The motion controls for the Wii version were sufficient, but were lacking in the nuance it was hoped that the Wii remote would usher in, while the game’s design rested a little too much on the familiar Zelda structure. There were many calls for the franchise to get a shake-up, one that was heeded by producer Eiji Aonuma when, prior to E3 2010 he told journalists: “It is something we used to talk about with Mr. Miyamoto, and he and I agree that if we are following the same structure again and again, we might not be able to give longtime Zelda fans a fresh surprise. So we have been trying something new in terms of the structure of the Wii version of the new Zelda game this time. I am really hopeful that people will be surprised with the changes we have implemented for this Wii version.” Aonuma’s gamble has paid off spectacularly, as Skyward Sword feels like such a fresh and revitalized experience that it’s hard to believe that this is a series celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year.

Such is the quality, breadth and depth of The Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword, a different review-approach seemed like an excellent idea, so rather than dissect the game is the usual way, I’d like to give you flavour of my experiences. To mark the release of Skyward Sword I documented my first 24-hours with the game in a liveblog over at Moon Witch Cartridge, my gaming blog. Starting at 7:00am on launch day (November 18th), the intention was to play for a full 24-hours, finishing up at 7:00am the following day. While it’s something I would never recommend to anyone – I spent the subsequent days in a dazed stupor somewhat akin to a really bad hangover – it was a memorable way of experiencing this supposed ‘new’ Zelda format. The great irony is that the radical changes in Skyward Sword only unveil themselves a bit later in the game – the first third at least is an acknowledgment of classic Zelda’s of the past, albeit an emphasis on convention livened by the excellent MotionPlus-enhanced controls.

The second irony is that it’s taken what looks likely to be the last significant Nintendo-published Wii game to really show how motion controls could be used to create a richer, more involving game. The subtlety of the mapping, the ability to change your style of swordplay with such natural movement, is the single biggest change to the Zelda gameplay; it’s a transformative addition that makes what was already a beautiful, impossibly refined game a generation-defining one. Here follows the highlights of my 24-hour marathon. Entering a new Zelda universe is one of the great gaming traditions, and hopefully these excerpts carry across the wonder and period of adaptation that such a foray brings. There may of course be spoilers.

07:00am - About to turn the Wii on…

07:11am – Exciting huh? I’m staring at the disc start screen, listening to the swishing sounds of the sky.

07:22am – “A legend that will be forged by your own hands” is the last line of the dramatic pre-title intro. The characters are depicted by nightmarish ink stains that appear to soak into the screen. It sets up the game superbly.

07:43am – So I’ve just spent the last fifteen minutes exploring the Knight Academy, where the game begins. A few ceremonial Zelda moments have already been ticked off: found a blue rupee in Link’s wardrobe, and rolled into some vases and promptly smashed them. I also helped Fledge, a fellow classmate, carry a barrel into the nearby kitchen. The old lady was very grateful, until I started to pick up and smash her china, at which point she called me “a little brat”. I suppose it was a bit unnecessary. The controls so far are excellent. Z centres the camera behind Link instantly, while pressing 2 at anytime will show you the various interactions available to Link at that particular time.

07:54am – Still exploring the Knight Academy. Found Zelda’s bedroom on the floor above Link’s, but unfortunately it’s locked. Still, that’s a delightful twist on the traditional series convention.

08:52am - First meeting between Link and Zelda. I’m not the best reader of body language, but I think they fancy each other. Link is about to enter the Wing Ceremony, but his Loftwing bird has gone missing. In a dramatic moment Zelda throws Link from the edge of Skyloft, only to dive down and rescue him when it’s clear that Link’s rare Crimson Loftwing won’t be coming to save him. Now Link has to try and get the race delayed so he can find his missing bird, win the race and get the girl. Or something.

09:56am – First treasure chest and that sound effect! And inside is a practice sword. Time for some sparring…

10:25am – Zelda has just mentioned that she wonders what is below the clouds of Skyloft, and how she is convinced that there is a world even bigger than the one they live in at the moment. She may well be right. Apparently the Loftwings won’t travel under the clouds though. Oh and we’ve rescued Link’s Crimson Loftwing after venturing into a dank cave. The sword controls are great, but I’m looking forward to putting them to use against a combative enemy. But they’re intuitive and responsive; thanks to MotionPlus there’s a grace to movement that was perhaps lacking in Twilight Princess.

11:05am - Shit just got real.

12:33pm – I was just about to come on here to complain about the cluttered interface when out pops Fi again to tell me that, now I’ve got used to the controls, I can clear some of the unnecessary information on-screen. There are three stages of interface design: Pro, Light and Standard. You start the game with the silhouette of the remote and nunchuk at either corners of the screen (Standard), but thankfully I’m now playing on Pro, with just the classic hearts and rupee counter in the top left. I am clearly a pro.

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Almost six years in the making, HAL Laboratory’s latest treatment of their most iconic character (Epic Yarn, released earlier this year, was a co-production with Good-Feel) is, as the North American title of the game may suggest, a Return To Dream Land. It’s a return to both the classic Kirby feel and design – a 2D platformer, in which the central mechanic remains the power to inhale enemies and, as is often the case, absorb and copy their abilities. These copy abilities are as ever the star of the show, and for the initial hours of play there’s great fun in discovering the latest new power, and the different ways in which they can be used to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting denizens of planet Popstar.

Needle, for example, leaves Kirby looking like an extra from Apocalypto, all vicious spikes and melee attacks, while the sword ability dresses our pink friend in a green Link-style hat. It’s a cute nod to other videogames that is also reflected in the fighter power, which all but turns Kirby into Ryu, replete with dragon punches and fetching bandana. These abilities aren’t all as gratifying to use as the examples above, and once the period of finding new powers finishes it’s likely that you’ll settle on a trusty select few for the majority of your playtime. There’s a great deal of wit in evidence here (see the various poses that Kirby pulls using the stone ability for a good example), with this emphasis on vibrant personality working in tandem with the bold, clean visuals.

