Wing Island

Being an early adopter of new items, I’ve learned that this is what you get.  Wing Island is a game that should have been stalled in favor of a few months extra development and rebranding as Pilotwings.  Wing Island involves flying, and there ends the similarities to the Mode 7 demo turned classic.

How do you control an airplane with Wiimote?  Well, just like you used to play with the plastic remote-controlled airplanes when you where a kid, only with a few more subtle movements.  Hold the Wiimote in front of you and tilt it up and down, left and right, to fly in the desired direction.  The controls actually work quite nicely.  You can do special maneuvers as well by jerking the Wiimote around.

Every now and then you need backup, especially when fighting forest fires.  Sorry, no actual fighting here, these birds are all friendly (unless it’s 3am in the local pub, then they can be quite hostile).  Call out the squadron and have them follow you in various formations.  Some of them are easily maneuvered while others are clunky but good for popping balloons since they hog the airspace.  Yes, popping balloons, there are plenty of weird/fun/strained missions and challenges in this game.

That being said, don’t for once think that you’ll be having trouble beating this title.  Wing Island is very accessible and forgiving.  When you’ve gotten the hang of the controls (by that I mean handling the entire squadron rather than just your own airplane), you’ll literally fly right through this one.  You will pick up planes on the way and see more of the bird world as you go.  It is nice, but it isn’t exciting.  It never gets exciting actually.  Wing Island is bibiibibbiiibbibiiibii, which is birdish for “get me another drink first” and which also means you really should consider if you want this game before committing your wallet.

If you do get Wing Island you’ll get a cute and cozy airplane game with birds and crappy graphics.  Pilotwings was great, that was why it moved from Mode 7 tech demo to a Super NES classic.  I can’t really say the same for Wing Island.

Joytech Power Station

Wireless controllers have their ups and downs. The fact that you’re not messing with nasty cords is of course a true upside to this new trend in gaming, but battery costs certainly create a negative side. In the past I jumped the Wavebird train, only to regret it when the Xbox 360 arrived. Having a wireless controller totally and utterly rocks, and my home is now slowly turning into a haze of wireless signals (wifi and whatnot) that will probably give me brain cancer and kids with twelve toes someday. However, that’s something I’m willing to take if it eliminates the cords. Read more

Retro Sucks!

I hate retro compilations. That might come as a surprise to you, dear Game Publisher, since I’m what you would call an early adopter, a gamerdad (although I don’t have kids). Plain and simple, I am someone who’s seriously been around since the ‘80s. Read more

Night of the Living X’s

“Shamus is the scariest game in the world,” I used to tell my friends.

That was back in the day, the day being the early ‘80s. Back when my Commodore 64 was just about the hottest machine you could have. At least I thought so. I still don’t know why dad bought it. He was working as a programmer at the time (and still is, doing abstract stuff that I can’t understand). The C64 certainly didn’t pack nearly as much power as the room-sized computers he worked with. Yep, room-sized, as in Wargames-style, old school. Read more

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007

A golf game for the Wii sounds all nice and dandy, right? Grab the wiimote like you would a golf club and just swing it to hit the ball. It’s an almost ideal match! EA must have thought so when they released a Wii version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007. Read more

Kororinpa

Kororinpa is a cute labyrinth game where you roll your ball from start to finish. That’s done by tilting the Wiimote, which in turn tilts the labyrinth, sort of like how Super Monkey Ball works, but all the way. Depending on what ball you have, it will be more or less difficult, since some balls are bouncy, others roll really fast while others are slow. Some are actually just cute and makes silly sounds. You have to respect that, right? Read more

Magical Starsign

Brownie Brown was going to be the game developer that secured RPG greatness for Nintendo DS. Back then we didn’t know that the love affair between Square Enix and Nintendo would bubble up again, or what kind of success the DS would become. However,we do now, and I realize that Magical Starsign is a wee bit late. Not that it isn’t a good game, we’re talking traditional Japanese RPG in all its glory here, but it would have felt a lot more powerful if they had released it earlier in the DS life cycle. Read more

Excite Truck

I’m a sucker for arcade games. That’s not because I grew up in an arcade, in fact the closest thing to one was a bathing house that packed a couple of pinball machines, a crappy SNK Multicart cabinet and Cruisin’ USA, and I wasn’t all that young then either. No, my fascination for these straight forward games is connected to the fact that I’m an old school gamer. I’ve spent my time loading games on tapes for my C64, and I’ve got 150 or so NES games still in my collection. That’s quite a feat since I sold off most of my stuff over time to afford my system upgrades. I was a poor child. I’m making up for this as an adult, so no worries there. Read more

Star Fox Command

I absolutely loved Star Fox (named Starwing in Europe) when it came out for the Super NES. I have no idea how many times I’ve completed it, but believe me it’s a high number. Lylat Wars for the N64 is probably a better game, but pink nostalgic fog is a powerful force. Read more

Children of Mana

Square has made me uninterested in the Mana series. The lack of a decent successor to the classic, Secret of Mana, made it clear to me that they just didn’t care about anything other than Final Fantasy. Now, being Square Enix and all, not much has changed. Read more

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