The original Mario and Sonic at the Summer Olympic Games featured some known characters and a ton of mini games, some of which were quite fun, despite rather retarded controls at times. However, it was still fun and offered decent multiplayer gameplay for some folks in a living room, wiggling their remotes, and, as they’ll be happy to hear, the new game continues down the same path. This time though, it’s the Winter Olympics and it’s set in Vancouver in 2010. The range of mini games is impressive, a dozen of them, from skiing and showboarding, to hockey and bobsled. There’s even a curling game — which is quite a bit more fun that it seems (and definitely more fun that it appears in real life).

The gameplay involves a lot of wiggling with your Wii remote, but one overall factor plays in almost throughout all games; the feeling that it could have been better. The hockey game could have been great, but instead it’s simplistic and very easy, as with downhill skiing. The only mini game that seems to rise above the others, and quite surprisingly so, is Curling, which blends a perfect combination of controls and aiming, and can even get quite addictive. We don’t really feel any of that in the other mini games, which, sadly enough, seem like the developer didn’t put in enough effort, as the controls are pretty much the same: keep wriggling your remote and you’ll win. Or get across the finish line. As you play through the games, you earn coins which you can spend in a shot to improve your gear, get outfits and some custom icons for your gear, in case you need to pimp your snowboard.

Visually, the game resembles Wii Sports a lot, and most of other offerings by Nintendo. Not bad by any means, but certainly something that’s easy on the eye and geared towards the casual audience. This runs throughout the whole game — “casual” — every sense of it is too simplistic and seems to be intended for mom and pops and their little 4 year-old. Hardcore gamers will naturally be disappointed, as there isn’t enough challenge, and the controls are basically “waggle-waggle-waggle-pause-waggle-waggle-waggle”. Etc. It’s a great game if you have some casual gamer friends and looking for something to play with, besides chainsawing through the Gears of War campaign. But even then, the game could have been better, and could have offered something more than just cute characters and lots of snow.

The Good:
Easy to pick up and play
Casual audience will love it

The Bad:
Too easy
Controls are repetitive

Overall score: 6/10

With the latest update, Zune HD adds Audiosurf: Tilt, PGR: Ferrari Edition, Lucky Lane Bowling, Vans Sk8: Pool Service, Piano and Checkers. These are all free game that will be available on the Zune Marketplace. While the games are free, players are forced to watch a short ad before the game starts, which is okay, considering they’re free games.

Wii Fit Plus isn’t really a sequel — it’s sold separately without the Balance Board for those that already own it — it’s actually an expansion pack which includes the original games and workouts, and even transfers your data from the old game. This is pretty slick, meaning that you won’t have to swap the new and old Wii Fit disc. Wii Fit Plus features 15 new work out mini games and six strength training and Yoga workouts, and this time, you can mix and match your workouts as you see fit.

If you’re familiar with Wii Fit, you’ll feel right at home, the same slick, colorful user interface is present in Plus, and the “gameplay” is virtually the same, meaning it also includes some of the few drawbacks that the original had, most noticeably, sluggish response from the Balance Board. But this doesn’t happen too often, it it won’t affect your game too much. Multiplayer wise, there’s the same offline, turn based multiplayer where you compete on who can do the exercise the fastest way or get the best score. However, there is no online multiplayer, which again, is disappointing from Nintendo. Someone needs to go to Kyoto and check if those guys know about this thing called “The Internet”. Wii Fit with online multiplayer and leaderboards would make the game so much better, but again, as noted, Nintendo disappoints on that level.

The 15 new balance games and six new exercises are very well put together and will make sure you end up using your entire body after going through them. From Kung-Fu, where you have to sync your movements to a group of fighters on the screen, to Skateboarding, where you turn the Balance Board sideways and steer a skateboarder through an arena. But the best mini game by far is Golf, which not only uses the Balance Board, but also the Wiimote, and gives some of the most accurate golfing experiences ever — you’ll definitely improve your swing here.

Wii Fit Plus will satisfy fans of Wii Fit, with the new mini games and exercises will bring enough to do for a while, and the expanded abilities to manage and plan your workouts are quite detailed and pretty deep for a “casual” game. However, there is still no online multiplayer, which is a shame.

