Publisher: Big John Games
Developer: Zivix
Genre: Music
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

Have you ever wanted to create your own club music mixes, but you don’t have the cash to spend on expensive equipment? Developer Zivix has made it possible with Just Jam, a music-mixing game/application for the Wii that gives you the basic tools and the sounds required to lay down your own jams.

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Publisher: Sega
Developer: High Voltage Software
Genre: First Person Shooter
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

At the time The Conduit was released on the Wii, there was some praise heaped upon it, labeling it as one of the best first-person shooters…for the Wii. Perhaps the best. This was before Goldeneye 007 and several of the Call of Duty games appeared on the console, I should add. Like nearly every movie that surpasses $100 million at the box office these days, a sequel was quickly ordered, and now, about two years later, we get Conduit 2 (minus the “The” because, no joke, the developers thought it would be easier for people to say).

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Publisher: Broken Rules
Developer: Broken Rules
Genre: Puzzle-Platformer
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

Nintendo’s WiiWare service has been a strange experiment. Sure, many people have taken swipes at Nintendo’s “two GameCubes wrapped in duct tape” approach to the online experience that nowadays even the most vanilla of mainstream consumers expect. But when they launched this digital distribution service shortly after the Virtual Console, expectations were high that this would be a venue on par with Xbox Live’s Arcade; granting smaller, independently financed titles a showcase in which to peddle their wares. And while there have been a handful of console exclusives that made a splash and really leveraged the unique control mechanics intrinsic to the Wii, such as World of Goo, too many weeks go by with middling shovelware pushed our way. With the release of the platform-puzzler And Yet it Moves hopes are high that this title will make its mark and compel publishers to push for further exposure on WiiWare.

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Publisher: Disney Interactive
Developer: Page 44 Studios
Genre: Party
Rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

Four years into the Nintendo Wii’s life cycle, it’s amazing how many mini-game compilations are still released on a fairly frequent basis. In the early days, it was somewhat understandable, as mainstream consumers were wowed by the novelty inherent to wildly swinging your arms and shaking your groove thang. These pick-up and play collections offered an easy point of entry for the casual crowd – allowing titles such as Carnival Games to emerge as surprise smash hits. Years later, the novelty has worn thin, but the shear number of mini-game compilations has yet to wane. It’s a tactic that many licensed properties have chosen to pursue, hoping that gamers will yearn to start a party with the backing of some of their favorite characters. And as a brand, Disney and the Disney Channel has a huge fan base eager to snap up anything with Hannah Montana’s mug splashed across it, so it was inevitable that we would get Miss Cyrus and the rest of her comrades from the House of the Mouse over for a little Disney Channel All Star Party.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Eurocom
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Most gamers tend to look down their bespectacled noses at rail shooters. Once confined to the dark passages of video arcades, rail shooters usually involved firing plastic light guns at arcade screens until you ran out of lives (and quarters). As arcades started to disappear from local malls, rail shooters such as the House of the Dead series found a new home on the Wii, which offered simple controls and the low-res graphics that helped the genre to thrive in previous years. Joining Sega’s popular monster shooter is Dead Space: Extraction, the prequel adventure to the 2008 PC/PS3/Xbox 360 gorefest Dead Space.

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Publisher: Cosmonaut Games
Developer: Cosmonaut Games
Genre: Strategy
Rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

Like the rushing hordes that dominate their play fields, tower defense titles seemingly spring up endlessly. That’s the world we live in – where services like WiiWare, XBOX Live Arcade, PSN and the mobile phone app environment cater to “a second to understand, a lifetime to master” games that tickle that itch for entertainment the casual masses seem to have all contracted in unison. And while the genre has seen some amazing addictions rise, with titles such as Plants vs. Zombies enjoying a flourishing life cycle, developers continue to plug away and feed that jones to defend one more tower. That’s the space Cosmonaut Games aims to explore in their new tower defense title, Inkub.

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Publisher: Disney Interactive
Developer: Junction Point
Genre: Adventure/Platformer
Rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

People may misplace the past, but they never seem to forget promises. Too many game developers have learned that hard lesson – especially the more outspoken gurus, such as Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux who through three Fable titles has still neglected to deliver on his prideful boast that players could imprint their green thumb on the title and watch as a tiny seed transformed over time into a mighty elm. Past indiscretions and broken promises make for a compelling backdrop surrounding Disney’s Epic Mickey – a title that when teased awhile back seemed pregnant with such possibility, as gamers chewed on the dreamy concept art that foretold a dark fairy tale for the beloved Mickey and promised a well-deserved resurrection for this regal rodent. The question looms – has Warren Spector learned from others’ past mistakes?

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Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Paris
Genre: Party Game
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

If you are looking for a way to mark each anniversary of the Nintendo Wii, paying close attention to each successive Raving Rabbids release would make for a nice string around your finger. Those schizophrenic rabbits, the bane of Rayman, first burst onto the scene alongside the Wii back in the Fall of 2006, and made for a nice companion to show adopters just what fun they could have when introducing the Wii at their holiday party. A year later, a sequel to that game hit and offered up a host of additional manic party modes. And while they spent the following years starring in their own twisted take on the type of 3rd person platformer that Nintendo fans crave; the Rabbids have returned to their roots in this latest release; Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time.

