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Professor Layton and the Lost Future [DS] Review

If you’re even remotely familiar with puzzle games on the DS, you’ll have no doubt heard of the Professor Layton series. An absolute runaway success of a franchise, the series has received outstanding critical acclaim, impressive sales and even a full-length animated feature film. Impressive for any series, near unheard of for a series two games in, and on a handheld, no less. And here we are with the third instalment in the series, Professor Layton and the Lost Future.

Game Boxart

Taking a break from puzzle-solving, the Professor and his apprentice, Luke are invited to a demonstration of an apparently fully-working time machine. When the experiment goes awry, the machine is destroyed and both it’s inventor and the Prime Minister, Bill Hawks are found to be missing. Soon after, Luke receives a letter from a familiar face – himself ten years in the future, warning him that things are soon to take a turn for the worse. This just so happens to coincide with the disappearances of other various scientists. It isn’t long before the Professor and Luke – both of them – find themselves embroiled in an adventure that, surprise surprise, offers more questions than it first seems…

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Guitar Hero On Tour (DS) Review

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Nintendo DS and Guitar Hero – 2 now common brands that 9 out of 10 people will recognise, but what happens if you put the two brands together?

I’ve never been one to impune on anyone’s intelligence and since Guitar Hero has been out on every major platform (except the poor PSP, slowly dying in a corner surrounded by people who pirate its software) for a few years now I’m not going to go on about what Guitar Hero is, but more on how it plays and feels on the DS. I must admit, when I first heard of the idea of Guitar Hero on the DS I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about it, nor was I when I saw the rather cheesy Guitar Hero promo video circling the interweb of 2 people jumping around a park like they’ve just escaped a mental asylum. What really convinced me of the titles greatness was when I picked up the copy and jammed.

While the game uses the tried and tested Guitar Hero formula of scrolling bars with notes corresponding to the coloured buttons, the game doesn’t have the usual guitar controller (for obvious reasons) instead, a peripheral is slotted into the Game Boy Advance slot and the DS is held sideways like a book (used in Brain Training) to play, Because of the size of the DS one of the five colour buttons had to be removed but other than that it makes for a very unusual style of play but one that works incredibly well and I cant see another way to implement Guitar Hero so perfectly on the DS.

While the style and implementation of the peripheral is almost without flaw, Guitar Hero can’t fix the DS shortcomings such as cartridge space. While the console versions all come on DVD, the DS version has to settle with small cartridges which cut down load times (which is good) and the track list (which is bad). The track list in the game is 26 tracks which compared to the 80 in Guitar Hero 4, can make the game seem somewhat of a step in the wrong direction, made even more evident when the tracks aren’t even very good. The core component of Guitar Hero has always been about enjoying playing the tracks, no matter what they are or what you like. While its true some tracks are simply better than others, there is definitely three or four tracks in here for everyone but don’t expect to be blown away.

So we’ve talked about the controls, the style and track lists but how does it play?
The answer is pretty freaking good considering the DS hardware and what it can handle. Notes come thick and fast on harder modes and only the cream of the crop will be able to handle it on the first attempt. The touch screen strumming is good also with strumming backwards and forwards working perfectly after a little time to get used to the setup. Graphically is fair but nothing overwhelming with pixelated characters, environments and crowds but you won’t look at the other screen enough to notice. Finally, the sound is great for the DS and even better when using some headphones. Some songs will sound a little odd but overall they hit the mark.

Multiplayer is pretty decent with 4 different modes mixing up co-op and versus play. The best mode however is battling against a friend. While I hate the extremely cheesy Nintendo commercials where people are playing and constantly smiling (good luck finding a hardcore gamer that chooses smiling over shouting ‘ PWNED NOOB!’), when in multiplayer it started to feel like one of those commercials. Multiplayer is great fun with items as it really mixes up the gameplay more than previous games, for instance, in Guitar Hero 3 items didn’t really change the outcome of a match but in Guitar Hero on Tour the items can really affect the way a match is going. Items like screen switch, note bombs and difficulty up/down’s really alter the strategy and someone playing on easy can beat someone playing on medium if they use the items well.

Something that makes me hopeful for the Guitar Hero franchise on the DS is the expansion idea the developers put in the game. Let’s face it, 26 tracks is pitiful, especially if you hate 25 of them. The way round this is future version of the game will be compatible with newer versions of the game in multiplayer. Put simply, if you and a friend have different versions of Guitar Hero DS you can have a set list of 52 tracks (assuming the next game has 26 tracks again).