Although copy abilities remain the focus of Kirby’s Adventure Wii, the biggest advancement is in the addition of four-player co-operative play. This runs on an instant drop in/drop out system, and pushes the game closer, as an experience, to the knockabout chaos of Super Smash Bros compared to the relatively sedate platform game that the single-player is. There are three other classic Kirby characters for the other players to choose from – Meta Knight, King Dedede and Waddle Dee – but they lack the copy ability power of Kirby. To compensate there is the opportunity for every player to control a Kirby, of varying colours, but by balancing out the character selection in this way the game loses a sense of camaraderie that exists when only one Kirby runs the line, frequently taking control of progress within a level.

That’s not to say it’s all harmonious; one of the highlights is the way Kirby can inhale the other players and fire them at enemies, an interference in their play second only in the hilarity stakes to the way that, in the similar New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you could pick up and throw your friends from the level (one such moment earned me a painful punch on the arm from my girlfriend at the time). With multiple players Kirby’s Adventure Wii is knockabout fun. There’s also no tangible effect on the difficulty, with the extra firepower compensated for by busier activity on-screen.

As is traditional with the Kirby series, Adventure isn’t at all tough, but this serene pace of play is balanced with a successful emphasis on exploration and collectables. Each level has a varying number of energy spheres scattered around, with certain totals opening up various challenge rooms and mini-games. Although it would be possible to race through each stage of Adventure in a small number of hours, to do so would miss the point of HAL’s level design, in which each power comes into play to solve spatial puzzles and reach previously hidden spheres.

There are also several alternative boss stages hidden on a number of stages, in which the normal day-glo world is replaced with a monochrome palette, and sees Kirby needing to escape a scrolling wall of purple which is bad news if touched. While these sections aren’t all that tricky either, they do at least provide a welcome change of style. The various challenges are also decent distractions, although the two mini-games (one a ninja-star throwing contest, the other a robot shooting gallery) will quickly pall. It’s also worth pointing out that the music is frequently amazing.

Although Kirby’s Adventure Wii lacks the dazzling visual inventiveness of Epic Yarn, its chunky, vibrant look is never less than charming, and is complimented by a style of play that eschews challenge for a subtly enveloping comfort blanket of Nintendo delight. After all, it’s hard to overstate the destructive pleasure that comes with wrecking an uber-cute 2D world armed with merely a screen-sized katana, in control of a gluttonous, break-dancing pink bag of air.

Based on the front cover alone you would be forgiven for curiously picking Disney Universe up from the store shelf and expecting a budget version of LittleBigPlanet. In reality, everything from the camera and focus on collectible tokens to the simple one-button combat evokes thoughts of the Lego video game franchise. You might be disappointed to learn that you never actually play as your favourite characters at all, but rather only dress up as them. This goes for certain villainous appearances as well, though we won’t spoil it here by dropping names. The reason for this – whether you buy it as a good excuse or not – is that Disney Universe is actually a tourist attraction that has gone the way of Westworld, with the park’s robots turning against its guests. Your job is to free these guests and restore peace to the land of entertainment; everything is as cutesy as expected, bringing a light-hearted and typically ‘Disney’ touch to the proceedings.

While it’s disappointing that no characters are actually featured, Disney Universe makes up for this failing through solid use of its themed worlds. Unfortunately, the Pirates of the Caribbean world – the very first one you’ll play through in the game – is by far the least interesting and fails to engage with a strong first impression. Beyond this, the worlds are made up of three areas, each featuring three stages and a welcome dose of variety; some highlights include a spell through Wonderland and The Lion King’s elephant graveyard. There are graphical touches that make each world unique, though you could never go so far as to call any of this ambitious – the game is artistically sound and bright, vivid colours give life to a world that kids won’t want to ignore. In most cases however, it’s the recognisable backdrops that will please Disney fans the most.

Each stage plays out in a similar yet slightly different manner. One moment you might have to use cannons to blast away at a mermaid to collect tears, and soon you may have to throw water bombs onto seeds to make them grow, allowing access to higher areas. Disney Universe has many of these deviations that afford the game play some variety, and while the creativity in this regard is impressive, levels can still feel like a bit of a slog as you make your way to the exit. The biggest issue comes in the form of the enemies; be it the standard grunt, the common brute or the occasional spawner (which shoots enemies at you), the range of foes just won’t impress in any way. Instead, these encounters irritate and become predictable very quickly, slowing things down just as you’re making solid progress within a stage. Boss fights change between each world and do become quite challenging, though it’s worth mentioning that there is little penalty for death, affecting only your end score and losing you a handful of tokens.

It’s these tokens that make up the crux of the game. With an abundance of collectibles filling each stage (literally in every corner and inside every breakable object) it soon becomes clear that racking up a large amount of these ‘Mickey Mouse ears’ actually takes precedence over reaching the end gate. The developers want you to search out as many of these as possible and try to reward you for doing so, translating as currency to open worlds and unlock new costumes. If concept art is your thing (that typical ‘go-to’ unlockable that no one ever cares about), then each stage plays host to three special items that alter in appearance depending on the level’s theme. Whatever you think of the items you obtain, there’s enough on offer to keep prospective treasure hunters occupied.

Part of the selling point is in the fact that you need not venture alone, with up to four players supported for local play – no online modes have been included. Co-operation is king here, but the game encourages a certain degree of competitive behaviour, as you’re so often reminded during loading screens. The game can easily be completed without the aid of another, but as it’s been designed for multiple people in the room it’s likely that a few chuckles will be earned should other players enter the fray. This is an easy going, inoffensive game so it makes perfect sense that kids would want to experience it with a buddy or two, and this may even go some way to alleviate the repetitive ‘whack whack whack’ nature of the combat.

It can be hard to reach a fair score considering that the game is aimed squarely at a much younger target audience, but there’s no denying that Disney Universe holds its fair share of charm and harmless joys. The music – particularly that of the main menu – is unashamedly funky, as are the remixes of classic Disney tunes, although these can be almost unrecognisable at times. Fans of the Disney films will no doubt be disappointed that you’re suiting up rather than playing as the famous cast members themselves, so you’re advised not to invest too much in the brand name here. This is a simple, welcoming escapade that can (and probably should) be ignored by the vast majority of adult gamers this holiday season. Those with children or younger siblings however, would do rather well by giving this a look.

