What I’ve pieced together using just a couple of my sources is that basically, NBA Jam is going to be the poo so you should go ahead and take a big whiff. EA has kept the rules of the game the same; no goaltending, everything else goes. They’ve kept the announcer the same, yes he’s still on fire. You’ll be able to play with classic controller, Wiimote turned sideways, or a Wiimote/Nunchuck combo where you flick the Wiimote up then down to shoot. There’s no word on online play yet, but EA loves online action so I expect it to be there. The game looks gorgeous at 30fps, and the team hopes to reach the coveted 60 frames per second. Enough with the words though, you came here for the pictures and I’m here to please. Enjoy, and stay thirsty my friends.

Story mode thoroughly rips off J.K. Rowling. You take the role of a new pupil at Brightfield Academy, a mystical soccer school in a golden castle run by the legendary, very youthful-looking Pele (with occasional help from Mia Hamm). Brightfield is a stand-in for Hogwarts, with soccer players running around in the pictures on the walls, Pele playing a beardless Dumbledore, your team the Mighty Five acting like good-guy Gryffindor, and the rival Scythemore Academy assuming the villainous function of Slytherin. Soccer feels a lot like quidditch, too. Games are played on a wide variety of otherworldly pitches with huge placards, giant soccer balls, and surreal art floating in the backgrounds. Weird on-field scenery denotes where your match is taking place, such as the goals that look like the mouths of giant Mayan idol heads when you’re playing against a Mexican squad. Some of your opponents even come from other Ubisoft properties. One team is made up of Raving Rabbids from the Rayman series, for instance, and you can unlock Altair from Assassin’s Creed and Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell as special players. The Prince of Persia even shows up as a ringer brought in to support one of your early rivals.

Everything about the presentation is eccentric and whimsical. Characters are exaggerated cartoons, including strikers who sport huge flip hairdos reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog, mouselike little girls who start at midfield, and heavyset keepers who have huge guts plummeting over the tops of their shorts. Music is a bouncy Saturday-morning confection, and conversations with fellow students and Pele sound a lot like the mwah-mwah-mwah language spoken by Charlie Brown’s teachers. It’s all pretty twee, but it’s fanciful enough to capture the imagination of the preteen crowd that plays soccer and reads Harry Potter.

The gameplay isn’t as memorable as the style and setting. Story mode, which is the main way to play Academy of Champions: Soccer (the only other options are plain one-off matches and minigames), takes you through terms at Brightfield with day-by-day calendars. Every day you run through a series of three activities, ranging from on-field minigames where you pass, shoot at targets, dribble, and so forth, to RPG-lite pastimes like talking to schoolmates, scrounging up dirt on opponents, recruiting players for your squad, dealing out experience points to teammates to buff stats like speed and shooting, and buying better equipment. Full-blown five-on-five matches are a regular occurrence, although the big games take place only every week or so and have to be won in order for you to proceed further.

Everything is quick and breezy. On-field drills deal with accomplishing a simple objective, such as hitting a set number of targets in a goal in two minutes. The only offbeat minigame is a special freestyle dribbling competition that makes use of the Wii Balance Board. Chatting involves basic dialogue trees where you pick from just a couple of options. Recruiting is straightforward, since you generally have no more than a couple of choices, and you always pick up the player that you want. Upgrading teammates is a little more involved, but there are still just a handful of stat and equipment categories to deal with for each player. Every so often you top up your striker’s speed by moving him from C+ to B, nudge a keeper’s reaction from F to D, or buy somebody some new football boots, but you really don’t need to put much thinking into roster management. And matches are speedy, three-minute affairs loaded with shots and players executing crazy moves. It’s fast-paced, but not hyper-accelerated or some kind of soccer on steroids. Sure, you can make nutty dodges and pull off superhero special moves such as cartoon banana kicks when you max out a talent bar. But the enemy AI is sharp, the goalies are top-notch, and the final scores are generally comparable to those in real soccer. The schedule moves so quickly and shuffles up challenges so much that it’s tough to get tired of the repetition…even though there are only so many things you can do with a soccer ball.

Oddly, though, the game makes little use of some core Wii characteristics. Motion controls are barely used. Most of the game relies on the control stick and the buttons on the nunchuk, with the Wii Remote being used largely for its A and B buttons to shoot and pass, and to take on button-clicking timed challenges in isolated duels for possession of the ball or to make a header. There is support for the Wii MotionPlus, but only to angle the ball for shots and to activate special abilities (via shaking). Multiplayer is another area where the game comes up a little short. Although you can call over a single buddy for quick-play matches on the same system, there is no way to get a few friends in on the action like in many other Wii sports games, and there is no option to go online. So this isn’t much of a party game.

Even though Academy of Champions: Soccer isn’t a serious arcade soccer simulation, it meets its goal of providing a diversion for kids attracted to the idea of both kicking around a ball and taking part in the extracurricular activities at a magical soccer school. It won’t hold the interest of older teens or adults for very long, but then again, the game isn’t aimed at them. Soccer moms looking for a way to get their kids through the winter should take a look at this one.

