I feel liberated. For the past several weeks, I’ve reviewed a series of utterly average Wii titles, all of which seemed boring at first but — when I would least expect it — clubbed me over the head with something remotely resembling fun. I’d then feel duty-bound to report these instances of fun, and watch perfectly good hit pieces be reduced to wishy-washy ‘balanced’ reviews.

“Sure, the game’s a chore to play through all by your lonesome,” I’d find myself writing, “but wait till you check out the hilarious co-op mode!”

“Yeah, it’s a three-year old piece of PS2 shovelware, but it’s actually kind of fun to reel in the fish,” I would relate.

But this week, I don’t have to hold back, because there is nothing — absolutely nothing — to save SPOGS Racing from being eviscerated at my hands. Continue Reading

Time’s up, fellow geeks! It’s time to decide who deserves Wii Points in order to worry about their hard drive space, making you “geeks and otaku” just like Laurent Fischer said. In the last two weeks, we’ve gotten a handful of stories from a few of our more dedicated and worrisome readers, each trying to out-nerd the last in a shameless bid for free Wii Points. The deadline has passed, and today we shall select our two winners. But, first, in order to prove to you that we’re qualified to judge you, we’d like to share our own otaku moments — tales so pathetic that we wanted to use them to win the prizes ourselves. Oh, if only we were eligible for such things!

Shameless anecdotes and contest winners, after the break! Continue Reading

Don’t forget, folks — today is your last chance to win a handful of free Wii Points! In case you missed it, click on over to this post, where we invite you to share your finest “geeks and otaku” moment for a shot at glory/infamy and a chance to win a mess of Wii Points for all your Wii Shop Channel needs.

Entries will be accepted until the end of today; you have until 11:59:59 p.m. Pacific Time, 7/7/2008. Good luck!

I’m hoping I can go this entire review without saying “The twist is,” or “But there’s a twist!” or “With just a twist of,” or any such obvious quip. I’m also hoping my wrist stops aching soon — Magnetica Twist is a fairly addictive little action-puzzler, controlled entirely through small rotations of the Wiimote. After a few hours of play, you can start developing a case of localized Wii-itis. The upside to that, of course, is that Magnetica Twist is the kind of game you’ll want to play for hours at a time: accessible, addictive, replayable, and challenging. Granted, it’s also a game we’ve all played a hundred times before in any number of incarnations, but thanks to a tiny handful of additions to the familiar formula, Magnetica Twist is a thoroughly enjoyable little distraction. Also, though it may weigh in at 1000 Wii Points, its modest 85-Memory-Block size makes it a fairly painless addition to your channel lineup. Continue Reading

This week’s WiiWare offering is Gyrostarr, an on-rails space shooter from High Voltage Software. It represents a fairly clever bit of engineering in its own way — the game’s press release boasts that through clever use of High Voltage’s Quantum3 game engine, Gyrostarr has managed to squeeze 50 procedurally-generated levels into WiiWare’s 40MB size limit. As always, of course, we ask the question: How do those 50 levels play? Are they worth your 700 Wii Points and 290 rapidly-disappearing memory blocks? Well, to answer those questions, we have to ask this one: Did you ever feel like the bonus stage from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 deserved its own game? Continue Reading

Here’s a fun experiment you can do at home! Go to Google and search for Arkanoid. You should see some five-dozen free online flash games, each one implementing one or two new wrinkles into the classic brickout-with-powerups archetype. Now, open each one of those games in a new tab, and attempt to play every one of them at once. In short order, you should be tripping over multiple interfaces, losing track of the ball, and you should feel a stinging sensation as your brain attempts to process the overabundance of color and effects. Now, on top of this process, pop in a DVD of Scarface and let the “Push it to the Limit” montage scene run in the background on an endless loop, letting the entire game take on a vague theme of a coke-fueled rise to success. This is very much what it feels like to play Block Breaker Deluxe! You have now saved 800 Wii Points and 285 valuable memory blocks. Continue Reading

With only one WiiWare title released this week and this poor journalist violently allergic to all things furry, I opted to review a Virtual Console title for GameCyte instead — and set my sights on the Japanese import platformer Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa.