The reason for this is as follows: We Sing: UK Hits is, to all intents and purposes, the exact same game as We Sing: Encore – a title that we reviewed in that we covered in August 2010. While we in no way wish to diminish the hard work that Nordic Games have put into crafting this latest addition to the We Sing family, there really isn’t much more we can say about the series that hasn’t all ready been said. Therefore, do not consider this a review; it’s more of an addendum to our original coverage in which we gave the game 3.5 stars out of 5 and praised its delivery of a well rounded package that did a good job of catering for the Wii’s audience.

It seems sensible for We Sing to shift its attention more directly to the UK, as it is in the UK that the game enjoys greatest success. Fortunately, the UK has long been churning out music of extremely high quality, giving UK Hits an enviable pool of tracks from which to draw, and the eclectic selection of songs included is actually rather nice. Rather than skim over this (and highlight our own personal favourites), the track list can be found in full below.

Unsurprisingly, Nordic Games have yet again taken the ‘something for everybody’ approach, but (as is always the case with karaoke titles) how tempted you are by the track list is dependent on personal preference. That being said, there are a lot of classic tracks on show here that should make the title ideal Christmas Party fodder.

So…with We Sing: UK Hits, the series has retained it 3.5/5 score – it will be interesting to see if it can up the stakes in its future releases.

1 Adele – Chasing Pavements
2 Amy Winehouse – Rehab
3 The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun
4 Bananarama – Venus
5 The Beautiful South – A Little Time
6 Blur – Girls and Boys
7 Bucks Fizz – Making Your Mind Up
8 Coldplay – Speed of Sound
9 David Bowie – Let’s Dance
10 Dido – White Flag
11 Dusty Springfield – Son Of A Preacher Man
12 East 17 – Stay Another Day
13 Eliza Doolittle – Pack Up
14 Elton John – Candle In The Wind
15 Example – Kickstarts
16 Florence + The Machine – You’ve Got The Love
17 Gabrielle – Dreams
18 Happy Mondays – Step On
19 James Blunt – You’re Beautiful
20 Jay Sean feat. Lil Wayne – Down
21 Jessie J – Do It Like A Dude
22 Kim Wilde – Kids in America
23 Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
24 Lulu & The Luvvers – Shout
25 Madness – It Must Be Love
26 McFly – 5 Colours In Her Hair
27 Plan B – She Said
28 Pulp – Common People
29 Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now
30 Queen & David Bowie – Under Pressure
31 Radiohead – Creep
32 Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
33 The Saturdays – Missing You
34 Spice Girls – Who Do You Think You Are
35 Sugababes – Push The Button
36 Texas – I Don’t Want A Lover
37 Tinchy Stryder Ft. N-Dubz -Number 1
38 The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name
39 Tinie Tempah – Pass Out
40 Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

Dance games have long been with us, first dominating the arcades with the likes of Dance Dance Revolution before migrating to living rooms across the world with the advent of the dance mat. In recent years, the massive popularity of the Nintendo Wii has given the genre a new lease of life, since the diminutive white console set up shop and beckoned every member of the family to get involved. Ubisoft’s Just Dance proved just how powerful combining a family friendly console with a bit of toe-tapping/moonwalking could be and has sold 4.3 million copies, becoming the publisher’s biggest selling Wii title to date.

While the Wii may well have become the home of party-based videogaming, the dance game genre has moved on, with the recent Kinect-focused Dance Central moving away from dance mats and Wiimote waggling to embrace full-body motion tracking; while Just Dance made good use of the Wiimotes it lacked any way of tracking your feet. We Dance’s decision to go back to the good old dance mat does seem slightly anachronistic, it makes sense given the Wii’s limitations and feels like a natural addition to the concepts laid down by Let’s Dance.

The Star Mat that comes supplied with the game doesn’t really contain any surprises. Mapped out on its surface are eight directional arrows as well as foot-pads for the a, b, + and – functions of the Wii remote. The device connects to the Wii via the Gamecube ports with a lead that will be more than long enough for most living rooms. Unfortunately, we found the underside of the mat a little slippery, which caused it to slide about somewhat on the laminate floor on which we were testing it. Overall though, it does what is required of it perfectly well and feels robust enough to take a pounding from the dancing feet that will inevitably grace it.

Similarly unsurprising is the game itself. Without technological gimmickry with which to wow the gamer, We Dance feels at once instantly familiar and, dare we say it, a little unexciting. Nordic Games have opted for clean and colourful presentation, with in-game dancers that are depicted as silhouettes and distinguishable only by their neon hot-pants, t-shirts, hoodies and leg warmers. The reasoning behind this may be sound – their anonymous nature does make it easier to project yourself onto them – they do also feel a little on the bland side. Dance games are all about the music, your moves and how they are interpreted, but We Dance could have benefitted from a little more visual flair and character.

It seems slightly ironic that in contrast to the game’s uncluttered presentation, its mechanics are a little clunky. At its simplest, players can just copy the on-screen movements of the dancer, paying little attention to the other cues that are thrown at you. To achieve the highest scores however, players opting to play the game on the hard mode – which utilises two Wiimotes (or one Wiimote and nun-chuck) and the dance mat – must keep track of on-screens prompts that instruct you where to put you feet and how to move your arms. For your feet, coloured arrows flash across a small box mirroring the layout of the dance mat. Scrolling across the centre of the screen are stick-figures illustrating how you should be waving your arms. Keeping track of these two feeds while also paying attention to the music and the moves of the dancer can be difficult, and quite unintuitive. It’s a ‘rub your belly while patting your head’ type of scenario. An easy mode (Wiimotes only) and Medium modes (feet only) are also available.

As well as being a little clunky, there is also something of a disconnect between your performance and how the game feeds-back on how well you are doing. Unlike something like Singstar – which awards perfect pitch performances with a shower of stars – We Dance makes do with a score innocuously situated down in the bottom right hand corner of the screen that gradually increases as you shake your rump. Again, this reflects the minimalism of the aesthetics, but it doesn’t do a very good job of connecting your moves with game. As you become more familiar with the set-up – and grasp the significance of the score (i.e. what is a good score!) – this is alleviated somewhat, but we can’t help but think that a little more attention should have been paid to an element that is so core to this type of game. At the end of each round, a grade is assigned to you, but this is a little too late.