The tiny webcam included with all copies of Your Shape is actually what most stands out about the game. Instead of swinging around the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, and dealing with those cumbersome resistance bands and leg straps as in rivals like the Wii Fit and the EA Sports Active franchises, you do your thing solo in the middle of your living room floor and let the USB camera track your movements. It’s easy to set up. The camera comes with a base that allows it to easily be attached to the top of a TV, or even to your Wii sensor bar, so you can get set to sweat in a few minutes. You do need a fair bit of room to use it, however, because the camera needs to be able to see your entire body to properly track if you’re lifting your legs and reaching for the sky correctly. If you don’t have a good 10 feet or more to work with in front of your TV, you’re going to have to consider relocating your Wii to more spacious quarters or switching to another workout game. Still, if you’ve got the room, the camera works great. It does an excellent job of tracking your movements when it can see your entire body. And there is really something to be said for being able to ditch the controllers and the beyond-annoying leg strap. The only problem with the camera is that it shows you on the screen as you’re working out, which can be off-putting.

Additionally, you have to sacrifice a lot for the freedom of movement that the camera provides. Not being tied down to a remote, resistance bands, and the like restricts your options and essentially prevents the game from simulating weight lifting, boxing, and many other entertaining activities in the rival Wii fitness games. So the exercises here are almost entirely aerobics-based. You’re stuck with standard aerobics moves involving high steps, jumping jacks, lunges, and so forth, along with walking, running, and swimming motions. It gets old fast. If you love aerobics, you’ve done this stuff a million times before in classes and with various DVDs and videos going back to the days when Jane Fonda donned her leg warmers. The only way to rev the game up is by including exercise equipment of your own, since the game supports free weights, balance balls, and steps. Throw some of that gear into the mix, and you are rewarded with a more wide-ranging and fulfilling workout, although doing so kind of puts paid to the notion that you’re getting a full exercise program in a box here.

Without these added instruments of self-punishment, Your Shape workouts are deadly dull. Exercise options themselves are limited. To do a one-off workout, you go to the body representation of yourself as scanned by the camera during the initial setup. You then select the body part that you want to focus on, such as shoulders, legs, and glutes, or hit the base of the graphic to go for that holy grail of fitness games: weight loss. This alone is a little daunting, because the image capture displayed is about as flattering as pics taken by those nude airport scanners. Going through this process doesn’t lead to anything fulfilling, either, since you go straight into a set regimen led by the abominably perky McCarthy immediately after picking your poison. There is no way to alter this routine, or even to tell in advance what the aerobicized former Playboy centerfold has in store for you. You just have to go through with the exercises and hope that the result is a tighter behind, less World of Warcrafty abs, or whatever your goal may be. Lengthier workout programs don’t offer anything spicy, either. The measly four special challenges are geared pretty much entirely for women, with offerings such as Get Bikini Ready, Active Mom Routine, and New Year’s Resolution. You can also access a calendar of workouts that puts you through almost-daily routines that focus on different parts of your body and then tracks the overall results. Again, though, there are no real options. Nothing can be customized, so it’s Jenny’s way or the highway.

Most of the game lacks the frills found in both EA Sports Active and Wii Fit. The screen is taken up entirely with a digitized McCarthy on the left and the image of you as related by the webcam on the right. There are no interesting themes, no colorful backdrops, no beach games on tropical islands, or anything else to keep your interest. Just you and Jenny and fuchsia backgrounds. Oh, and a very small selection of repetitive, generic disco tunes that serve as the soundtrack for your sweating. At least in a real aerobics class you can look around at the other participants, or maybe out a window, and you get to listen to a more varied music playlist from recognizable artists.

Although you’ve got to appreciate McCarthy’s peppy attitude, there isn’t much in Your Shape that will get you off the couch. The game feels really stripped in comparison to its competition. You can probably firm some things up here, but the exercises are too female-focused for guys and so bland that they give aerobicizing wannabes an excuse to drift back to their couches. That camera idea, however, is a keeper that needs to be fine-tuned for use in future exercise games.

The Crystal Bearers may be set in the same universe as earlier Crystal Chronicles games, but no knowledge of those is necessary to dive into this one. It has been a thousand years since the events of the original game, and the world has changed drastically. Technology is the dominant force, with magic the domain of only a handful of outcasts called crystal bearers. You play as Layle, a brash young bearer who rents out his abilities of telekinesis to the highest bidder. The game gets off to a thrilling start when the flying luxury ship that Layle has been hired to protect is besieged by monsters summoned by a member of the ostensibly extinct Yuke tribe. Layle launches himself into a hot pursuit of the enigmatic Yuke and into an adventure in which the fate of the world is at stake. The story is a good one, packed with memorable characters, rich with themes of discrimination and a sense of history, and told via frequently exciting cutscenes. The most compelling reason to play this game is to experience the tale it tells and the richly detailed, magical world in which it takes place.

Experiencing that tale means putting up with a whole lot of disappointing gameplay, though. The Crystal Bearers makes a strong first impression, with a bold opening that makes it clear right off the bat that this is an action game, altogether different from the earlier, more role-playing-oriented Crystal Chronicles titles. When the ship is attacked, Layle literally leaps into action, and as he plummets through the sky, you use the Wii remote to target and fire at the flying monsters. It’s a brisk and fun opening sequence that sets a tone the game sadly fails to maintain. Other minigame sequences pop up frequently throughout the story, including an on-rails chocobo chase sequence and a simple rhythm game when Layle must dance at a high-class ball, but while these are pleasant little diversions from the core action, they aren’t enough to save it.