The Good:
Plenty of new games
Cheap
More depth than before
Includes the original Wii Fit games

The Bad:
Balance Board can get sluggish
No online multiplayer or leaderboards

Overall score: 8/10

The gameplay is very similar to the last Mario & Luigi DS game, where you basically control both characters at the same time, with one button for Mario and another for Luigi. This time however, you control Bowser as well, and actually, you’ll spend more time in the game playing as Bowser than Mario & Luigi, which might seem odd at first, but it feel quite natural. Yes, quite natural, controlling the antagonist.

If you like the humor of the previous game, you’ll be glad to know that it’s back, and everything from Mario & Luigi’s Italian murmur to the writing is just hilarious at times, even if you’re a bit older than the age group this game was intended for. The visuals of the game are strictly 2D, with the old-school pixelated style, but it’s very colorful and the use of the dual screen on the DS is take to its full advantage.

The main levels are comprised like this: you stride through the levels until you meet an enemy, and then you duel it out, old school, turn based style. You then pick which attack to use, and hope for the best. Well, not really, each attack does require some skill and finesse, but once you’ve gotten a hold of it, it’s very easy to do the simple attacks, while the more elaborate ones will require delicate timing to pull off. The game also includes a series of mini-games as well, which help break the main gameplay into larger chunks — always a good idea with a lengthy campaign. For instance, there’s a Space Invader-type game that helps boost Bowse’s adrenaline, and there is a notable RPG element with badges that you can collect an equip Mario & Luigi, giving them added bonus to their abilities.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is a wonderful game that should satisfy a wide spectrum of DS owners, from kids to adults. The campaign lasts a good 20 hours, a solid chunk even for a Mario game, but the game has a tendency to repeat itself, especially during the end. Technically, it looks great, the sounds and music are top notch as well — the whole game screams of great production value, which is hard to achieve, since it’s still a “little” DS game.

The Good:
Great humor
Wonderful gameplay
Great story
Top notch quality and polish

The Bad:
Not much innovation
Can get repetitive

Overall score: 9/10

The gameplay is simple and follows the standard 2D side scrolling fashion, but to solve puzzles in Scribblenauts, you need to use an object that might fit and help you move forwards. You “scribble” the object (say, a “meteor”) and poof! it appears on the screen. The goal of each level is to secure a Starlite at the end, and accumulate them. On top of that, you have dedicated puzzle levels, which don’t feature as much action but pack plenty of challenge for your imagination. Once you’ve settled in the gameplay and figured out how advance through the levels (maybe you need a club or a crowbar to break something, maybe you need a walking robot), you’ll be troubled by the rather frustrating controls the game has to offer. You control your hero (named Maxwell) via the stylus, where you point to an area on the screen, and he’ll run to it. But it’s far too easy to point a few pixels too far, and see yourself walk into certain death.

The vocabulary of the game, which is its greatest asset — and the entire concept — is staggering. There are over 30,000 items you can call up to help you, anything from a fruit to a black hole. Yep, black holes. It’s one of those games where your own imagination (not the developer’s) is the limit. Hell, you can even summon a Man-Bear-Pig to fight your enemies. However, despite the vast opportunities, they’re rarely used to their full potential. Out of the 3,000 items, you can complete the game with a few dozen, and the levels don’t challenge you to come up with something new. You can always strap wings to yourself and easily fly to where you need to be, and summon someone to kill your enemies for you. While you can get a special bonus for completing levels without using weapons or stuff like that, it’s not exactly the best use of a game with such a high concept.

Having said that, there are still over 200 levels, most of which will give you a great time, and some of which are really amazing. On top of that, the game features a level editor as well, and you can share the levels with other players online. The visuals are fairly decent considering it’s a DS game, while the music seems bland and a bit out of place. Overall, Scribblenauts is a game you should try if you own a DS, despite its issues, its originality and concept far outweigh the quirks with the game.

The Good:
Wonderful concept
Huge amount of items
Original
Tons of levels

The Bad:
Concept isn’t used to its full potential
A few control issues
Mission objects aren’t always clear
Bland soundtrack

Overall score: 8/10

While the gameplay in Zuma’s Revenge remains unchanged — for a good reason — the game does add a few new features, revamped and prettier graphics (including a widescreen mode), as well as a ton of new levels. In case you’re not familiar with the gameplay in Zuma, it’s relatively simple: you control a frog that fires colored marbles though its mouth, at several balls rolling along a path, headed towards a pit. If they reach the pit, you lose. In order to win you must knock out the balls as they roll towards the pit, but can only knock them out if you pair colors in three or more balls. And so it goes. In Zuma’s Revenge, once you complete the campaign, you unlock several challenged modes, where you have to score a certain amount of points before time runs out.