Though We Dance does fall short in many aspects, it is a fairly impressive package in terms of the amount of music included, modes of play and additional functionality. As well as supporting four dancers at a time (with four Star Mats, should you wish to splash out on the required kit), you can also download new songs and new dance moves. This latter feature is something of a must in this day and age, and should help give the game longevity. Also included is ‘Dance TV’, which lets you watch the included music videos at your leisure. Dance School gives players a chance to brush up on their moves and learn the songs before entering the game proper.

The catalogue of music included in the game is nice and diverse, though it could have done with including a few more recent chart toppers. Forty tracks are featured in all, encompassing artists such as Basement Jaxx, Jive Bunny, Survivor, Village People, Donna Summer, Gypsy Kings, OutKast and more, and do a reasonable job of providing something for everybody. Younger players with a keen eye on the current pop-charts will be left disappointed however.

Despite its short-comings, We Dance is a nice enough little package, and one that is more than capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with it’s main competition – namely Just Dance. It’s far from ground breaking, but does just about enough to appeal to its target audience while offering plenty of scope for expansion. What is disappointing, however, is the lack of refinement seen in the on-screen action. Dancing is all about freedom of movement, letting go of your inhibitions and self-consciousness; it’s not about attempting to decipher clunky on-screen cues. So, while We Dance gets the job done and (with enough people in the room) is a lot of fun, it’s not quite the life and soul of the party.

Chief of Marketing and Sales Officer at Ubisoft, Geoffroy Sardin had this to say on the title:

“The Driver franchise has always been defined by the excitement of high speed chases and the freedom to drive anywhere in huge cities. Playing Driver San Francisco is the best way to reveal this unique Driver feeling and we are thrilled gamers will be able to get a taste of why we are so excited about Driver San Francisco’s release in September.”

The single-player demo will feature 3 exhilarating missions in the iconic city of San Francisco:

· Team Colours – Shift between your cars to finish 1st & 2nd in a race
· Escapist – Escape the police with your VIP passenger
· Prove It – Execute stunts and tricks and a cop chase

To give you a flavor of what’s in store, here’s the latest trailer:

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 demo of Driver San Francisco will appear on Xbox LIVE® and PlayStation® Network for download beginning on August 10th, 2011.

Driver San Francisco will ship in the UK on September 2nd, 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii™. For more information go to http://www.driver-game.com.

Last year’s Toy Story 3 tie-in was notable in that it was the first Pixar videogame in a long time that effectively captured the essence of its source material. Cars 2 follows in this tradition, albeit with the understandable restriction that a film about racing cars was only ever going to turn into one particular type of videogame. Yep, that’s right – Cars 2 is an existential journey akin to Flower. Only kidding, it’s a racing game built from some decent sources of inspiration.

The bulk of the game takes place in the CHROME mission mode, a series of tiered events in which experience points are quickly accrued, leading to the unlocking of further modes and tracks. It does a good job at throwing a succession of varied game types at the player, from standard races to various styles of battle racing, which prove to be the highlights of Cars 2. Handling is responsive, tidy and is accessibly arcade-like; those looking for intricacy in their racing experience will obviously be in the wrong place here, but it’s also just as easy for developers to mis-judge issues of sensitivity and spoil what should be a breezy game, which thankfully isn’t the case here.

Although pure races do have their share of distractions in the form of alternate track routes and jumps (from which you can pull showboating tricks with the use of the right stick), it’s in the different battle modes that Cars 2 really starts to reflect the manic franchise upon which it’s based. Battle Races are like a normal race but with the added bonus of weapons, collected by driving over the power-ups dotted around the track – the weapons don’t have the variety of imagination as a Mario Kart, but it’s undeniably fun. Attack is an addictive high-score run in which extra time is added to the clock for every successful hit, while Hunter is a sporadic arena battle in which waves of enemies need to be successfully defeated.

Of all the recent games that Cars 2 reminds us of, it’s probably Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing that is the closest comparison. Sega’s game may be the more polished experience, but Avalanche Software (who were also behind last year’s aforementioned Toy Story 3 game) have done a good job with the license, and the entire package ends up being fairly substantial. Although the myriad amount of crests available to unlock, for such feats as driving a total of 250km, appeals to this OCD-happy writer, of more interest to younger gamers will be a garage which includes all the familiar characters (and many new ones), for them to pore over in a sort of pre-school version of Forza. There’s also a strong influence from last year’s sensational Split Second: Velocity, in terms of the boost-collecting mechanic and certain on-track set-pieces (a plane landing on the track anyone?). Split Second’s developer were of course also under the Disney Interactive Studios umbrella before their untimely demise, but whether there was overlap in development staff is one for the file marked ‘speculation’.

Overall then Cars 2 is a loveable excursion into the world of Pixar. Built with all the efficiency and character that you’d expect from the movie studio’s cinema work, it demonstrates that what may not work so well as a film (unless of course you are six, in which case Cars is the best thing ever) does just fine in the style of a knockabout children’s action racer. Grown ups can play as well.

Mario Kart 3DS

Though Mario Kart‘s classic status is well earned, it hasn’t necessarily had the smoothest of rides; after the first two primarily racing-focussed instalments, purists gasped as Double-Dash squeezed two drivers into a single kart and sighed as Mario Kart Wii saw the series move even deeper into family-friendly territory. The latter proved particularly irksome, with extremely generous (or, annoying) rubber-banding doing much to diminish the importance of driving skill while raising the prominence of the dreaded blue shell.

It was with a certain degree of trepidation then that we approached Mario Kart 3DS – would this be the game to take the series back to its racing roots, or would it mark further adventures into the realm of gimmickry? Thankfully, from the three tracks played, Mario Kart 3DS looks like it may mark the point that the series manages to bring together all its past successes. Most importantly the racing felt very solid bringing the wonderful Mariokart DS to mind, and track design was also strong, with satisfying cornering, and split-route designs that looked likely to serve up the knock-about multiplayer thrills and obsessive time-trialling that fans know and love.