Although the plot tries to create a sense of tension as Layle pursues the mysterious Yuke from one location to another in the early stages, the dull gameplay kills any sense of pacing. When you run from area to area, you’ll occasionally come across groups of monsters to fight. But the combat is shallow and tedious. You can target an environmental object or an enemy with the remote, grab it using Layle’s powers, and toss it through the air with a quick flick or a tap of the B button. You can also swing the remote to have Layle roll, avoiding any incoming attacks. This is how all combat works in the game. You target things, grab them, and toss them, over and over again. There’s a small amount of experimentation involved, since it may prove to be more effective to toss certain objects at certain enemies, but the mechanics of combat never become any more elaborate or rewarding. Even the final boss battle, which to its credit has a grand sense of scale and drama to it, is as frustrating and dull as the battles that precede it.

The dullness of combat is compounded by the camera, which, rather than smartly following the pointer when you’re trying to target a monster at the edge of the screen, must be slowly rotated with the control pad. And it’s made more frustrating by an imposed time limit. If you vanquish all the monsters in an area, you’re rewarded with a myrrh fragment, which increases your maximum life. However, if you take too long to defeat the monsters, they all vanish, and you must wait for all of them to reappear for another shot at the precious myrrh fragment. What’s particularly maddening about the time limit is that there’s no countdown displayed onscreen, so you never know how much time you have remaining. If you could see the clock ticking down, you’d at least be able to cut your losses and move on when it became clear that things weren’t going to go your way, but as it is, you can waste minutes trying to defeat all the monsters, only to hear a bell toll as you fail and the monsters vanish, leaving you with nothing to show for your efforts.

Of course, you’re not always fighting. Much of your time is spent just traversing the world, running or riding a chocobo from one key location to the next, and this process is also marred by a glaring issue. The game has no proper map to help you get from one place to another. As a result, it’s very easy to get lost and to waste long periods of time running around until you stumble on the path to where you’re going.

One thing you probably won’t spend much time doing is customizing Layle. Character customization may be a significant part of most games that bear the Final Fantasy name, but it’s a very minor component here. As you travel and fight monsters, you’ll gather materials that can be crafted into various accessories that Layle can equip to enhance certain attributes, increase the size of your target cursor, or convey other bonuses. But the overall impact of these accessories on the gameplay is generally small, and you can progress through the entire game without bothering with accessories at all.

The Crystal Bearers looks impressive. The locations you visit are designed with an imaginative flair and are imbued with a level of detail that makes them truly captivating. There’s a remarkable variety to the locations as well. The architecture, fashion, and technology of each area lend believability to the rich history and diverse cultures that the game’s story hints at. From the futuristic elegance of the Lilty capital to the rusty oppressiveness of an aerial prison, the world of this game will stay with you. So will its characters, thanks to smart writing and mostly solid voice acting, though Layle’s lines are listlessly delivered. The various melodies that play as you travel the world provide appropriate accompaniment to the look of each region, and the sound effects suit the action just fine.

The amount of time it takes to reach the conclusion of The Crystal Bearers can vary wildly depending on how much combat you decide to bother with and how much time you spend trying to figure out how to get where you’re going, but regardless of whether it takes you eight hours or 15, you won’t enjoy most of that time. A game this beautiful, with an exciting, well-told story like this one, should have gameplay that makes you want to spend time in its world. But as dazzling as the characters and locations are, they can’t hide the fact that the game just isn’t fun to play.

Motion controls permeate every aspect of Cricket for the Wii, (Ashes Cricket 2009 in Europe) and the promise of twisting an arm to alter the flight and turn of your leg break or swinging the Wii Remote to simulate driving the ball through the covers is sure to have every lounge room cricket nut salivating. But while they do a reasonable job successfully mimicking the real-world arm movements of bowlers and batsmen, the game’s control system is weighed down by inaccurate gesture mapping and repetitive movements.

The game is divided into three modes: Ashes, Exhibition, and Scenario. Ashes offers five-day, five-match tests between Australia and England using the current real-world player roster. Exhibition allows you to play one-off matches with your choice of the eight available sides in six to 50 over contests. Scenario mode offers seven challenges to complete per nation, which includes hitting a set number of consecutive sixes, taking a required number of wickets within a period of time, and batting out the end of innings to secure victory. Ashes and Exhibition play are straight matches, while Scenario provides some much needed variety. Unfortunately, in the case of the latter, the small country roster and similar nature of the challenges means it doesn’t offer much replay value once completed.

The long length of Ashes matches means it’s not necessarily feasible to play four innings in a single sitting. While you can save and resume matches at will, the fast-forward simulation option found in the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC versions is missing here. This option awarded you an average score for the innings and let you skip straight to the thing you love doing most–either bowling or batting. The fact that it’s missing seems at odds with the casual friendliness of the game.

