Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Codemasters
System: Wii
Genre: Action
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

The old maxim goes “It’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.” And then there are places like Crisis City – the chaotically out-of-control burg at the center of Codemaster’s new Wii release, Emergency Mayhem. The question is would you want to play there?

With a name like Crisis City, you know mayhem is on order. Within the city’s four unlockable precincts, crimes and misdemeanors crop up for the player to get under control. Still, despite the open world gameplay and the ability to tear through the streets in a variety of emergency vehicles, this is no Grand Theft Auto clone. Rather, Emergency Mayhem owes a lot of its inspiration to SEGA’s old arcade hit, Crazy Taxi.

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Publisher: Destineer
Developer: Destineer
System: Wii
Genre: Sports
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

It’s no secret that the Wii owes its mammoth success to Wii Sports – that little pack-in tech demo that single-handedly converted a legion of non-gamers into the fold and helped propel Nintendo’s dark horse to the head of the pack. Simply put, Wii Sports proved that anybody could game and those who had either been turned off by video games or turned away by increasingly complex control systems suddenly found themselves enjoying them as a communal activity. So it was that during holiday season 2006, Nintendo caught the gaze of the non-gaming community who regarded the company with renewed interest. Watching someone swing their arms with wild abandon in a hard fought round of Wii Tennis; these neophytes looked on with growing interest and thought to themselves, “I could do that.” For better or for worse, so too did some game developers.

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Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Goichi Suda
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Action Adventure
Release date: Available now
Review by: Christopher J. Troilo

No More Heroes is your typical “boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy uses katana to assassinate other contract killers in order to impress girl” story. This is standard modus operandi for the little town of Santa Destroy, where we meet Travis Touchdown, a 20-something punk living out of a motel. Having just discovered he’s the 11th ranked assassin in the world, Travis decides it’s his destiny to be No. 1. In order to do so, he’s going to have to eliminate all of the competition ahead of him.

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Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
Developer: Krome Studios
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Adventure
Release Date: Available Now
Review by: Christopher J. Troilo

The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night is the second game in what is meant to be a trilogy about the little purple dragon full of courage named Spyro. While Spyro has been around for nearly a decade, spawning games on a multitude of systems and consoles, Eternal Night picks up his journey directly after the events of A New Beginning, a 2006 multi-console game intended to reboot the series.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Canada
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Action/Arcade
Release Date: Available now
Review by: Scott Lufkin

Recently, I was able to travel back to a time when I was a kid playing on the playground with my friends. This time though, there was no bell to signal the end of my fun. I was able to collect marbles, play tether ball and throw paper airplanes for as long as I wanted to. How could I achieve such a feat? With EA Playground!

EA Playground is the latest selection of mini-games for the Wii, and EA has packed quite a lot of features and content into the disc. You start with an empty sticker book, a custom built child avatar and a dream to someday have a full sticker book. As you wander the starting area, a standard playground that looks like many other playgrounds across America, you come across children who challenge you to games that include such classics as dodge ball, slot car racing and dart shooting. Victories earn stickers to fill up your book. You can choose which stickers you want out of a small selection and place them yourself on that game’s page. This gives each book a unique look.

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Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Action Adventure
Release Date: Available Now
Review by: Christopher J. Troilo

While controllers have become more advanced through the past several generations of game systems, one piece of hardware gamers may have noticed gone missing is the light gun. The reason is that newer TV models, such as LCD and plasma screens are not compatible with the “traditional” models of light guns, such as the original Nintendo Zapper and Super Scope. However, because the Wii utilizes motion controls to interact with the screen, the Wiimote itself when used as a pointer is essentially a modern day light gun, and many games on the Wii have already taken advantage of this technology.

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Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EAD Tokyo
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Adventure
Release date: Available now
Review by: Christopher Troilo

Mario has come a long way from his days of jumping over barrels on a 2D screen while attempting to save his beloved from the clutches of Donkey Kong. Nearly 10 game systems later, he finds himself in 3D, on the Wii in a brand new adventure spanning the universe, aptly named Super Mario Galaxy.

The famed plumber, on his way to the Mushroom Kingdom to visit Princess Peach, witnesses from afar that his archenemy Bowser is up to no good. With his mighty airship, Bowser literally steals Princess Peach’s castle and carries it, with her in it, off into outer space. Mario leaps into action and onto the castle, only to be knocked off and sent hurtling into space by one of Bowser’s minions.

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Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Sports
Release date: Available now
Review by: G. Scott Taulbee

In the early 1900′s, refined gentlemen played tennis outdoors. On days where the weather was not conducive to running around outside, these gentlemen would sulk indoors, unhappy that they were unable to engage in their preferred pastime. One day, a few of these gentlemen began using household items to bring their fun inside. A few decades later, the official sport of Table Tennis was born. It has been known under many names, the most popular of which is the brand-name, Ping Pong, and was the inspiration for the first commercially successful arcade game, Pong. In a somewhat strange twist, the simplistic nature of these early games is reflected in Rockstar Games’ motion-sensing title for the Nintendo Wii.