Closing Comments
Guitar Hero isn’t a perfect title with small issues plaguing some of the game such as a annoyingly placed star power button, a very short list of tracks, 4 colour buttons rather than 5 and the guitar grip not fixing to the DS but don’t rule the title out, while it has its faults like any other Guitar Hero, the future is bright for the series on the DS with some clever ideas, a genius peripheral and backwards compatibility. This reviewer will be looking forward to the next instalment.

Score 8.8

Toki Tori – WiiWare Review

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WiiWare has been out for a little while now in Europe. but many are yet to be overwhelmed with the games on show. Unlike the slightly better XBLA, Nintendo have opted out of putting up demo’s of the WiiWare titles to let newcomers and people on the fence test them out and instead people have to put down cash before they try a game out that is unrefundable. That’s where we come in! The staff at WiiDS.co.uk want to let you have a bit more understanding of the cream of the crop and so here is our first WiiWare review – Toki Tori.

Toki Tori is a platforming puzzle game that is reminiscent of the Lemmings style and Lost Vikings puzzles slapped together with some new ideas thrown in to make a pretty damn tasty treat. The main character, a small and newly hatched chick named Toki Tori is quested with finding and collecting his family who are still in their eggs after they are snatched away. That’s pretty much it in the way of story but don’t let this fool you, this is no kids game, this game is one hell of a puzzle game!

Beneath the cuteness of the graphics and sickly sweet music is a very well hidden puzzle game. When you start off most gamers will chuckle to themselves while their ego slowly grows, this is only to be squashed later on as some of the stages really push for some serious thought and require several attempts to complete, but in that good way! The game never felt annoying and I never felt frustrated unlike other puzzle games I own, instead it pushes the player in a similar way to Lemmings, Tetris and Puzzle Quest. Toki Tori can suck hours away without the player ever noticing, it has that addictive game play that many games try to pull off but few ever do.

Wiimote controls are simple and effective; the game uses the IR pointing technology in the Wiimote to choose where you want to move and A to order Toki Tori to move. Along the way you get different abilities and power ups such as being able to teleport within a certain area and the ability to build a set amount of bridges which are set before each level is started and these are cycled through using the D-pad and used with the B button. this makes for some fun, easy and relaxing game play which doesn’t require a lot of movement.

Closing Comments

Personally when i saw the Wiiware line-up for Europe, I wasn’t overly impressed. While I was very interested in Lost Winds, Toki Tori never really grabbed me as a title I would enjoy. I was utterly wrong. The puzzles in Toki Tori are a treat which are challenging and fun but never annoying. While only lasting a few hours and costing 900 points the game still shines and I would easily part with the 900 points again for it. Ladies and gents, this is the hidden gem of the WiiWare launch line-up.

Score – 8.5

+ Great game play
+ Simple controls
+ Addictive!

- Music gets annoying after a while
- No replay value

Brain Assist Review DS

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Its been two years since the original Brain Training came out in Europe. Since then the DS market has been flooded with ‘Brain’ games trying to cash in on Nintendo’s casual market cow, all of them failed. Now, for some reason unknown to me and you the general public, Sega have decided to take a crack at it with Brain Assist, a game designed to exercise the brain while still keeping things fun. Does the design work or is it like every other ‘Brain’ game clone?

Before I launch into my review of the game, let me first tell you about the training games. Brain Assist consists of 10 training games which are:
Pi and Thagoras: A shape is displayed on the top screen, your job is to find the same image muddled within several different shapes on the bottom screen.
Count Mania: So close to a game in Big Brain Academy on the Wii that I’m unsure why its in here. Numbered balloons appear on screen, pop them in the order specified.
Character Hunt: Probably one of the most enjoyable games on the cartridge. Match pairs of letters, symbols or shapes mixed in with others that look similar.
Match Game: Another game similar to a Big Brain Academy mini game. An image cut into pieces is shown on the top screen, find the matching image on the bottom screen.
Spot the Difference: You don’t need me to explain spot the difference do you?
Hexagonal Colours: A bit like the old Simon Says game. Watch a pattern of colours be displayed on the top screen and then match the colours on the bottom screen in the correct order.
Touch of Brilliance: This game certainly feels more challenging than the others, maybe I’m just rubbish at it. A tiled area will flash around the screen, you have to select the tiles that flashed last.
Quick Numbers: A bit like the conveyor belt on the Generation Game (an old BBC TV show) a row of numbers are scrolled across the screen. You then have the type in the sequence on the bottom screen from memory.
Twirling Cards: This is similar to odd one out. Several cards are flashed quickly in front of you and you must select the card that wasn’t displayed.
Scattered Memory: Similar to twirling cards except you must select the single correct image made up of several different symbols.

