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Knowing this game was adapted from it's mobile roots means there's a few things that didn't translate over to the console version. The game is decent enough, it gives you a great big map to explore and gives you the opportunity to customize your character as you see fit. The usual RPG quests of fetch item A or kill 5 of animal B are here and there are plenty of towns and NPCs to chat to. Once you beat the main quest, there's a second quest and the flow of the game sputters and doesn't have the same pull as the first half of the game. Instead you find yourself mostly wandering around with growing less of a challenge as your character becomes stronger and stronger, maxing out on the upgrades.

Batman: The Telltale Game (the first one) felt like the team spent the whole budget on the clearing the license of Batman and what was presented was a janky, cutting corners, falling apart at the seams mess that felt like it was going to crash at any point. The Enemy Within thankfully is a much better put together game that greatly improves upon the story's scope, characters and more. It still feels like a few corners were cut here and there, but it feels more like a finished product compared to the previous game.

There's a lack of track variety, but what is here is just sheer fun arcade style racer.

I have to admit I have been on a Lovecraftian kick this year having played The Sinking City, Call of Cthulhu and The Darkest Dungeon with The Innsmouth Case up next. When the game started I was quite worried since the company and engine logos were lagging but once the game started there were no technical issues other than few textures loading up when you bring up a save, but it doesn't last long. The story has you playing an explorer waking up with most of your recent memories gone. So you must investigate the Antarctica base where things went south in the wrong way. Gameplay wise Conarium is a first person adventure game. You will be walking around looking for keys to fit locks, but thankfully the keys and locks make a lot of sense compared to some adventure game logic. The game lasts about 5 hour with many things to find and a few different endings. If you enjoy Lovecraftian games than this one isn't a bad choice.

A very cute little game that is the perfect pallet cleanser between two heavier games. Easy to play but a bit harder to get top marks on the levels.

In the battle of Lovecraftian games Call of Cthulhu VS The Sinking City I honestly loved The Sinking City a lot more. The game does have issues. There's quite a few bugs like floating people, pop ups, poor draw distance. But what it does right is an immersive environment, fun detective goals, an interesting story and a challenging pace.

When I started playing this game I honestly wondered why it wasn't a movie since the actual gameplay was limiting. Eventually the game does open up a bit and let's your feel like you're playing a game.

Valley plays like a mix of Bioshock, Metroid Prime and Firewatch. There's a neat little story and world to explore.

The combat does get a little boring after a while but the story, world and the character interactions kept me intrigued. Also playing it during a pandemic.

Absolutely loved the style and mystery of the game. The game did feel like it was going to crash several times during loading screens but never did thankfully.

The trailer really does a good job at selling it as a comical action RPG. I did find parts of it quite funny but the game design felt quite dated. The graphics felt very PS2 era there were locations that looked great and others that felt slapped together. The UI seemed like a place where the polish is sorely needed. The equipment selection screen highlighter is barely visible and non-responsive a lot of the times. I want to select a health potion but the highlighter won't even move off the armband equipment piece. The confirmation noise is also missing or not loud enough. There were also multiple times where my character clipped through the boundaries. I did beat the game.

Dragon Quest XI is a real celebration of the series as a whole. It's pure JRPG comfort food.

Excite Truck for the Wii was one of the first racing games for the system and showed players that driving using motion controls can be easy. Excite Truck wasn't without it's flaws, but it was fun to play. ExciteBots seem to have took a look in itself and decided to really push the 'excite' and tricks from Excite Truck. What happens comes a game which plays like the Excite Truck.. but looks and feels like a cartoon episode of Excite Truck. The game can be very fun, especially if you're hitting all the tricks and getting high scores, but if you're not then the repeated red bars and jarring sport challenges and items will disrupt the game play. Several tracks return in an almost copy and paste fashion with a few new 'required' tricks to pull off. Overall, Excitebots just feels like a step backwards.

Lots of brushes, lots of paints, not much else. The 'game' really is a coloring book with limited amount of pages. Maybe a few little, little ones will like it, but most people will get bored with it within a few minutes. The Sketch Quest game which is bundled with the Drawsome Tablet is much more interesting and challenging.

