Waggle" wherever possible. This would be a great addition to the game and a good way around the limited buttons if there were some form of movement recognition. Unfortunately, it’s very hit and miss and a perfectly timed attack can lead to nothing happening at all in the most extreme circumstances.

The icing on the cake is the camera angles. Throughout the game the option of moving the camera angles exist; however, they’re not simple and easy to use but require the player to press the – Button and then to move the camera around with the Wii Remote. Sounds easy, but it really isn’t. Although, if one left to the game’s camera angles to their own devices, the Hulk would end up being killed from behind.

Final Verdict - 4/10

The start of this promising franchise was so good that this game pales in comparison. It’s not the worst movie to game tie-in in recent years -- The Golden Compass has to take that spot -- but it’s certainly not far off.

Boom Blox

A quality, third party title for the Nintendo Wii is rarely seen. Although there are hundreds, if not thousands of games available for the Wii, few of them are actually worth the money that we pay for them, and even fewer of them are actually good. The biggest reason for this lack of quality gaming is because the Wii is dominated by the mindset of “family games” and “casual gamers”. The PR companies coined these two phrases long ago for all of the major gaming companies in Europe and those two phrases now actually mean shovelware to many gamers.

However, occasionally a game will come around from a third party for the casual market and it will not only appeal to gamers of olde, but also will be of a quality that’s close to that of Nintendo’s own home grown produce. One of these titles for the Wii is Boom Blox, from Electronic Arts, otherwise known as EA.

It’s hard to describe Boom Blox, as although it’s a puzzle game, it’s also so much more diverse. Essentially, Boom Blox is all about solving a few 3D puzzles and basically destroying everything in your path, with a few cute characters along the way. Yet, there are many different modes of play, which each allow the player to do something slightly different, but in the same line of thought.

There are various playing options, but the main ones are Play, Multiplayer and Level Editor. Inside of the Play Mode there are a couple of subcategories, which are Explore and Adventure mode. Both of these offer similar styles of play, but the Adventure mode will allow the player to use some form of gun/shooter whereas the Explore mode does not. Both of these modes offer a ridiculous amount of levels: in Adventure alone there are over sixty different levels of play.

Multiplayer offers the same dynamics as single player, just with someone else around, and the player is able to battle against them in various ways. The Level Editor mode is one of the best additions to the game, as it allows players to create their own levels. After playing through Explore for a while, it becomes apparent that it’s not always as easy as the player may initially think to destroy the area, and by creating levels, players are able to create levels as easy or as difficult as they want.

The actual game itself is very basic; the entire premise of the game is "knock things over." There are certain blocks that will explode on impact, other blocks will only explode if it touches a block of the same type and others just don’t do anything but move. Initially an entire game with this as the basic game pattern sounds boring, but the way that EA and Steven Spielberg have designed the game makes it one of the most enjoyable games on the Wii to date.

With a simple Gold, Silver or Bronze award system, each level is very re-playable and there is no penalty for not getting an award. To destroy the blocks may seem easy at first; however, to make sure that the blocks all fall in the right way with only one or two hits really isn’t easy at all. Owing to the very simple restart-level system, it takes seconds to restart the level if it’s not going right and then attempt to go for the Gold again.

Unlike many third party Wii games, the use of the Wii Remote is stellar. The accuracy of the Wii Remote is amazing, and it’s very easy to use the remote to choose certain options and to smash away certain blocks. It also recognises the force of the player’s throw, push and pull, which is very helpful in the Jenga style levels.

Yet, with all of this good, there is still a degree of bad. The menus throughout the game are fairly bulky and do take a little while to load, which isn’t really acceptable considering the fact that the game isn’t a graphics powerhouse. The menus each contain a little video preview of what the game may be like, which is a good idea in theory. However, the previews actually end up obscuring the view of the other options, and there is a fair lag between the video box appearing and the video loading.