The gimmicks this time around come in the form of customisable karts, hang-gliders that pop out of the back of your kart at specific points during the game and underwater sections. The gliders worked surprisingly well, and for our money is certainly preferable to the ‘hands-off’ jumps and tunnels of previous games that arguably interrupted the experience. Controlling much like the hang-glider in Pilot Wings, mastering the controls for the airborne sections will no-doubt be vital to grabbing the chequered flag. The underwater sections added an interesting dynamic in that it makes it incredibly difficult – or impossible even – to powerslide.

Overall, Mario Kart 3DS is looking to be making the right moves; Nintendo have taken on past criticisms and honed what works well while further expanding the game’s horizons. With the promise of classic tracks and a range of new locales, Mario Kart 3DS is definitely high on our 3DS wish list.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

It takes a very cold-hearted gamer to not feel at least a small bit of anticipation at getting their hands on a brand new Legend of Zelda game, but there’s little denying that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is facing slightly more of an uphill struggle than previous instalments in this much loved series. For starters, it’s coming out in the twilight years of a console that was already comparatively underpowered when it launched over four years ago. Secondly, its use of Wii Motion Plus – a horrifically underused peripheral – does smack slightly of Nintendo scrabbling to justify the device’s existence.

Hands-on time with Skyward Sword didn’t do a huge amount to dispel these two concerns (the graphics, though expectedly polished and almost Disney-esque, are showing the Wii’s age, and the extra accuracy offered by Wii Motion Plus wasn’t entirely convincing), but it still managed to retain that old Zelda magic. The series has always thrived in exploring the tension between the comfortably familiar and the power of the unknown, and so it is with Skyward Sword. Though the disparate nature of the demo we played made it difficult to get a strong contextual perspective of the overarching plot, the game’s sky-based setting is certainly intriguing.

The demo was split into three sections – a dungeon, a boss fight and air-based pursuit/race. The former was fairly standard Zelda-fare with the added twist of a controllable flying beetle that Link could unleash to hunt down rupees and other hidden treasures and spiders that had to be slashed at certain angles in order to force them to reveal their weak-spot. Similarly, the (surprisingly difficult) boss fight required you to slash in certain angles in order to prevent the pallid-skinned foe from clasping your sword between his fingers, kung-fu style. The biggest disappointment in both these sections was that the swordplay didn’t feel like a huge step on from The Twilight Princess, and definitely felt some way off the 1:1 control long promised by Wii Motion Plus.

Where the game really came to life was in the airborne section. In a scene not dissimilar to that featured in James Cameron’s Avatar, Link leaps off the side of sky-city and free-falls for a short spell before landing plumb on the back of a giant bird. What follows can be best described as Pilotwings-meets-Zelda-meets-Quidditch. Tilting the Wii remote to control your airborne-steed, Link’s goal was to hunt down a golden bird and grab hold of it. Visually, the feeling of swooping through the clouds was convincing, and the wings of your bird ruffled pleasingly in the wind. Though very much a mini-game, the possibility of a sky-based Hyrule Field is an intriguing one and we’re interested to see how this mechanic is further explored when the game finally lands towards the end of the year.

Super Mario

As with Mariokart 3DS, with Super Mario on the 3DS it appears that Nintendo has focussed on taking all the best bits from previous Mario’s and wrapping them up in a single package. To this end, the game occupies the middle-ground between the explosion of concepts that was Super Mario Galaxy and the more traditional New Super Mario Bros.

The four levels available in the demo gave a nice taster of what the full game will have to offer and for the most part it worked well; it feels compact – dinky even – with level and visual design that helps emphasise the feeling of peering through the front-pane of the 3DS screen into the world that lies beyond. The effect is somewhat understated, and the pace of play a little more pedestrian than Mario Galaxy, but it merges the play-styles of Mario’s 2D and 3D adventures impressively well, making use of the benefits that three-dimensions bring while retaining the satisfaction that comes with the precision platforming afforded by two-dimensional play.

The much loved Tanooki (or, racoon) suit makes a return and performs much as you remember it from Super Mario Brothers 3 but in three-dimensional space. In fact, the game’s penchant for riffing on past Mario titles while introducing new concepts (such as toying with depth-perception with 2D, cardboard cut-out Goombas!) suggests that by drilling into Mario lore, Nintendo can find a whole new universe just as it did by exploding the series outwards to the stars with Super Mario Galaxy. While those hoping for a portable Super Mario Galaxy may well be a little disappointed with Super Mario, no one knows their way around a Mario platformer like Nintendo, and the steps taken here are looking as assured as ever.

Make sure you come back for our third and final instalment in which we go hands on with Kid Icarus Uprising, Resident Evil Revalations and Sonic Generations on the 3DS.

Two further exercises in this process complete what is, alongside Kirby’s Epic Yarn, something of a mini-trilogy of Wii 2D platformers. For the seasoned gamer there was the punishing Donkey Kong Country Returns, and for the retro twist there was New Super Mario Bros Wii. Kirby’s Epic Yarn, then, is the aesthetes’ choice – embracing a boldly wonderful visual design and (arguably) an even bolder gameplay mechanic. It’s adorable look and extreme accessibility reflect what is often derided by non-converts as the Wii’s innate childishness, when in fact Epic Yarn is another notable Nintendo success: playful, joyous and lovingly childlike in feel.

The patchwork aesthetic is explained in the game’s storybook-style opening. Kirby finds himself in Patch Land, which has been ripped apart by evil forces (his first line upon landing on the unfamiliar terrain is the hilarious “It feels like…trousers!”); Kirby must traverse the game finding magic yarn, so that Patch Land’s various worlds can be stitched back together. Although Kirby is to all intents and purposes made of air in Patch Land, and therefore unable to inhale foes as per usual, his new thread-based body is able to transform into various shapes with a touch of the d-pad. From turning into a car to dash across levels, to lassoing enemies, Kirby’s movements in Epic Yarn are a delight, and completely in keeping with his character.