I won’t mince words: underneath its candy-coated exterior, Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa is an old-school hardcore platformer. If you happen to be an old-school, hardcore platformer enthusiast, then read on; but if not, we suggest you try on something more your size — or at least stock up on those squishy silicone sleeves so as to save your precious plasma TV from irreparable harm. Continue Reading

I have to warn you, prior to My Pokémon Ranch, I had never owned a single game or product that involved the pokey, and the man, and the thing where the guy comes out. So, when it fell to me to review this week’s WiiWare offering, I felt sure that there would be a great deal about it which would go over my head. The nuances of operating a farm where a squirrel is shooting lightning at a land-walking fish can be subtle, after all. Thankfully, I was able to employ the services of a consultant who is well-versed in all matters Poké, and with help, I was able to start my career as an adorably-rendered Pokémon wrangler. With two days on the ranch under my belt, let me tell you this much up front: My Pokémon Ranch is not a game. Not in the traditional sense, anyway; the interactivity is extremely minimal, there’s no story, and the only tangible objective hinges on actually owning a completely separate game and system. Put simply, if you do not own Pokémon Diamond and/or Pearl, there is little or no reason to purchase My Pokémon Ranch. But, if you do happen to own a DS and Diamond/Pearl, is My Pokémon Ranch worth the 1000 Wii Points and 123 memory blocks? Continue Reading

Your daily smörgåsbord of the very best gaming has to offer.

Enthusiast:

Spore system requirements revealed, as lenient as we could hope for (Spore.com)

EVE Online’s free expansion Emperian Age launches (EVE-Online.com)

Wii FPS The Conduit dated Q1 2009; will include “competitive online multiplayer component” (High Voltage Software via WorthPlaying)

Spyro: A New Beginning, Guilty Gear XX# Reload join Xbox Originals (Gamerscore Blog)

Industry:

RROD born through Microsoft’s hubris, according to analyst (EE Times via Gamasutra)

NVIDIA’s PhysX might finally mean something with new NaturalMotion partnership (VerticalWire)

FTC vs Take-Two vs EA, Round Ninety-Four (Reuters via GamePolitics)

Razorworks, last internal studio of Empire Interactive, on verge of closure (Original, follow-up at Develop Mag)

Flagship Studios experiencing mass exodus — or maybe not. Who to trust? (Gamasutra, Kotaku)

Interviewed:

PC Gaming Alliance president Randy Stude outlines future plans, trumpets platform’s financial health (CNET News)

Ready at Dawn president Didier Malenfant on why they’re casually ditching PSP development (Joystiq)

Microsoft’s Viva Pinata engineers heap Rare praise on the Nintendo DS (Eurogamer)

Research: Over 20% of casual gamers are disabled, compared to 15% disability rate among general population (GameDaily)

Perspective: Nintendo doing less than it should to help WiiWare developers, says only “geeks and otaku” need more storage space (Edge via Next-Gen)

Film: Turok voice actor to star in live-action Turok film (MTV Movies via MTV Multiplayer)

Look Ma, No Morals: The sincerest form of flattery is blatantly stealing another game’s assets (GamePlasma via Joystiq)

Watch:

HD footage of iPhone action-adventure Krull, as shown at WWDC 08 (Shacknews)

Strong Bad’s Cool New Screenshots, Video, and Incredibly Payable “Tech Demo” for Attractive Readers (Telltale Games)

Play: Watch a few ads, explode several heads with free version of Psi-Ops (Fileplanet via Eurogamer)

Buy: MGS4 bundle at Wal-Mart, get $100 gift card — confirmed by (Joystiq)

Are you interested in trying Protöthea, a rather inventive shmup where you can aim your ship’s cannons with a flick of the wrist, slow down time, and circle-strafe enemy squadrons? Do you have a Windows PC? Good. Now go here, download the ancient PC demo, and forget you ever heard that the game was coming to WiiWare.

Or, if you insist — follow the jump for our full review. Continue Reading