Overall, the poor menu screens and poor loading times do not hinder the game, and the fact that the title is simply stunning makes up for those shortfalls that are apparent across a lot of casual games on the Wii at the moment.

Final Verdict - 9/10
I would love to give this game a 10/10, for sheer use of the Wii and it’s brilliant design. No game is perfect, but that said, this is as close as a non-Nintendo game has come in a long while. It’s most definitely worth the purchase, as it’ll keep you entertained for many, many hours.

SEGA Bass Fishing

A genre that is long overdue for an appearance on the Wii is that of Fishing. “Fishing isn't about fishing at all, but about telling the tales,” as stated on the Mighty Boosh (a popular comedy in the UK), and there is many a tale to tell about SEGA’s cult game: SEGA Bass Fishing. The franchise has had it’s name brandished around most major platforms in the past few years, and it’s now made it’s way across to the Wii.

SEGA Bass Fishing is a simple fishing game that requires no instruction, and because of this easy premise, there really is very little instruction on how to cast and reel the lines in the game. There’s a very brief tutorial on how to play the game, and that’s it. Fortunately, the game is very intuitive, and the controls feel completely natural when playing the title. To cast a line the player must waggle the Wii Remote, and to draw the line in, the player must waggle the Nunchuck. The game mechanics may be basic, but they work.

After a fish has taken to the lure, the player must waggle the Nunchuck and the Wii Remote to try and reel the fish in. However, to make the game a little harder than fishing in Ocarina of Time, there’s also line tension. If the tension on the line gets too high, the line will snap and that huge fish will get away, leaving the player with nothing. This basic premise is the same across all of the different play modes in the game, and there are are three of them: Arcade Mode, Nature Mode and Tournament Mode. In Arcade Mode, the player is up against the clock to catch as many fish (in as big a size) that they are able to find. As long as they hit the target set before them, it doesn’t matter how the job is done.

In Nature Mode, everything is done at a very different pace. The player is given the option to choose any of the levels of play, the time of day...pretty much everything. There are no goals, no time limits, it’s basically just fishing as if it were real life – free. This is a welcome distraction from the fast paced Arcade and Tournament modes, and it also extends the game’s lifespan somewhat, too.

Finally, there's the Tournament Mode -- aptly named, as it is a tournament between the player and various computer players. Similarly to the Arcade Mode, the player must attain all of the targets set before them to move onto the next level of play.

SEGA have clearly thought through the transition onto the Wii; however, the only unfortunate thing about the modes of play is the lack of any form of multiplayer mode. Playing fishing with mates may not seem like a great idea, but playing the Tournament Mode online against other like-minded individuals would undoubtedly increase the lifespan of this budget game.

Aside from the modes of play and the very simplistic style of gameplay, SEGA Bass Fishing has had a welcome update on the graphical front. Granted, the game will not win any awards for being the next Okami or Twilight Princess, but it’s a welcome update in comparison to the old Dreamcast graphics. Across the board the graphics are clear, clean and crisp and at no point will a player confuse a reed for a fish as they’re clearly different – even in low light.

As with many SEGA games from the 90s, there’s the classic over-enthusiastic announcer who will cast his verdict on how you’ve done – whether you want to hear it or not. This is a welcome throwback to the arcade version of the game, although it can become a little tiresome after hearing "Failure!" for the hundredth time. The rest of the music is much the same as before: clear and good enough for its setting, but as with many games of this type, it’s ultimately forgettable.

The menu screens are the biggest flaw in SEGA Bass Fishing, as they are old, clunky and tired. This goes from the very entrance screen right through to the options for changing lures and players. However, considering the game’s menu screens were developed nearly a decade ago now, it could be forgiven.

Final Verdict - 6/10
SEGA Bass Fishing is a game that needs no introduction, as most people (gamers, at least) will probably have heard about this game series at some point in their life. The Wii iteration of the title is a good throwback to the 90s, but is ultimately a little tired and needs a revamp. However, at the budget price it’s being marketed at, it’s definitely worth picking up.