The game’s overriding strength isn’t merely that it looks fantastic, which it does, but that the tactility afforded to the developers through the use of thread as a gameplay device is fully exploited to some quite ingenious ends. Each level has buttons to hang onto, zips to pull across, cloth to fold over so that jumps are suddenly smaller…the pleasure from Epic Yarn isn’t derived from merely progressing through the game, but from exploring each level, and the manner in which you’re invited to test the very fabric (no pun intended) of everything on-screen. It would be going a little far to say that the boundaries of 2D game design are being stretched here, but neither should the modestly clever way HAL/Good-Feel have used game space and platformer convention be overlooked.

It will come as no surprise to anyone with even a passing interest in the Kirby series that Epic Yarn isn’t particularly taxing. It is in fact impossible to die in the game, with any missed jumps or successful enemy attacks being corrected by a quick return to the last point of action. Punishment comes in the form of a loss of beads, the game’s most common collectable; as collectables (which also include bonus items such as music tracks and, er, pieces of furniture) are the main reward Epic Yarn offers the player for the thorough exploration of levels, their loss is a strong incentive to finish the stage carefully. But generally the cuddly exterior isn’t deceptive and there’s no fiendish challenge or devious level design being hidden away for unsuspecting gamers to stumble into.

These collectables link into the game’s wider structure, and it’s here where a few of Epic Yarn’s idiosyncrasies come to the fore. Very early on in the game Kirby is given his own flat in Patch Land(!), which you can decorate with any of the items found throughout the game (there are three unique to each level, including such random features as a frog umbrella stand and a chandelier). The landlord then starts asking for more beads from Kirby, which slowly expands the number of flats available. These flats become occupied when the correct pieces of furniture are found, with the subsequent inhabitants offering passage into such bonus modes as time-trials and mini-games. Arranging Kirby’s flat can get strangely absorbing, providing a weird Animal Crossing-esque distraction from the main game. Other weird – yet brilliant – things in Epic Yarn include: the sweet couple sitting under a tree that you can kill, the cowering enemies (who you can also kill), and the myriad vehicle set-pieces in the game (our highlight being the first world’s tank, which gives way to a lovely lullaby as soon as it ends).

In designing everything around the delightful textiles of Patch Land, co-developers HAL and Good-Feel have ensured that Kirby’s latest and greatest transcends any concerns of style being prioritised over substance – the substance of Epic Yarn is in the style. There are other, equally fine, games for those looking to test their co-ordination, or bathe in the rays of nostalgia. Epic Yarn is a title for the player looking to be reminded what it’s like to have the emotion of curiosity triggered by a videogame. A game cut from the finest Nintendo cloth.

De Blob 2 doesn’t stray far from the template laid out by its predecessor and once again revolves around the dastardly deeds of Comrade Black; a villainous, monocular…er…chap who has an impressively committed hatred of all things chromatic. Crash landing in Prisma City, he sets about draining the colour from the world, leaving our hero, Blob, to set about restoring vibrancy to the stricken land. While this may sound like almost a carbon copy of the plot from the original, Blue Tongue Entertainment introduce a religious element to the proceedings with the introduction of a mysterious priest named Papa Blanc, who is the figure head of a cult of Blancs – bleached zombies that have been hypnotised into sharing Comrade Black’s dislike of colour.

It is almost impossible to discuss De Blob 2 without dwelling on its presentation; De Blob on the Wii to this day remains one of the best looking games on the system and was clearly crying out for a high-definition update. Now that dream has become a reality, we’re happy to report that De Blob 2’s visuals do not disappoint. The city of Prisma itself, whether in its bleached-white form or post-Blob (i.e. awash with all the colours of the rainbow) is lovingly rendered, and the transition from cold, characterless white to a vibrant city ebbing and flowing with life and movement is beautifully presented, and genuinely benefits from its new and improved resolution. The game also retains the vinyl-toy aesthetic that proved so charming in the original and this, coupled with some truly inspired character design and top-tier animation, helps De Blob 2 maintain the series’ position as one of the most visually inspired games on the market. The pre-rendered cutscenes are particularly noteworthy, featuring a rich seam of humour and degree of polish that wouldn’t look out of place on the big screen; Hollywood really should be paying attention!

Taking control of Blob (who, for the uninitiated, can be best described as a space-hopper with attitude) your main objective throughout the game’s levels is to cruise around the world and bring colour back to the washed out environments. At its simplest, this entails rolling Blob into a pool of paint before bouncing and rolling around the environs, which explode into colour on contact with Blob. Further complexity is added by the ability to mix colours (red and yellow becomes orange, for example), mastery of which is important in overcoming certain enemies, using specific switches etc. The core premise can be utterly hypnotic and strangely relaxing – just rocking around Prisma City, painting and nodding your head to the sprightly jazz accompaniment that matches wonderfully with the explosion of colour, is (for a while at least) extremely entertaining even before Blue Tongue Entertainment layer a mission structure on top.

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In celebration of the launch of Kirby’s lastest adventure – Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the Nintendo Wii – on the 25th February, Nintendo will be decking out the London area in ‘a colourful array of knitting to bring the feel-good vibe of Kirby’s Epic Yarn and replace grey with colour’.

The event – which will run on the 24th February 2011 and last for one day only – is fueled by a YouGov poll (commissioned by Nintendo itself) that declared Elephant & Castle ‘the greyest place in the UK’ after the area, beating Kings Cross, the South Bank, Slough, Birmingham and Milton Keynes among others to claim the dubious honor!

Rob Lowe, Senior Marketing Manager for Wii at Nintendo said, “The research found that almost half of us play video games specifically to cheer ourselves up, and with this in mind we’re bringing the happy spirit of our latest game to inject some fun into the greyest area.”

Visitors to Elephant & Castle on February 24th will have the chance to take home a preview copy of the game, with Nintendo giving away 20 free copies. The installation will be created by Knit the City – www.knitthecity.com. Anyone interested in more information on Kirby’s Epic Yarn should visit www.nintendo.co.uk/kirby.

D+PAD is hoping to pop along to see the event for our selves and will endeavor to grab some photos. We won’t be doing any knitting though….

–

UPDATE:

So…we went along to the event and while it wasn’t quite as grand as we were expecting (and Elephant & Castle, for the most part, remained as gray as ever!), the small display did exude the same kind of understated charm for which Kirby’s is famous.