While there are a few new features, none change the gameplay in a radical way, if you played Zuma before, you won’t be disappointed. One inclusion in Zuma’s Revenge, are boss battles. At the end of each level you must fight a boss, who’s hiding between chains of balls rolling between you and him. You must aim and fire a precise shot to take him out. The boss fights aren’t challenging, but it’s nice to break up the regular gameplay, especially since it hasn’t changed noticeably.

Zuma’s Revenge features power-ups just as the predecessor, and new ones have been added, like a cannon and a laser, among others. Technically, the game certainly looks better than the predecessor, is should, after all, it’s been 6 years. The music, sound effects, and especially the good ol’ PopCap humor is as present as ever before, and it’s nice to see that they still have the touch. While we would have loved to see a bit more innovation, Zuma’s Revenge can be recommended to anyone who’s played and enjoyed Zuma, actually, it can be recommended to any casual gamer out there.

The Good:
Updated visuals.
Fun as ever.
Great value.

The Bad:
New features aren’t compelling.
No changes in the gameplay.

Overall score: 8/10

In case you haven’t heard about katamari before, your object is to “roll katamaris”, meaning roll huge balls of stuff lying on the streets, cars, benches, trees, people — everything, really, which constantly grows your katamari. Once again, as the “Prince”, you’ll need to complete different missions — in Katamari Forever, you’re doing missions in two “campaigns”, one for the King and one for the RoboKing, in all, there are 34 levels.

However, the objectives and gameplay are the same, and very little has been added since the release of the original Katamari Damacy, some five years ago. That’s not to say that the gameplay suffers, by all means, katamari enthusiasts will certainly be satisfied, rolling katamaris is just as fun as it’s always been. But with five years and half a dozen games with little (or no) innovation, it’s becoming a hard sell. There are not new gameplay mechanics, no new modes — it seems like the developer isn’t keen on taking any chances, even on improving aspects of the game that work somewhat well.

New in Katamari Forever is the ability to select different graphics “filters”, where you can play the game with a cell-shaded look, a pencil style look, or a wood-grain look. However, you can still use the good ‘ol Katamari look that’s well known, and that always seems to fit better than the others. While the visuals have been improved, much of the core mechanics of the game remain the same, like the camera, which has actually plagued the series since the original game was released. The Sixaxis motion controls also seem to be poorly implemented, however, you can always use the fixed buttons instead.

Unlike the previous version, Katamari Forever does not include online multiplayer, only offline, split-screen mode. It’s a shame, since it would have added greatly to a game that already feels a bit too shallow. Technically, the art style of the game is as cool as it always was, however, the new, high-def visuals do suffer from occasional frame rate issues and graphical glitches.

The Good:
Still lots of fun
Great art style
Great sense of humor

The Bad:
No real innovation
Graphical glitches
Camera issues
No online multiplayer

Overall score: 6/10

The game features a total of 30 levels, some new and some are ports from older games.

No official release for Europe is planned, although it’s expected to be released in September. The game was released in Japan back in July for the PlayStation 3.

We can probably expect the game to not release this entire month, as earlier planned (despite some confusion).

If you really have been waiting this long for the puzzle platformer, you should probably just grab the Windows version off of Steam. The game has already received a patch and has been out since early this month.

Read (Frozenbyte Community)

If you’re at Comic-Con right now, be sure to look for the demo there. Katamari Forever will be out in North America come September 22nd. No date has been announced for PAL regions. A trailer was released a few days back, so check that out while you’re in the whole ball rolling mood.

Read (Eurogamer)

Well thanks to Comic-Con we now know that the game will officially hit the U.S. on February 16th, just missing the holiday season.

If you’re not familiar with this game, you’ll play as Miles Edgeworth to investigate crime scenes, collect clues, solve puzzles and ultimately give criminals what they deserve.

Sony has released an extremely cute trailer for Bandai Namco’s Katamari Forever today, complete with monkey and turkey puppets. Featured in the trailer are some new game play footage. Sony has also announced, via their blog, that a demo for the game will be playable at this year’s Comic-Con.

The game is coming out in Japan in two days, but will be seeing a September 22nd release in the States. No exact date has been announced for Europe, however the game is expected to be out this year.