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Publisher: Activision
Developer: Next Level Games
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Action Adventure
Release date: Available now
Review by: Christopher Troilo

Spider-Man is doing his nightly duty of patrolling the New York City rooftops, fighting off a barrage of villains, when suddenly his enemies begin vanishing into thin air. As Spidey runs to escape suffering a similar fate, he’s rescued by Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D, who teleports Spider-Man to his airborne command center. Once in Fury’s audience, Nick explains that shards of a meteorite crashed to Earth, and the pieces are scattered all over the globe. A mysterious force has been collecting these shards and using them to create holographic monsters called Phantoms, which are wreaking havoc. Fury believes these Phantoms are connected to the disappearance of Spider-Man’s foes.

Spider-Man decides he’s the only one who can stop this evil entity, so he has Fury drop him off at the locations where the meteorite remnants have been spotted. Upon arrival, Spidey finds that each one of the shards is being protected by a horde of Phantoms. Each group of creatures is led by one of Spider-Man’s arch nemeses, such as Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus, all of which are under mind control. As Spider-Man defeats these villains and frees them from being manipulated, they become his allies, helping the web-slinger fend off more Phantoms and rescue additional meteorite shards.

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Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Paon
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Racing
Release date: Available now
Review by: Christopher Troilo

Donkey Kong Barrel Blast is a game that follows in the spirit of the Nintendo 64′s Diddy Kong Racing, where the cast of characters from the Donkey Kong universe race against one another across of a multitude of tracks and landscapes. In the game, you can choose to be a member of the Kong clan, such as the big DK himself, or one of the crocodile baddies, like King K. Rool, the main antagonist in the series.

Originally conceived as a GameCube title for the bongo drum gamepad extension, Barrel Blast has been redesigned as a Wii game to take advantage of the system’s motion control system. To accelerate, you must drum the Wiimote and nunchuck up and down as quickly as you can. Once you reach your maximum speed, you’ll maintain it unless you boost or hit something. To turn left or right, you must tap the appropriate bongo by shaking the controller in the hand of the direction you wish to turn. Jumping requires quickly flicking both controllers up at the same time.

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Publisher: Take Two Interactive
Developer: Cat Daddy Games
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Party Games
Release date: Available now
Review by: Scott Lufkin

I remember wandering the theme parks of my youth, watching kids play carnival games and pump tickets into arcade machines. I can almost hear the coins plunking onto plates, the carnie folk hawking games and the air guns taking out helpless ducks. I loved playing the games whenever my folks finally gave in and let me have a quarter or two, even though I never did very well.

Now that Carnival Games is out for the Nintendo Wii, I can play any of my favorite carnival games whenever I want and still win prizes and tickets. Plus, the mini-games don’t seem to be rigged in the house favor. Well, most of them, at any rate.

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Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Retro Studios
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Action adventure
Release Date: Available now
Review by: Christopher Troilo

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is the tenth game in the successful Metroid Prime franchise from Nintendo. Picking up some months after the events of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, bounty hunter Samus Aran wakes up in her ship due to errors found during diagnostic checks. She then docks with the Galactic Federation to recharge and gather her new assignment details.

During Samus’ briefing, Space Pirates launch a full on assault of the space station and of the planet they’re orbiting. With her fellow bounty hunters, Samus defends the station and joins in the counteroffensive on the planetary surface. When the Space Pirate attack is neutralized, Dark Samus appears and corrupts Samus and the other hunters by firing Phazon, an unstable form of energy-induced matter, at them.

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Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Next Level Games
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Sports
Release Date: Available Now
Review by: Christopher Troilo

Mario Strikers Charged is a direct sequel to the popular GameCube title, Super Mario Strikers. Strikers Charged is a soccer game in the same way you’d call Mario Kart a driving game; while the basics of the sport are there, it’s not without a multitude of the unique power-ups and weapons we’ve all come to know and love.

All of the captains from the GameCube version have returned along with some new characters, who can be unlocked as the game progresses. As expected, each captain has his or her own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Bowser is extremely strong, but slow as molasses. Players like Mario and Luigi are more balanced, while Daisy and Peach are speedy.

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Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom Production Studio 4
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Survival Horror
Release Date: Available Now
Review by: Christopher Troilo

It’s been about six years since the events in Raccoon City (the focal point of the previous Resident Evil games), and now Leon has taken the “quiet” job of protecting the President’s daughter, Ashley. Incredibly, Ashley has vanished, and was last seen in a remote Spanish village.

With his escort, Leon soon finds himself in the rundown town, looking for answers from the locals who greet him with a less than joyous reception. As Leon begins poking around, the natives become restless…well…more like bloodthirsty. Since the leader of the clan isn’t letting go of Ashley amicably, Leon is forced to respond using his own recipe for success (extreme brute force) in order to find the President’s daughter and discover the truth of what’s happening to the deranged townsfolk.

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Publisher: Midway Games
Developer: Midway Games
System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: Fighting game
Release date: Available now
Review by: Paul Seaton

Does Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the Wii hold up as a top notch fighting game? How does it play with the Wii remote? Is there anything new to make this version unique from the other consoles?

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is Midway’s attempt to take the six previous versions of the game and cram it all into one offering. As I first slid Armageddon into the Wii and listened to the DVD spinning up, I was anticipating nothing but the best Mortal Kombat ever. When it first loaded, I watched a movie that showed all of the fighters beating each other up, and then trying to reach the top of a pyramid that rose from the ground. I suggest you watch it at least once.

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