Take a look for yourself in the below:

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Much like Mario’s aforementioned forays into the world of sport, the Mushroom Kingdom’s take on Ice Hockey, Dodgeball, Basketball and Volleyball bears little resemblance to its real-life representation, with personality-based power moves, gold coins and Shy Guy Ice Hockey goaltenders aplenty. With four games for the price of one, are we looking at a Wii Sports-style game changer or a cynical cash-grab for whichever sports Nintendo hasn’t tried its hand?

The truth is somewhere in the middle. With excellent presentation and WiFi support, Sports Mix initially bends over backwards to impress when first booted up. However, once you’ve had your first challenge against the AI, you’ll discover that your computer opponents also have no issues with bending over backwards to appease you too. Sadly, the competitive balance needed to introduce a solid sports singleplayer mode is needlessly hampered by an appalling easy AI.

In Ice Hockey especially bad in this regard, with reaching double figures and not conceding on any occasion becoming the norm, rendering any sense of single player longevity near-impossible. Worse still, the only other incentive to keep at the singleplayer, unlockable Square Enix characters, is also needlessly hampered by the developer’s decision to have players unlock all six secret characters for each sport separately. All that effort for a Moogle?

As for the actual setup of Sports Mix, the title has four sports which are each played in 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3 teams, with four tournaments of three rounds each. As you’d expect, arenas vary from typical professional arenas to Mushroom Kingdom and while the latter don’t feature their own custom-built levels, depending on the sport you choose you can expect unique obstacles.

As for the sports themselves, the aforementioned Ice Hockey is the pick (puck?) of the bunch. Not since the comedy punch-ups of Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey on the Nintendo 64 has there been a truly fast-paced hockey title that doesn’t take itself too seriously and watching Yoshi and Diddy Kong swipe hockey sticks in each other’s vicinity somehow feels right. Unfortunately, unlike the days of Gretzky, Sport Mix’s iteration doesn’t include quasi-fighting sections if two players get in a ruck – a missed opportunity.

Dodgeball also fails to live up to its potential and is nowhere near as fun as you may imagine, partly because Sport Mix tones down the impact of a ball striking a player’s face to undeniably unsatisfactory levels. I’ve waited over ten years to smack Toad in his stupid mushroom face, don’t deny me Nintendo! Sadly the lack of true aiming and a noticeable delay between the strike of a ball and impact lessen the game’s appeal, though there is a fair bit of strategy involved in both dodging opponents and attempting to catch the ball at the same time.

Basketball, considering Square Enix’ previous attempt on the DS, is a comfortable and solid experience, replete with alley-oops and wildly elaborate dunks. As the game that most relies on teamwork and utilising the two or three members of your team, however, it involves a lot more micro-management than any other sport, particularly since passing is completely manual. Too much time is spent cycling through your required teammate or worse, sitting through the animations which follow every point scored. Finally, Volleyball is the most forgettable of the bunch, relying mainly on timing for attack and moving your character into a pre-determined spot for defence. In a post-Kinect Sports world, it’s just not enough.

With a collection of diverting though non-essential sports, your enjoyment of Mario Sport Mix will largely depend on the likelihood of constant multiplayer battles, though admittedly in that respect the title still pales in comparison to Wii Sports Resort and even the original Wii Sports. With a singleplayer crippled by a non-existent challenge and shamelessly padded out for the pursuit of elusive Cactaurs, Mario Sports Mix is likely to become a largely forgotten entry in the already unmemorable catalogue of Mario sport titles.

A WiiWare version of the US iPhone title Spooky Spirits: Puzzle!!, Ghost Mania immediately distances itself from the already overflowing collection of puzzlers on Nintendo’s console with one important factor – it initially proves almost completely counter-intuitive on your first play-through.

A quick first game of Ghost Mania appears self-explanatory. Whizzing past some excellently presented option screens, you choose between one of two characters (we picked a Wizard hat-wearing rascal) and are presented with a welcoming and seemingly familiar colourful puzzle grid. As we quickly swapped around the puzzle blocks before dropping them into the pile of blocks below, we were presented with the prospect of a row four diagonal yellow blocks. We dropped the fateful fourth block, let out a grin and… nothing happened.

That’s because the actual purpose of Ghost Mania is to match blocks with a correspondingly colored ghost block to make connected blocks of that colour disappear. You can build up a fine swarm of green blocks all you like but your hard work means nothing unless a green ghost block is on its way. To further possible slip-ups or hesitations players are only given a limited amount of time to drop the set of blocks before the game itself makes the decision for you.

With time of the essence throughout, one of the biggest flaws of Ghost Mania is its random block generator, which is downright broken at times, causing you to fail levels through no fault of your own as ghost blocks sometimes fail to appear. The key to any great puzzle title is of course the ‘oh alright then, one more go…’ factor, which often stems from human error and the desire to retest your skills. If your failures are down to an increasing string of bad luck that stems from the game’s inherent design – well, suffice to say it’s harder to garner the strength to face the challenge again.

Outside of the title’s aforementioned Arcade mode, Puzzle Mode tasks players to clear all of the blocks on their grid using just a certain number of drops, which is a fairly unique mode in puzzle sphere. Much like the famed ‘Six Clicks to Jesus’ mode from iPhone puzzler Wiki Hunt, stripping away player’s freedom actually leads to interesting, not to mention chin-stroking conundrums. Endless Mode is another delight, as players are free to rack up as high a score as possible. Interestingly, Ghost Mania’s gameplay is at its best when it’s either stripping back player’s movements entirely or freeing them up.

In short, it’s a shame that Ghost Mania’s Arcade Mode is being trumpeted as the core gameplay choice for the puzzle title as the replayability necessary for the genre is inhibited by an unfair block generator. Perhaps if the gameplay was as refined and polished as its presentation, we would be talking about a must-have puzzle title gracing the WiiWare. As it stands, Ghost Mania is a diverting but non-essential 500 point purchase.