Multiplayer is one of Cricket’s strongest components and allows two players to swap the strike, alternate bowling, or battle against each other as their favourite represented international teams. Four-player matches are also supported and pair two players on each team; though the non-striker batsman and the rested bowler are left waiting for their turn. Multiplayer succeeds because it mostly circumvents the game’s unpredictable AI and provides a much more level playing field than playing solo against the CPU. Cricket doesn’t support online play, so you’ll need friends and a handful of Wii Remotes if you want to vie for the virtual cup.

As the bowler, you’re given the option to shine the ball by vigorously shaking the Wii Remote for a few seconds to build up a power meter before each delivery. It’s never required, but doing so offers you additional swing or spin to complement your bowler’s style. Once you’ve decided whether to shine or skip and are ready to start your run, you’ll need to hover over and click a cricket ball superimposed over the middle of the screen. This frees up your cursor and allows you to steer around the pitch by tilting the remote to determine the line and length of your intended delivery. Unfortunately for those who are pedantic about their ball placement or have shaky hands, after just a few seconds, the game locks your marker in place and begins your approach to the crease. The console and PC versions of Ashes Cricket 2009 allowed you to move your cursor until the ball left your hand to help you bamboozle batsmen, but unfortunately, this feature hasn’t made the transition to the Wii, forcing you to bowl the delivery wherever it lies. Your only other option is to do nothing when prompted to bowl and take a one-run penalty for a no-ball.

Not bowling is an easy way to avoid being belted to the boundary on a loose delivery (and makes for boring multiplayer when no one wants to bowl duds), but it is completely at odds with the rules of the sport because failure to release the ball would be called dead in any real-world game. It’s a surprising liberty and punishment for a game that attempts to mirror the sport so closely but often results in long drawn-out overs and frustrated batsmen. If you do manage to get the bowling cursor in a spot you’d like to bowl and lock it in, it’s not uncommon to see the marker shift slightly either left or right of your intended spot. A few pixels here and there may sound inconsequential, but they represent the difference between a tight, scoreless bowling line with LBW (leg before wicket) chances and being flicked off the leg or off stump for runs. Batting is just as frustrating, and because it’s like bowling, there’s no alternative control scheme available for button presses instead of gestures. Every ball faced will require a matching controller shake to be hit. Control is limited to either defensive or aggressive shots by holding the corresponding A or B button as you swing. Striking the ball sweetly necessitates swinging at the correct time, though you’ll need to juggle player confidence and luck because new and rattled players have a smaller strike zone for successfully hitting the ball.

Despite switching developers, receiving a name change, and launching several months after its next-generation counterparts, Cricket is very much based on Ashes Cricket 2009. While many of the bugs that plagued those versions have been fixed, a new crop of issues rear their head here. AI inconsistency still remains and alternates among belting you around the park for overs at a time, fumbling in the field, and bungling chances at wickets. Fielding is a completely passive experience as well. Catches are automatic, you can’t designate an end to return the ball to, and there’s no control of your bowler once the ball has left your hand even if you’re the nearest fielder to the action. Teammates will pick up the ball facing the opposite direction and drop simple catches, but they can inexplicably manage direct hits of the stumps from almost anywhere on the field. That is, once they’re done struggling to pick it up–jogging rather than running and confusedly making a path to play fetch. The only nifty aspect of being out in the grass is the custom fielding placement option. Don’t like where a player is standing? Switch to the overhead field view, pick up a player, and plop them in a new spot. Placement presets are available, but if you’re bowling a line hoping the batsmen will sky an edge, it pays to be able to put a man exactly where you think it will go.

Cricket’s audio and visuals are just as disappointing as the gameplay. Only the Australian and English sides are licensed, though their likenesses are anything but accurate, and the same vague look-alikes are available for the other competing nations. Player animations are for the most part quite natural, though the ball magically warps from ground to the player’s hand, and there is some horrible interlacing tearing on panning shots which make it all but unwatchable. That’s when the ball doesn’t disappear during replays. Small touches, such as bowlers marking their starting point, rocking on their heels before they begin their run, and craning their necks as sixes soar over the rope, help to give the game some flair, but they feel like rearranged deckchairs on the Titanic in an otherwise mediocre game.

Former cricket greats take up the microphone to offer commentary, but they come across so wooden that it sounds like a script-reading session at gunpoint. Rambles about the importance of spinners to a team and appropriate pitch preparation are dull and repeated far too often. The fact that banal anecdotes are cut off midsentence and do not resume after the announcement of a four is an unintended saving grace. It’s not uncommon for commentary to be out of step with onscreen action, and far too often, it’s suggested the ball rocketed to the boundary when it was more like watching snails inch through molasses.

Cricket attempts to replicate its namesake sport for Nintendo’s family-friendly console. But, while its endeavour makes the natural matchup between the device and the sport, frankly, if you’re willing to bowl the potential 1,080 deliveries (assuming there are no sundries) to play a test match in full, you’d be much better served picking up a real bat and ball and heading to the park. At least, that way, you’ll have some fun.

The concept of the game is that there are these spheres which contain monsters inside. When rolled onto the metal cards, they have a magnet that is spring loaded to pop them open, transforming the Bakugan balls into their brawling forms. The players controlling the Bakugan then use a combination of ability cards and metal gate cards to boost their points, or G Power, higher than their opponent. There are a number of special ability, rare, and new Bakugan toys that affect game play differently. But in the end, whomever has the most G Power wins the brawl. The actual card game plays out very similar to the cartoon, and players get to use the same Bakugan in real life that they see on the screen. Thanks to it’s raging success, there has been rumors of a Bakugan movie and a Bakugan MMO.