Not bad for a first year DS game, it uses the functions of the DS well. It's prequel, Hotel Dusk, improves upon the gameplay and story and is superior, but Trace Memory should be given a shot if you like adventure games. I will pick up Another Code R, Trace Memory's sequel... if it's ever released in North America..

Opoona, much like many JPG starts out with Opoona (the main character , the chubby bald headed kid with the orange ball on top of his head) sleeping in. He wakes up, his ship gets attacked and gets separated from his family and has to find them on the alien planet known as Landroll. The game takes a few cues from the Metroid Prime franchise with this plot device, but never gets very far with it. Sadly with no voice acting and only ONE CGI cut scene the story is made out through dialog boxes, long boring ones if that. And it's sad to say that Opoona did not get the best translation job out there. Things may have been taken too literal and sometimes leaves players wondering where to go and what to do? But then again the first dome (city) Tokione is such a mess of a design that it's easy to get frustrated trying to find a certain shop or even the exits! Thankfully the city designs are much more functional once you get to the next domes. While getting frustrated with the city lay out and how the 'life style' part of this 'life style RPG' game works made me wonder about it even further. The game allows you to get jobs and make friends. In fact if you want to get outside of the first city you have to find a teacher to allow you to get a license to be a Ranger, go the Admin office, get a license, then exit the building. If you want to upgrade your hover board transportation you get, you have to work fast food and get a mining license, then you can go face the second boss. At times I think the game is commenting on the bureaucracy of other games with job systems or society itself. But let's talk about some more positive aspects of the game. The graphics and look of the game fit very well. Some of the domes look beautiful and have a real theme to them. The character designs of the main characters work well, the cell shaded visuals of the characters make them look more childish and innocent. Some of the other characters are so oddly designed you wonder what kind of sick plastic surgeon Landroll has, some women have beaks! Later in the game you come across some giants in an ancient forest, youâ

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is very much a fan service game. It was made with fans of the GameCube/Playstation 2 game in mind. The game only gives you two new playable characters and a handful of new characters in the world while you revisit old locations with new paint jobs. Most of the music is carried over as well. That being said, the game does a good job at creating a new conflict that drags everyone into it. The Norse background greatly influences the game's story. The game has a very slow start as you play as Emil, a whiny annoying child who suddenly grows a pair while he's in battle and in his "Ratatosk Mode", you almost wish that this mode continues for the rest of the game. But if you played the original and can suffer a bit of annoying voice acting then you'll be able to enjoy the game.

Overlord series takes the stage on the Nintendo Wii to take control of the control set up and offer a Pikmin like experience while Pikmin 3 is no where to be seen. For the most part the game works. It gives you a world to explore, missions to do and a control scheme that works quite well. The problem is that the game feels half done. Controls of the Overlord and the minions work good, but as you venture deeper into the game you notice several glitches. I experienced 2 game freezes, one of the bosses froze and another fell through the geometry of the level! After the final boss the game just ends. That's it. Just when the story gets going it ends. On top of that the game doesn't give you much info on the Forge Upgrades. What suit is better? I had tons of money to afford everything by the time I was done the 3rd boss battle. It was easy, yet fun if the game didn't crash or glitch out. If you need a Pikmin-esque game for cheap, pick this one up... but don't expect more then 10 hours out of it.

Fire Emblem, one of the world's toughest series makes it's way into 3D, looking breathtaking in the cinematics, but N64-ish in game! Com'on Intelligent Systems! Much like the GBA counter part(s), Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance features a deep story line, colorful and interesting characters, several locals and a challenge.

One step forward, Two steps back. Not as complex as it's console predecessors, but still moves the series forward. No pushing, no carrying, no support convos and easier levels. A very good game for newbies to the series.

Gives you a ton of characters, an engrossing story that starts small but ends in a massive climax which completely overshadows Path of Radiance, and is hard. Very hard. Doesn't give you many chances to gain experience and fluff up your entire team, limited weapons, limited money, and the flow doesn't stop. One of the toughest things to do is to beat this game without anyone dying on you. Try it. Balls to the wall tough. The graphics are a slight improvement over PoR's and there are more beautiful cinematics to enjoy and the soundtrack is 4 times larger then PoR. It is highly suggested that you play PoR first before setting into this game or the story will not make much sense at all. If you like SRPG's and want something tough, then pick up this game.