None of the games are amazing. Some in fact are just plain dull and unlike Brain Training which rewarded you for playing with unlockable games, Brain Assist has all 10 unlocked from the very beginning, making it hard to want to go back. Perhaps I’m being too hard on the training games, all of them are functional and the first few times of playing I enjoyed them. unfortunately the background music is sickeningly annoying and images flashed in the background look like they come from a 80′s trance music video.

The pace of each puzzle is unfortunately slow, this is due to some bad choices on how to access puzzles and what I can only describe as load time. Well done Sega, you are one of the only companies out there to make a cartridge game feel like its trying to load information every 10 seconds. Let me explain myself before I get hate mail, between each training game will be a screen of how to play, not just the first time you play it, EVERY time you play it you have to sit and watch it, you have no choice in the matter, Sega tapes your eyes open and says ‘YOU WILL LEARN THIS AGAIN’. once the training game is completed, be prepared to sit for another 5 seconds while you are told you have finished the training, something which you already know and once again – cant skip. After that you are booted back to the main menu and have to select 1 player again, wait for the game to get to grips with the hard process of loading another menu and then select another game. There is a real sense of lag between every single choice you make outside of the training games themselves and after 10 minutes of playing my ‘Casual’ girlfriend asked if she could give it back to me and go back to Pokemon.

After each puzzle is over, a nurse (very slowly) gives you a score in a similar way to Brain Training. Is there a leader board I hear you ask? No. Can you compare it to other peoples scores on the same cartridge? No. After the score is displayed nothing really happens, no ‘well done’, no ‘bad luck, try better next time!’ not even words of wisdom on how to improve and in honesty I’m unsure how I’m suppose to feel about this score. Theoretically it could be an awful score to the game, but I could think its brilliant. The problem is the lack of audio and visual cues to tell me if what I’m doing is good or bad, it just never lets me know.

Dr Kawashima is well known as the face of Brain Training, and what would Brain Assist be without a copy with some kind of twist? Well no need to panic, the game features four nurses! One of which the player can choose to ‘help’ you with your training. I say ‘help’ because none of them actually do anything, they just tell you that you’ve completed a mini game which is pretending to be training for something. In a similar way Ninja Reflex feels like Wii Play, Brain Assist feels like a collection of tech demos in ‘Touch Generation’ clothing.

Closing Comments
I have no idea how a giant developer like Sega can go from some amazing DS games like Sega Superstar Tennis, Sonic Rush Adventure and Mario and Sonic to games of this calibur which are (for lack of a better word) shovel-ware. the games somewhat flawed but enjoyable training games are completely ruined because of a lack of forward thinking and a bad user experience. All I can say is I’m really not sure what market this was suppose to be for, its a brain training game but with cartoonish/childish looks. What adult would buy this over Nintendo’s behemoth? and what child would want a brain game? maybe its for neither of those very broad markets but neither this ‘hardcore’ gamer nor his ‘casual’ girlfriend thought highly of it. This game is a real shame Sega, from giants like you I would expect better.

Score – 3.0

+ I guess it works….
+ Some mini games are good fun
+ Has game share…

- ….But why would you want to share this?
- Lack of actually any training
- Lag/load times ruin any fun that could have been had
- Background music and images are poor.

House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return Review

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When I was a teenager, I was somewhat of a gun game nut. I used to buy any gun game on the market as we didn’t have many arcades in my town. This meant I have a large collection of obsolete gun peripherals ranging from the Zapper, the blue revolver used on the Megadrive all the way up to the G-con 2. Now that I’m a little older, wiser and still enjoying shooting games as much as the next guy, I’m glad that Sega are porting some old arcade shooter classics, minus the stupidly coloured light gun peripheral (unless you count the Wii Zapper!).

House of the Dead is one of the said games making their way to the Wii but it slaps both 2^nd and 3^rd games into one package to make House of the Dead 2 & 3 Returns. The likely hood of you ever playing a HOTD game is pretty high, even my small humble town had a HOTD2 arcade machine and iterations of the series have been on the Saturn, Dreamcast and Xbox, not counting the Typing of the Dead games on the PC and soon to be on DS. If however you are one of the few who haven’t played any HOTD games, let me fill you in with the story.

HOTD tells the tale of the AMS agents and their fight against the experiments of Dr Curien, a insane genius (isn’t it always the way?) who unleashes said experiments onto mankind. Luckily the AMS manage to contain the outbreak of zombies and creatures in Dr Curien’s Mansion and escape with their lives. The sequels then continue the tale a few years on with AMS agents finding that Dr Curien’s work has continued. In honesty the story was never great, but for an arcade shooter that isn’t overly important, what much much more important is the game play.