Read (PlayStation.Blog)

Nintendo has now released a sequel for Wii Sports, called Wii Sports Resort, and rather than just building on top of Wii Sports, the game is mean to train Wii players for another thing: Wii Motion Plus, which is included with the game. The Wii Motion Plus accessory is attached to the Wiimote at the bottom, and offers a lot better motion sensing; true 1:1, meaning what you do with the Wiimote is copied exactly in the game. Some would argue that this should have been build into the Wiimote at launch, but we’ll leave that discussion for another time. As for Wii Sports Resort, the accessory offers great controls and showcases the possibilities.

As for the game, it takes place on a tropical island, with several available mini games, which include: Sword Play, where players duel out with swords, Power Cruising, a kind of WaveRace game, DiscDog, where players have to accurately throw discs to a dog who’ll catch it. Those are just some of the 12 new mini games players can play, including the Wii Sports classics, bowling and golf. One of the best games is Sword Play, which really showcases the new Motion Plus attachment’s capabilities, as you duel it out with an opponent. Equally fun is basketball, where players have to time the shots perfectly with the Wiimote. The updated Golf game is better than in Wii Sports, mainly because of better controls (with Motion Plus, of course) and 9 more holes than in the previous version.

If you’ve played Wii Sports, you can rest assure that Wii Sports Resort features the same simplistic design, making it very easy to get into any one of the mini game, and the learning curve is is just right. Graphically, the game looks pretty much the same as Wii Sports, the cartoonish style is carried over and works well for the target audience (being the casual gamer).

In addition to ranking your Mii on a 1000 point scale for each of the mini games, Wii Sports Resort now offers “Stamps” as well, a kind of achievement system where player can unlock “Stamps” by completing certain parts of the game and meeting the criteria (and they’re not easy). It’s a great new addition, however, it only works offline, meaning you can’t show off for your friends online, which brings us to…

One thing that is missing from Wii Sports Resort is the complete lack is online capabilities. Because, unless you have a friend, or rather, three friends, it’s not really a lot of fun in the long run if you’re playing alone. Instead Nintendo should’ve offered online play for this game, it’s rather astonishing how they’re still lacking behind on online capabilities. At least their first party titles, especially those designed for only multiplayer gaming (like Wii Sports Resort), could benefit greatly from online modes. It’s quite a shame, because Wii Sports Resort would definitely have been an online hit.

The Good:
Great collection of mini games
Fun multiplayer action
Cute visuals, constant 60fps frame rate
Includes Wii Motion Plus

The Bad:
No online features
Quickly gets boring in singleplayer

Final score: 8/10

If you’re familiar with the Wii version of this game you’re in luck as the DS version shares the same storyline. However, instead of the collecting gameplay featured in the console version players will find themselves in a puzzle-adventure oriented Rabbids Go Home. You will be tasked with completeing puzzles, collecting garbage and ultimately creating a tower to the moon.

Again, expect Rabbids Go Home to hit store shelves for the Nintendo DS sometime this holiday season.

Read (Kotaku)

Featured in the above video is what looks to be an iPhone port of the popular Source-based puzzler, Portal. As you can see, the controls look a bit difficult to master but the same could be said for many other iPhone titles on the market.

While the above video may be fake, the iPhone (especially with the 3GS’ updated processor) could definitely handle the graphics rendering said video features.

I for one would love to give this game a go, let’s hope Valve makes note of this and considers an iPhone port.

via touchArcade

Just about every game PopCap has released has proven to be highly addicting and Bookworm Adventures is no exception, if you’re into that kind of thing, that is.

Anyways, fans of the abovementioned title will be happy to hear that PopCap will be releasing Bookworm Adventures 2 on July 30th for $19.99.

This is one of those world puzzlers so those who like to use the smallest portion of their brain as possible while gaming need not apply.

• Fixed alt-tab crash after 1.02 patch
• Fixed developer controls that broke the game after 1.02 patch
• Fixed Steam Achievements

Trine is probably the most underrated PC title this year, so you should definitely check it out. You can buy the game on Steam for $29.99, or try out the demo free of charge.

Shatter is a puzzle game to be released for the PlayStation Network. The game is all about box shattering and physics; pretty much a redone Breakout.

Besides the groovy music and Sidhe Interactive’s slogan, the trailer looks pretty mediocre. But I reserve judgment until I actually play the game, because puzzle games can be very fun and addictive regardless of how it looks.

Shatter currently has no release date.