Minimalist racing game, while the races really do start as races the tracks soon become extremely tough and become a lesson in memorization in having to avoid all the traps. The 8 bit music is danceable, the game's visuals are pretty trippy and the free way mode is relaxing.

The Art Style series is a series of simple to control games which begun for the GameBoy Advance, Art Style Orbient was one of the first GBA versions and was remade for WiiWare. The game is a somewhat of a mix of katamari, snake and asteroids. You play as a small round ship/planet/thing(?) and your goal is to absorb items that are your size and grow bigger. Smaller items can orbit around you. Your goal is to become large enough to grab the right sun into your orbit. With only two buttons to control, gravity (which pulls you towards objects) and anti gravity (which pushes you away from objects) this game is quite fun. A few points get knocked off for some of the repetitive and slightly annoying music, but is worth a try.

Sin and Punishment: Star Successor is the sequel to cult legend Sin and Punishment, an N64 game that never got released outside of Japan during the N64 era. Despite not being released outside of the Japan the original Sin and Punishment is often on top 10 N64 game lists and is highly influential for shooting games. S&P2 happens years after the original S&P starring Isa, the son of Airan, and Saki from the first in as he tries to escape Earth with a strange alien girl with a cat tail called Kachi who the "Creators" dislike and send the Nebulox, an elite military group after them and.... Needless to say the story is just bat **** insane and makes little or no sense and only provides a reason to visit far out locations and make the last level epic beyond imagination. Since the story is paper thin the game relies on the game play to draw the players in. The original Sin and Punishment was full of insane gun battles, twisting levels, tough bosses and more. S&P2 ups the ante with even better graphics and game play variety. The goal of the game is to shoot anything that moves. And there's a lot to shoot at. From weird flying eyeballs to robots to giant eels and dolphins to more. The boss battles get switched up, same with perspective. Some bosses rely on you using only your sword/fist, not your gun. While the 50 dollar price might be a little steep for this game, it is an instant cult classic and great for blasting away hoards of whatever moves.

Little King's Story, if you liked the style of the original Harvest Moons, and enjoyed Pikmin or Overlord, then you'll like this game. While it does have a cutesy exterior the game is pretty tough. Taking RPG, Strategy, Adventure elements and combining them into one game. Developers Cing (makers of Hotel Dusk, and quickly becoming my favorite new developer) and Town House do an amazing job.

Metroid Prime is not to be compared to games like Halo. While both feature armor clad heroes in space, the game play of both are completely different. MP is a single player First Person Adventure game. You investigate a distress call and soon find yourself alone on a hostile planet trying to unravel the mysterious of the planet while exploring every nook and cranny for secrets, and boy are there lots. There might be only half a dozen short cinematics, the rest is told through journal entries from Space Pirates (tuuubes!), Chozo artifacts and your computer scanner. You can nearly scan everything in the game finding out facts about nearly every speck of life on the planet while the beautiful effects and music add to the ambiance of the world. It is one of my favorite games for the GameCube and one of the best games of the decade. 10/10.

An amazing game with new controls and features. The introduction of more of a plot kind of hurt the beginning of the game, but as soon as you leave Norin, the game begins to fit the usual Metroid mind space and isolation begins to fill in. As a fan of the series I must say the game is the easiest in the series and the shortest.

The addition of the Virus Buster is a nice addition, but the Nintendo 64 version of the game is far superior with better graphics, music and more mode. This version only has 2 player mode, the N64 has 4. One step forward, two steps back.

The Paper Mario series by Intelligent Systems is a series of games dating back to the N64, Intelligent Systems took the reins of the Mario RPG series after Square made Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, the games have always had colorful characters, interesting locations and worlds and witty writing. Super Paper Mario takes away the turn base format from previous titles for more of a plate former feel and action while still keeping the health and moves. While the new take on the series does feel fresh, the way the abilities and character switching completely wrenches the experience. To have to change from one character who can bomb to one that can hammer just gets annoying after a short time. At times it felt that the game was rushed, and rushed bad. The entire use of the mirror town of Flopside is completely under used and felt like a last second addition. In fact, this game lacks a lot of polish the previous games of the series had. Sure the other ones had a few slow chapters, but this one really gets to you. If you can trudge along then you'll enjoy it, if not then you'll be annoyed out of playing this game.