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Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios
Developer: Disney Interactive Studios
Genre: Action-Platformer
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available Now

Movie-based games have made major strides of late. While they were once an industry joke—quick cash-ins aimed at robbing whatever loot kids had left after scoffing down their licensed Happy Meal counterparts—recent games such as this past summer’s Toy Story 3 have provided some compelling gameplay experiences aimed at expanding on their source material. With the holidays approaching, you just know that retail shelves will feature the latest tie-in to this season’s blockbuster family hit. So the question looms: should you gobble up that copy of Disney’s Tangled as you brave the post-Black Friday crowds?

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Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Tecmo/Team Ninja
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

We love heroes. And we feel very comfortable when they reappear for new adventures. The history of literature and films is filled with returning characters (not to mention the world of network television, in which our favorites star in as many as 23 new stories every year). Being a younger industry than the others, video games has comparatively fewer returning champions. One of these makes a highly anticipated return in Metroid: Other M, the first new game in the long-running series since 2007.

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Publisher: Activision
Developer: Eurocom
Genre: First Person Shooter
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

The cult of Goldeneye is a strange one. For all intents, the original N64 version never should have succeeded. It was a licensed game, released a year too late because of development issues on a misunderstood platform that was using cartridges when the industry had moved on to disc-based media. In those tween years of video gaming, shooters were the bastion of the PC world, which looked down upon every sophomoric attempt made for the lower-class home console crowd. But Nintendo held a wild card in Rare, a British-based third-party developer that shared the Big N’s commitment to exhaustive quality control and expert game design. Both houses were dedicated to releasing products only when they had been fine-tuned towards one unwavering goal – providing a fun gameplay experience. And like Mario Kart before it, Rare’s Goldeneye 007 pushed sales of extra controllers like few other games, with a compelling four-player split-screen multiplayer mode that offered the next best alternative to a home-based LAN party. More than a decade later, Activision hopes to celebrate this nostalgia by bringing James Bond back to the company that first gave him that coveted license for virtual kills.

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Publisher: DreamBox Games
Developer: DreamBox Games
Genre: Action-Adventure
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

As a child of the 80’s, the particular brand of action-adventuring pioneered by the Metroid and Zelda series is melded to my marrow. The way to my heart is paved through a tricky expanse of puzzling caverns that can only be surmounted by locating mystic artifacts which in turn unlock new pathways. At least, that’s what I tell my wife. It’s a game design that’s timeless in its ability to juice our inquisitive nature – with each new power up offering a chance to finally get our hands on that precious missile expansion or treasure chest that once dangled just out of reach. And it’s that nostalgia that drives many indie darlings, including last year’s Super Metroid homage, Shadow Conspiracy, and one that developer DreamBox Games employs in their new WiiWare release, Robox.

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Publisher: Scholastic Interactive
Developer: Scholastic Interactive
Genre: Puzzle
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

As a parent, I’m called upon to spy a lot of arcane minutia, with my precious little daughter using almost every situation we find ourselves in as perfect fodder to train my brain. In reply to her inquisitive “Daddy, I spy something red,” I hand her a laundry list of items, from a friendly neighborhood ladybug to a squished ketchup packet. “Nope—it’s those little red lines in your eyes.” That’s right, those stinging crimson rivers surging through my optical orbs are nothing but child’s play to my little princess. That being said, the hunt for hidden objects remains a tantalizing prospect for us adventurous gamers, who stare at a monitor for hours hoping to ferret out a carefully concealed platypus hidden in a bed of bottlecaps—a pastime that Scholastic Games looks to explore with their latest Wii release, I Spy: Spooky Mansion.

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Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios
Developer: Disney Interactive Studios
Genre: Music
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

YouTube was seemingly invented for times like these. With so many music-rhythm games on the market, it’s inevitable that grown game critics like myself are going to find their aspirations toward higher office dashed when leaked footage of our best Taylor Swift imitation goes viral. That said, there is a huge market for these karaoke jams and its one that Disney Interactive has mined successfully, giving the same fans that made stars out of the High School Musical kids a chance to exercise their pipes in the popular series, Disney Sing It. The latest release, Pop Hits, provides some new tracks to warble the night away.

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Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: EA Montreal
Genre: Sports
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

Boomshakala!!! If there’s any phrase that brings me back to midnight marathons spent in my college dorm hunkered around the Sega Genesis and a Multitap; it’s that infectious rallying cry that signaled another monster jam by my dynamic duo of Bill Clinton and Shaquille O’Neill. NBA Jam may have been a mainstay of every early-90’s era arcade, movie theater and bowling alley but it was the home edition and its casual pick-up-and-play game mechanics that solidified the title’s stance as one of the all time greats. Like its kissing cousin, the Midway-produced Mortal Kombat, these titles changed the industry – turning their home console launches into marquee events and bringing more people into the gaming fold. This brought sports games to the masses; making it accessible to anyone who could jockey a control pad and a few measly buttons. Looking to tap into that nostalgia, EA Sports has raided the vaults and handed NBA Jam another shot at the big time.

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