The Bakugan video game plays kind of similar to how you play the actual card game as well. You create your brawler and, along with your ‘mysterious’ Bakugan gaurdian named Leonidis, brawl your way up the ladder to become the ultimate Bakugan Brawler. Along the way, you meet up with many familiar faces, both friend and foe.

The gameplay is fun, though it does get repetitive after a while. Really, if you are an experienced gamer, there will be no challenge in the game for you. The game does do a good job of pandering to the fans though, and it’s quite a bit of fun if you are the sort of person who just can’t wait for Pokemon Platinum to come out…
Playing the Bakugan game with the Wii Remote is probably the most fun part since you get to chuck your balls onto the field, and guide them with a deft flick of the wrist. Meanwhile, your opponent is trying to shoot at your Bakugan and knock it off course. If you control it well, you will end up flying around the battlefield picking up bonuses and extra G Power before settling in for the real battle. The battles themselves are certainly fun to watch and well animated. Though after a while, even watching the cut scenes gets a bit repetitive and boring.

The graphics are decent, comparable to the numerous Pokemon games to be released before. The story plays out like a good episode of the anime, so nothing extremely deep and lots of “Save New Vestroia and all the Bakugan who depend on you!” sorts of comments are to be expected.

If you or a young boy or girl are a big fan of the Bakugan toys, then you are going to love this new game. However, if you are not a big fan… well then you best steer clear of this game and drop your hard earned coin on Arcane Asylum or something a little more complex.

“WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 Faeries on dvd

will put the power of created freedom and shareable, user-generated content directly into the players’ hands, giving them the ability to control the action beyond anything ever witnessed in WWE programming,” said Brian Coleman, vice president, global brand management, THQ. “Combined with new Road to WrestleMania storylines, an impressive roster and other major franchise updates, including our new gameplay experiences on Wii and Nintendo DS, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 will be the must-have game for players on October 20.”

“WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 is certain to take the renowned WWE SmackDown vs. Raw videogame franchise to the next level,” said Nelo Lucich, senior vice president of interactive, JAKKS Pacific. “The vast array of creative and online options allow players the ability to create their own unique Superstars, right down to their tattoos and customized ring gear, to formulate original finishing moves, to craft their own storylines and then to share it all through the WWE Community Creations interface. The possibilities for total distinctive gameplay are endless for our tremendous fan base around the world.”

WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 will introduce a new Create-a-Superstar Mode, including a fresh look, all-new 3-D parts and improved graphical quality, allowing players to create Superstars and Divas who are comparable in quality with their in-game WWE counterparts. Adding to the creative mix, a new Paint Tool will enable detailed creation of tattoos, logos and other unique designs, while a franchise-first Superstar Threads feature will let players create alternate ring gear for Superstars and Divas by customizing the colors of shirts, pants, face paint, elbow pads, boots and more. The game’s Create-a-Finisher Mode will now let players create acrobatic and gravity-defying diving attacks from the top turnbuckle, as well as move their creations to new heights by adjusting the trajectory. In addition, the mode will deliver an extensive assortment of new moves from the front grapple position.

Taking creativity even further, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 will also mark the debut of the WWE Story Designer. In this new mode, players will embrace a directorial role to create and customize their own storylines and cut scenes, including the ability to select talent and scene locations, write their own dialogue, adjust camera angles, select from over 100 scene animations, determine talent emotions and much more. Players will also be able to construct each night’s show card with matches, unique match stipulations, interference events and other story twists and turns.

WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 is set to empower players with not only extensive creative freedom but the ability to share their gameplay experiences as well. For the first time in franchise history, the WWE Community Creations interface will enable players to upload their creations online, including created Superstars and Divas, story designs, finishing moves, entrance movies and highlight reels, and share them with others around the world. Players may also download created content via keyword search engine from other users for use both online and offline. In addition, players will be able to tag their creations with search terms, as well as leave ratings, allowing for ease of use in searching the robust database for the most popular – or even the most obscure – created items.

In addition to its extensive creative and online offerings, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 will include a number of key franchise updates. The WWE Training Facility will provide players with a franchise-first in-game tutorial, making it simple for both long-time fans and newcomers to get helpful gameplay tips and practice moves with their favorite Superstars and Divas. The game’s Road to WrestleMania story-based mode, introduced last year to high acclaim by consumers and press alike, returns with interactive cut scenes showcased within six brand new storylines, including a Create-a-Superstar storyline and a Divas storyline. In addition, a robust talent roster will include more than 60 playable Superstars and Divas, many of whom will make their videogame debut, as they represent the Raw, SmackDown and ECW brands. A high-profile soundtrack rounds out the gameplay experience, including “Still Unbroken,” the new single from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s upcoming album, God & Guns, as well as songs from artists such as Skillet, Sick Puppies, Adelita’s Way and Trivium.