The 'expansion' pack of one of the greatest games for the Nintendo Wii, Super Mario Galaxy takes the same ideals of the previous installments while making improvements. The 'World Map' system is a great addition making it easy to access levels right away and not run around looking for the right observatory. Level design feels tight and offers a wonderful difficulty curve along with some 'tougher' stars for the pros. The addition of Yoshi works for some places, but I personally found that dinosaur to be annoying as per usual. The new power ups for Yoshi mixes it up, but it's still the same dumb looking dinosaur. Overall, a great game, but does feel like it's an extension/shuffle of the previous game.

Epic Mickey takes one of the world's most beloved mascots and places him in a strange decayed and ruined world he help destroy and create. Mickey travels around a magical kingdom of forgotten and lost characters and hopes to right his wrongs and escape the ruined world. With the magical paint brush Mickey is able to create and destroy with paint and thinner. All of that sounds wonderful on paper.. but the final product is far from wonderful. The game is directed by Warren Spector, the man behind Deus Ex, and a few Ultima games. While I have yet to experience them I don't know much about his previous works, but it one can see that this is his first platformer he's worked on. While the world of the Wasteland is quite interesting with places like Mickeyjunk Mountain standing out, you feel that the team didn't know how to approach the platforming sections of the game. There's 2D and 3D sections to the game. The short 2D sections prove to be tedious, repetitive and uninspired platforming while the 3D sections get screwed by a horrible camera which fails to follow you properly and won't shift. I fell plenty of times because of the faulty camera. The music feels full and orchestral but there's no stand out tracks ,besides the warped 2D section music. The game promises a moral choice system, you can be evil and erase the baddies and not help people or help people and convert the baddies to goodies. Overall.. it doesn't matter the main ending is still the same. I was kind of expecting Mickey to merge with the big bad of the game and become the evil menace to the Wastleland and rule it with an iron fist., or something a bit darker then the same happy ending that happens. Overall, Epic Mickey is an interesting adventure full of neat little tidbits from Disney's past. But .. it is held back by a poor camera and poor level design.

Red Steel 2, a game which is a sequel only in name to one of the first Wii shooters which got 'meh' reviews. I only briefly played the multiplayer of the first one, so it doesn't really count. Red Steel 2 is a game that feels like it benefited from a longer development cycle. The game has style. No doubts about that. It takes some wild west, mixes it with ninjas, samurai and Japanese lore and throws some steam and cyberpunk in. Story is pretty basic, but there's no complaints about it. You're the last of your kind, learn the secrets of your clan and go for revenge! The story severs as a backbone to take you to different locations, which sadly don't quite leave the Wild West/Japanese style. There's no radical winter level or evergreen forest level. Game play wise Red Steel 2 is the best sword fighter game on the market. The game also has a wonderful shooting aspect to it and the sword and gun play flow seamlessly together. The game feels like it was heavily inspired by Metroid Prime, especially the last chapter 3: Corruption with it's shooting and some puzzles.s Re While Prime 3 had a lot more variety of puzzled Steel 2 does a good job of taking hints on how to make FPS or FPA work on the Nintendo Wii. Red Steel 2 also takes the loading doors from the Prime series as well, but whatever, it works. The game does have a few weak points, some of the missions feel very similar in style. It's usually Get To Point A, but you have to go to Point B and unlock/cut/something to there first. While on the way be on the look out for safes to crack, wanted posters to destroy and random encounters. The game also has several hidden tokens to find and shoot, but doesn't tell you how many there are. There's also no New Game + option where you could start again with all your upgrades, thus making money hunting in the last level completely useless because there's no shops at all. The game also gives you a list of all the moves you've learnt.. but doesn't tell you how to pull them off or gives you a place to practice them. The dojo would have been perfect for this. Overall with an additional 3 weeks (or less!) of development to put those last couple of complaints could have made this game a solid A, but as it is, it's still a solid B, lots of fun, great use of the motion controls and style.