Of course, we’re not begrudging Terminal Reality for this, per se, since the abundance of neat features and fantastic approach to social connections and networking rivals more wisened rhythm-action series (most notably Rock Band, which has gone from strength to strength in its intellectual design). It’s a shame then to see some glaring omissions to the ’style’ in this karaoke rap game – one of the first to focus exclusively on the genre, but hopefully not one of the last. The Singstar series is the most immediate comparison, certainly in terms of how the game is presented when being played, with a music video playing in the background to the initial singing UI. It’d be so much nicer though if videos were in a 16:9 ratio, whereas they are stuck, somewhat strangely, in a small 4:3 window in the centre of the screen. Nevertheless, the videos themselves are excellent and help to add authenticity, especially when some of the older rap videos are on show – contrasting the new and the old in rap and hip-hop history better than any of the ‘Info’ sections before each song could ever hope of doing.

Which brings us into the set-list that, whilst initially seeming to be lacking at 55 tracks, charts the history of hip-hop nicely, with a diverse stretch through eras, style and rap scenes; from Salt-N-Pepa to Run-D.M.C and Snoop Dogg, to the more recent; Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, Kanye West and 10 UK-exclusive tracks, including Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Fix Up, Look Sharp’. The feeling of progression through tracks though is woeful and fails to muster the techniques of more ‘gamey’ mechanics that Rock Band, Guitar Hero et al have since tuned to perfection. Def Jam Rapstar feels nothing more than a souped-up karaoke game with some sparkling, gold-tinted graphics – the ‘Career’ mode is a tedious step from one song to the next in a long line of tracks with five separate stages, where a certain number of ‘mics’ need to be earned to progress to the following stage and ultimately become the ‘Def Jam Rapstar’. At the end of each stage are Challenges that work very well and stand alone in trying to add anything to the mode. Ranging from ‘Timing’ (hitting as many ‘rap targets’ as possible in a section of a song), to ‘Endurance’, ‘High Score’ and ‘Song Unlock’ challenges; each adds something different to the sometimes laborious process of going from one song to the next in a very similar fashion.

But onto Def Jam’s show-stopper which is a karaoke system that accurately tracks and scores your performance on lyrical accuracy, timing, and pitch (for the more traditional singing section with a wave-form). Being able to pick up (more or less) on whether what is coming out of your mouth matches the lyrics on-screen and the accuracy of your timing, brings Def Jam one step ahead of the usual karaoke game, where a muffled hum can more or less achieve a 5-star rating. The UI now takes the form of small orbs that glow if you hit on time and on-key. You’ll have to know tracks inside-out though for the top scores as a tempo, style and flow all change on the fly, as comes with the territory. Just one niggling issue arises in terms of timing. A spark flies above the words (that thankfully, have another line beneath to cue up) to highlight when to rap, although there is no governing time scale so that it would be obvious when to sing aloud, when to stop, or when to hold the note in these sections. Perhaps it’s a little critical when a firmer knowledge on the tracks is needed, but it still dampened our spirits on those we struggled with.

The dedication to the community and social features is another glowing endorsement from the overall package and the steps it takes to promote user videos and their own freestyles (yes, you can freestyle with added backing tracks unlocked through the career) is admirable. Videos can be rated and commented on whilst you’ll also have the ability to ‘battle’ other players, with the two songs voted on by other users to find a winner.

Overall, Def Jam Rapstar is an excellent entry to the rap karaoke genre and goes some way to achieving what fans would have been wanting from the game. With a little bit more fine tuning here and there, Def Jam Rapstar has the potential to be a very serious contender within the music game market. It may be a much more niche product in the grand scheme of things, but its accomplishments are impressive nonetheless.

Packaged with a Wii Remote Plus controller for £44.99, the substantial cost of a remote is such that in many ways it helps to consider FlingSmash akin to a £10 budget title, or even a WiiWare release rather than a full release. Or perhaps that’s what developers Artoon may have hoped. The inclusion of a Remote Plus is no gimmick either, as this is not the sort of game that can be extensively debated or requires multiple control schemes – you grab the remote, you fling and then you smash.

Excellently titled in Japan as Super Smash Ball Plus, FlingSmash discards with award-winning story design to allow players indirect control of their ball-like avatar Zip, who smashes through a continuously scrolling level that is packed with bricks and enemies of varying sizes.

Wii Motion Plus is a necessary inclusion here as player’s success is dictated through the direction of the swings, with angled ‘shots’ bounding their character across the screen. Precision is always needed and rarely do you feel as though your actions aren’t corresponding to the on-screen actions, while your first couple of playthroughs will undoubtedly put a smile on your face.

So why the two stars at the bottom of the page for a well-polished title that literally does as its title suggests? Sadly, FlingSmash does little else other than allow players to fling and smash – the game can actually be completed in around two hours and offers very little in the way of challenge or variety along your campaign. Boss battles are predictable, mini-games are derivative and due to the pinball-style nature of proceedings, success or failure can sometimes feel like a frustrating process.

Frustration is actually a continual theme during a playthrough of FlingSmash, with the auto-scrolling nature of the title squarely to blame. Lining up precise shots is typically not worth the effort, as the more time you spend on having the perfect lob of your character, the more time has elapsed and all sorts of enemies may be circling or collectables have passed you by. Instead, you’re positively encouraged to ‘fling’ the remote as frenetically as possible and hope it turns out well executed – there’s simply no time for accomplishing much more.

Outside of its regular gameplay, a co-op option tries to become an amusing diversion though it’s evident that the level design wasn’t initially planned for two players. Much like Super Mario Galaxy’s own version of co-op, one player ends end up hoovering up as many items as possible (though here the second player is visible on-screen), while the other will look to bounce onwards towards the level’s finish line. Much like the rest of FlingSmash, the lack of depth on offer won’t sustain two player’s interest, even if you do end up with a greater collectible haul.

FlingSmash is an interesting title that is at once uninspired yet unpredictable. Harking back to the gimmick-heavy games that clogged the Wii’s shelves during the console’s tentative steps, it’s a title that fulfils its mission statement but does little to justify its pricing as a full release (Wii Remote Plus pack-in or not), especially in light of far greater tie-ins such as Wii Sports Resort, Wii Party or even 2009’s EA Grand Slam Tennis. Even if you really, really want to get your hands on a Remote Plus, you can do a lot better.