Delivering a button-based, simulation-style experience for the first time on the platform, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 for Wii will support the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, Classic Controller and the Nintendo GameCube controller, allowing players to get to the heart of the WWE videogame experience in a number of ways. In addition, the game will offer a broader features list to the Wii gaming audience, including a more robust move set, more match types, Create-a-Superstar, Create-a-Finisher, WWE Story Designer, Road to WrestleMania and more.

WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 for Nintendo DS will also offer a more simulation-based experience, introducing streamlined controls that take advantage of the DS directional pad and eliminate use of the stylus. Throughout gameplay, players will earn a variety of collectible cards to gain power-ups and unlock content, including arenas, backstage areas and Superstar profiles. In Story Mode, players will take their created Superstars on an action-packed journey through all WWE brands, participating in training mini-games and interactive cut scenes while earning new moves and customization parts along the way. Rounding out the Nintendo DS experience, a franchise-first Ambulance Match will see players attempt to lock their opponents inside an ambulance to attain victory.

Training Day The best games in the Tenchu series earned their black belts with engaging stealth action that challenged players to think creatively and use a variety of cool ninja tactics. Although Tenchu: Shadow Assassins mimics the format of its betters reasonably well, it never actually gets it right. The stilted controls and broken stealth logic not only make it hard to feel like a ninja, they also make it hard to have any fun. The solid visuals and stylish music can’t mask the fact that Shadow Assassins is an exercise in frustration.

Wolf the movie

One of these guys won’t need to pay his taxes this year.

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins takes place in feudal Japan and brings back two protagonists that fans of the series will recognize instantly: Rikimaru and Ayame. The familiar kidnapped princess/kingdom in peril story unfolds twice, once from each ninja’s perspective, and dovetails into a bizarre and surprisingly morbid ending. The cutscenes that tell the story are impressive, and you’ll enjoy watching the detailed, fluidly animated characters play their parts in the serviceable narrative. There are some weird spots, notably the melodramatic voice acting and the Japanese merchant who speaks with a Cockney accent, but on the whole these cutscenes are a pillar of the generally impressive presentation. Environments are well detailed, and the musical score is an enjoyably modern interpretation of traditional Japanese themes.

Though you play as two different ninja, their abilities are identical. The gameplay consists primarily of sneaking through levels while killing or evading guards. Hiding in the clearly marked shadow areas will totally conceal you from view and let you instantly kill any enemy who comes within your reach. These quick kills, called hissatsu, require you to follow onscreen prompts and perform the corresponding remote motions or button presses. The satisfyingly brutal hissatsu are fun to perform and include such classic kills as snapping an enemy’s neck and eviscerating him with his own sword. The cleverly designed stealth meter will help you stay hidden; it’s an image of the moon that will shine brightly when you’re exposed, cloud over if you’re hidden, and is surrounded by stars that represent the positions of your enemies.

Staying in cover is crucial, so it’s aggravating when the awkward controls hinder your movements. Both ninja move at a sneaking pace, which means that you’ll do a lot of slowly walking between shadows (running will always attract the guards). Unfortunately, it’s often unclear which environmental elements you can easily move through and which will impede your progress, which makes for some frustrating hang-ups. If you are close to cover or get spotted, you can shake the remote quickly to roll into cover or away from your enemy. This is usually a helpful move, but sometimes you may end up inadvertently rolling sideways into a fire or backward off of a cliff. You can also jump, which is useful for getting up into the rafters or onto a roof, especially given that the grappling hook from earlier Tenchu games is not available. However, the jumping motion is so jerky that it’s best to rely on the onscreen prompts that tell you when there is a ledge overhead. Any attempt to jump around the environment is likely to meet with invisible walls or alerted guards, and the few times you have to jump over gaps are downright treacherous.

Ayame’s Mind’s Eye reveals an enemy just waiting to get his neck snapped.

You can use your Mind’s Eye ability to spot guards, pinpoint shadow areas, and even see the guards’ line of sight. If you are discovered and fail to dodge away quickly, you will be forced into a confrontation. If you don’t have a sword in your inventory, you will vanish in a cloud of smoke and crow feathers, and then restart at the beginning of the area. If you have a sword, you will switch into a first-person view and fight the guard. You and your opponent switch off attacking and defending. You swing the Wii Remote to attack, and defend by positioning the remote according to the onscreen prompts. If you lose (which you often will), you’ll return to the beginning of the area; win, and you’ll deliver a death blow and go on your merry way. The remote is not very responsive in these encounters, and blocking enemy attacks is prohibitively difficult. Oddly, Tenchu: Shadow Assassins seems to want you to win swordfights only when it is required, so beating a boss in a duel is much easier than defeating an average foot soldier during the course of a level.

Shadow Assassins begins to reveal its fatal flaws when you vanish back to the beginning of an area. When you disappear, the guards all return to normal status, regardless of the fact that they just watched a ninja murder their buddy. The dead bodies remain on the ground while other guards resume their patrol, walking right by corpses without blinking. You could conceivably kill a guard, get discovered, vanish, and do it all again until no one is left standing, and only your end-of-level ranking would be adversely affected. This fundamentally undermines the stealth gameplay and makes the whole game feel kind of broken.