Kirby's Epic Yarn, or Price Fluff's Epic Yarn With A Coat of Kirby, is not a 'Kirby' game. While it does feature the pink puff ball, all of his powers and uniqueness of his games are exchanged for this game. The Kirby characters feel tacted on, forcefully. Epic Yarn feels a lot like Good Feel's previous work, Wario Land: Shake It, You enter the level, get through it, find all the (beads) money you can, find hidden objects, and finish the level and graded. Rather rinse repeat, then boss battle. Unlike Wario Land, where the hidden stages are found inside levels, hidden stages are opened by racking up big money in boss fights. In this game Kirby can not die. He just loses his money when he gets hit or falls off the map. In a way this makes the game easy to beat and no challenge. The real goal is to collect all the hidden objects and get more money, if you feel like it. There's also useless apartment decorating and minigames as well.

As a veteran platform player Mushroom Men was a bit on the easy side for me. While the game does mix it up greatly with the use of the psychic powers the is still pretty short. The style is great, the music is fitting, some of the levels are well designed (a map would have been nice) and the characters were pretty silly and the weapons were cool. You get the sense that this was a fun game to work on. A few things wrong, besides the short length, were that everything you can pick up with your psychic powers feels like a cardboard box. You don't sense the weight of the heavier objects. The camera was pretty finicky, which most 3D platformers also suffer from. A lock on targeting system would be have awesome for this game. Level lay out can be confusing at times as well. Sometimes there so much detail in a level you just get lost trying to find the next platform to jump to. Overall, a fun short game, great for a rental or for cheap in the discount bins. Older gamers may find it too easy, but it's whatever. Support the independent guys.

Dragon Quest Swords is a combination of RPG and First Person Light Gun Shooter. As bizarre as that sounds it actually works to some degree. The RPG aspect is pretty simple. You buy your weapons and armor, you level up by beating monsters, buy potions, etc. The light gun shooter aspect of the game is you select where you aim your sword and slash away at the evil doods. Sadly putting the two together means they both must suffer. The RPG aspect feels extremely light and the story feels clichà , there's only a handful of levels to go to and there's no real power ups you expect from a light gun shooter. But the game does manage to make do with what it has and if you can get pass the awkward control scheme at the beginning (D pad to move in a 3D space?!) then you should be fine. If you want a light RPG that will keep you moving, try this one. It should be in the bargain bins everywhere by now..

The Silent Hill franchise has gathered a cult following over the last decade from the series take on psychological and survival horror games, the newer installments have been meet with oh hum reviews. Silent Hill: **** Memories is the first installment of the Silent Hill franchise on a Nintendo console and a reimagining of the first game in the series. This being my only gaming experience with the franchise (I have seen the movie, one of my favorite video game based movies), Silent Hill: **** Memories is the best horror game I've played since Resident Evil 4. During the game there's 2 different perspectives: the first is a psychological therapy session with a pretty blunt psychologist which has you fill out a few.. tests. The other part of the game has you in control of Harry Mason who wakes up from a car crash and is searching for his daughter during a cold winter's night in Silent Hill. Harry's mission takes him all over the town while the tests from the therapy session alter the town in slight ways. The therapy sessions are short, so you spend most of your time as Harry. **** Memories plays a lot like an adventure game (such as Hotel Dusk or Myst), you go around the town and search for keys when you hit a locked door. Thankfully the keys are never far to find, no expansive backtracking like in Metroid games. During times in the game the world shifts from normal to a frozen nightmare with creatures that look like meat skeletons that will chase you down. Harry's only option is to run and this creates some of the most intense chases I've played in recent times. Climax Studios, developer of the game, clearly made this game for the Wii. While a PS2 and PSP version are available the Wii version seems to be tailored made for the flash light controls. Controls in general are extremely well done. Climax clearly learnt a lot from their previous Wii title Overlord: Dark Legend and Silent Hill: **** Memories controls better, looks better and sounds better. That being said, the game has a few faults to it. The game is very liner, only one way to go. During the chase sequences you will end up running in circles a couple of times because it's too dangerous to stop, whip out your in game phone and check the map to see the next goal. Minor really, but the game does an amazing job at crafting a wonderful and creepy experience and will have you excited all the way to the end credits when your psychological evaluation is given.. I will be looking forward to the next Silent Hill game to grace a Nintendo console.