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Other flaws serve only to reinforce this feeling: How is it that a guard wearing an elaborate helmet and mask with two eyeholes has better peripheral vision than an unmasked guard? And then there was the guard that we killed by hitting him into an open flame with a shuriken (admittedly cool). As his dead body lay burning on the ground, another guard came over to investigate, caught fire, and died. This happened on multiple occasions. If only the second guard had been standing a few feet further away, he wouldn’t have noticed his screaming, burning compatriot and would have gone about his business unperturbed. These extreme examples are symptomatic of the general shoddiness that plagues Tenchu: Shadow Assassins.

Swordfighting: You’re doing it wrong.

Items provide another example of how Shadow Assassins just doesn’t get it right. You can use a throwing knife to outright kill an enemy ninja in hiding, but patrolling guards will shake off the deadly weapon and go into alert mode. There are helpful items, such as two different explosives and a bamboo water container that lets you snuff out fires, but none is more enjoyable (and outright bizarre) than the Shinobi Cat. This adorable fellow can be found standing like a statue around levels, waiting to be picked up. When you use this “item,” you actually control the cat. You can pick up other items in his mouth and bring them back to your character, or you can jump all over guards to send them into alert mode. Guards have the same reaction to being attacked by a berserk housecat as to being stuck in the ear with a shuriken: “Huh? Is someone there?”

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins can be called a lot of things, but short isn’t one of them. The main campaign will take upwards of ten hours to finish. It’s a tough game, and completing missions will give you a sense of satisfaction. Unfortunately, this satisfaction is evenly split between the thrill of victory and the relief of successfully working around the game’s various technical hang-ups. If you finish levels with a good ranking, you can unlock extra assignments, which are bonus stand-alone missions with specific challenges that take place in areas that you’ve already traversed. Acing many levels requires using items only found elsewhere, so you have to revisit a level in order to earn a good ranking just so you can revisit that level again. This would be fine if the levels were fun the first time through, but they usually aren’t.

Unfortunately, most of the fun there is to be had in Tenchu: Shadow Assassins is overshadowed by the game’s pervasive flaws. You’re always struggling against the awkward controls to puzzle your way through the pseudostealth missions. Players who like a stiff challenge and don’t mind working through a bevy of gameplay issues might find some enjoyment here, but for most folks, it just isn’t worth the hassle.

Source [GameSpot]

As you may have been able to figure out from the title, Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers is more concerned with parading an endless stream of undead monsters and women in revealing clothing than delivering a meaty and thought-provoking experience. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. But Onechanbara is so mindless, the combat so repetitive, the levels so monotonous, that even the inherent joy of dicing legions of zombies into tiny cubes does not conjure even a tiny flash of excitement. You might think that an array of scantily clad heroines dismembering an endless horde of creatures would elicit some thrill, possibly on a primal level, but you would be mistaken. The excessive gore and extreme objectification in Onechanbara are not able to mask the simple gameplay for even a few minutes, which makes this a boring and repetitive hack-and-slash with no redeeming qualities.

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What a precious prom photo.

A story is buried beneath the layers of zombie blood, but it is so inexpertly told that it’s impossible to make out what is actually happening. Before each level, a wall of text against a darkened background will attempt to convey your motivations for chopping up hundreds of enemies, but it serves only to muddle what should be a basic quest fueled by bloodlust. Instead of using a conventional narrative to reveal the tale, the story segments resemble poorly composed poems with a choppy structure that makes it extremely difficult to understand the purpose of your journey. Obviously, people should not expect the story of a zombie-murder simulator to change their worldview, but these interludes in Onechanbara suck the personality from an already boring action game.

However, the action is the real source for your boredom. You will be able to plow through the vast majority of the game by lazily shaking the Wii Remote to unleash your sword strike. Without exaggeration, you can tear through wave after wave of enemies by walking around the levels and shaking your arm like a madman as you cut a legion of zombies into tiny bits. A couple of enemy types will require a more restrained approach, but the level of strategy needed to conquer even these higher-level foes is insultingly low. For example, mudmen require a more rhythmic method, forcing you to time three consecutive attacks to rip their hearts from their filthy bodies. Zombie cops will hold up their hands to block, making you wait a beat before you can cut them apart. And that is the extent of the resistance that you’ll face from your apathetic attackers.

The levels are just as bland as the combat. You’ll travel from sparse city streets to indistinct office buildings without any landmarks to make these locations memorable. When you complete the story mode (which takes not much longer than an hour), you’ll unlock one of the four characters and have the option to play through the same set of levels with a different persona. These characters have slightly different attacks–Misery has an extendable sword and Saki can throw her foes–but your strategy will never vary. Even the option to upgrade your abilities at the end of each section does nothing to make this game more compelling. Putting more points into your strength or weapon reach has little effect on the action, so the combat feels identical from the moment you first start playing until you’re finished and throw down the controller in disgust. There isn’t any gameplay variety thrown in to mix things up, either. Every level has you walking around, chopping up zombies indiscriminately, until you mercifully reach the end.

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That zombie cop sure is indifferent to his impending demise.

You’ll encounter bosses from time to time, but while these enemies offer more challenge than the standard swarm, the battles are still excruciatingly bland. There are four heroines total in the game, and the bosses are whichever three characters you are not controlling. They have the same attacks as you do and will employ the same strategy as well. Get ready for thrilling battles between two barely clothed women mindlessly swinging their oversized swords until one of them dies. Given that your counterpart will slash away with her sword as if the Wii is frantically shaking a controller of its own, you’ll have to use defensive rolls to win these battles. There isn’t much depth to these encounters, but having to employ a few defensive techniques in addition to rapidly swinging the remote makes them slightly more tolerable than the usual combat.

The Running Man video

Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers is a lousy game. It isn’t aggravating or frustrating, it’s just boring. The story is incomprehensible, the levels all feel the same, and the simplistic combat never evolves. With so much wanton dismemberment onscreen, it’s hard to imagine that it could be so utterly bland, but Onechanbara is never able to make this exceedingly simple experience the least bit engaging. Even at a budget price, Onechanbara is not worth your money or time.

Source [GAmeSpot]

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Lit is a game that will make you terrified of the dark. This is not because of the ill-defined monsters that lurk just out of sight, or the emo-looking protagonist who seems like he would be right at home when the lights are dimmed. No, the fear of the dark comes from the light-based puzzles that halt your path to freedom. Although Lit looks like a simple puzzle game, its maddeningly clever conundrums will cause you to groan with disappointment while your hero screams with the fear of being captured again. But the solutions to the logical puzzles are always just out of reach, making you try once more to light your path to freedom. At only 800 Wii Points ($8), Lit offers a deep, rewarding experience, and it’s one of the most interesting offerings for the WiiWare service.

Jake does not look like the heroic type.

You play as Jake, a young boy trapped in a haunted schoolhouse, desperately trying to not only make it out alive, but also save his girlfriend Rachel from the clutches of evil. The story does not delve any deeper than it needs to set up this tale, but it does provide some silly nods as you move through the classrooms. Amid the shadowed desks and flickering passageways, a phone will sometimes appear. You can hold the Wii Remote up to your ear to answer it and listen to the desperate cries of Rachel lost somewhere within the building. Her cracks about how this feels like a horror B-movie echo the feeling that this is a low-budget game. Thankfully, the low production values don’t get in the way of your quest to find the light.

Lit is broken up into 30 levels, each a solitary classroom within a school. Your goal is deceptively simple: get to the door at the end of each room. The rooms are initially draped in darkness save for a small sliver of light emanating from the entrance, and even a slight step into the darkness will result in a quick death. You are equipped with a flashlight, which can temporarily illuminate objects around you, but you’ll have to find a way to light a permanent path to make it to the exit door. Although the initial levels serve as basic tutorials that teach you what does and does not result in your immediate death, the difficulty quickly ramps up, leaving you to figure how to harness the lamps and windows that you’ll need to succeed.

There are a few helpful objects lying around the darkened rooms that you’ll need to take full advantage of to move on. The slingshot, for which you’ll pick up one stone at a time, can be used to crack windows and set off motion sensors. A broken window will let loose a stream of light into the room, letting you walk across it without fear of death. A cherry bomb can also destroy window panes, but the resulting explosion can shatter nearby electronics as well. The collateral damage can be used to skillfully open two windows at once, but it can also halt your progress if you destroy something important. You can also snap a flare to create a momentary halo of safety on the ground. Finally, some rooms have a TV remote, which turns television monitors on and off, providing a small pool of light that you can stand in freely. Aside from these tools, you are given various lamps that must be manually flicked on and off.

Getting through levels can be painstaking, but success is always rewarding. You’ll have to seamlessly combine the various light sources to create a cohesive path that will get you to the exit. However, the amount of electricity that you can use is limited, so you’ll have to carefully manage how many lamps and televisions are turned on lest you blow out a fuse. Every few levels, you’ll face off against a boss character that, in complete contrast to you, is damaged by the light. These fights are intense and nerve-wracking. Most normal levels can be completed as slowly as you desire, but the boss fights demand careful planning and quick movement, which leads to many deaths before you figure out the perfect method of extermination.

With your handy flashlight you can plan your path to freedom.

Although the majority of levels are tightly constructed and offer only one logical path to freedom, some problems surface from time to time. Most glaring is your finicky relationship with the dark. If you step off of your path, you die–most of the time. In some cases, you are forced to step slightly off of the path to flick a switch or grab some ammo; at other times, you will have to cross a sliver of darkness that separates two pools of light. These situations are infrequent, but you’ll have to risk death to test the limits of how far you can walk into the darkness. The other problem that will result in many unplanned deaths is the tricky context-sensitive commands that you dole out with the A button. This do-everything button will grab objects, turn lights on and off, and use whatever you have currently equipped, depending on where you are standing in the room. Given that one button is in charge of every action, you’ll find yourself mistakenly pulling off the wrong action, such as turning off an important lamp instead of flicking on a nearby television.

Lit is a dark, difficult game, but the logical nature of the puzzles makes it very rewarding and well worth the cheap entry fee. However, even in this simplistic world, there are a number of problems that will lead to more than a few cheap deaths. Nevertheless, it is worth looking past the design inconsistencies; a few unfortunate deaths are not enough to detract from the rest of this package. Lit is a satisfying journey through the dark and one of the most enjoyable games on the WiiWare service.

Source [ GameSpot ]