If my memory serves me well HOTD was mindless damn good fun and nothing has changed this time around, Sega haven’t messed with the winning formula that has kept HOTD going all this time. Take 2 guns, 2 players and slap an army of zombies and other creatures in front of them to kill along with a few bosses here and there. Thats the entire game play and for fans of the series, thats all you’ll probably need.

Graphically, the game doesn’t exactly shine. Not much has been done to the 2 games which together are nearly 20 years old. Having said that i know of worse looking Wii games out there. Audio is unfortunately not brilliant either, with some tracks that haven’t aged well and some almost laughable dialog that makes me cringe. HOTD2 in particular has some of the worst dialog since the original Resident Evil on the Playstation, with time gaps and ‘Engrish’ which will make anyone laugh or cry, while HOTD3 has better dialog (not a great deal better mind) but it also suffers from the same badly aged music.

Unfortunately, the sound and graphics aren’t the only things to be left alone here, HOTD 2 & 3 Returns uses IR functions for shooting, they both have the option to use the Wii Zapper (although I wouldn’t recommend it) and the biggest addition is the inclusion of a ‘Extreme’ mode which makes the game harder, But thats it. All these functions don’t really add a lot of extra value to the 2 games that have been out for so long now, not to mention the only real extra ‘Extreme’ mode is only available in HOTD3 and it isn’t available at the start of the game.

Closing Comments
Before you read my closing comments you probably know if you will pick this game up already or leave it be, if you’re a fan of the series and don’t mind parting with 30 sterling for it you’ll probably grab a copy. For those who aren’t big into old arcade shooters or are looking for a game to jump into the genre, I wouldn’t recommend this. The games are fun and have a certain old quirkiness that makes me happy to play them, but for the rather hefty £30 price tag I would recommend Ghost Squad over this. its longer, has 4 player multiplayer and at a lower price point leaves HOTD dead and buried. come on Sega, you can do a better job than this.

Overall Score – 6.0

+ Fun game play
+ Two full length games
+ Precise IR functions
+ Additional Extreme difficulty

- Extreme only in HOTD3
- Two games aren’t overly long
- Why not 4 player!?
- No more additional content?
- High price tag for 2 old games

Sega Superstar Tennis Review (DS)

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Lately on the Wii and DS, Sega have been on a bit of a roll with Ghost Squad and House of the Dead both selling fairly well for old games, but their main success comes from the Mario and Sonic and the Olympics games, which has sold well into the millions. Sega are trying to keep that momentum going with their latest title, Sega Superstar Tennis on both the Wii and DS, a tennis game which acts as Sega’s dirty mistress giving the fans what they want.. in tennis form.

We will be looking at the DS version in this review (although it’s surprisingly close to the white box’s version) which is staggeringly impressive.

The game starts off with a nice CGI opening of the starting characters all playing tennis, letting the player know of their names (in case they never played the series with that character in) and showing off their skills.

There is definitely a feeling that the team said ‘screw the story, lets just make a really cool game’ and I think that’s probably the best way to tackle a game where none of the characters have a point at which they can meet. I’m glad they didn’t place it in the Sonic universe but kept it neutral with several stage themes. In-game graphics are fairly impressive and detailed for a DS game, everything runs smoothly and until you’re up close and personal it looks pretty high quality. Stages look as they would in each different game with themed levels of Sonic, Jet Set Radio, Nights, Samba de Amigo and even House of the Dead! I only noticed on one stage some textures on the floor which weren’t very good and almost made the ball invisible which definitely hindered my play.

Sound is equally impressive in the game with it using similar tracks from the Wii version and the same voice acting also used. Not all the songs are great, but their quality is good for a DS game. They sound even better when using headphones but that’s usually the case with most DS games.

One of most important things with games requiring precise aim is controls. The scary thing about Sega Superstar Tennis on the DS is that controls are set to buttons rather than touch screen control. Now many people might just not care but when I found this out it made me worry about Sega’s confidence in their touch screen controls.

Unfortunately after playing using the touch screen for a little over a hour I found I couldn’t put up with it anymore. Touch screen controls feel broken, unresponsive and sluggish, it’s a big shame but I think the controls could have done with a lot more work. The biggest issue with the touch controls is that the action takes place on the top screen, making it very hard to be precise using the bottom screen. Response times also add to this problem as actions don’t happen as fast as you would like them to and you also partially lose functionality. Finally with touch screen controls specials seem to go off whenever they feel like it, you don’t feel like you have control on what’s going on.

The D-pad controls have been set as default for a reason, they are just plain better. While using the d-pad you get back the responsiveness that the console version has and also you can charge shots depending on button presses. It all works very nicely and I recommend you leave the default the way it is.

The character list to be used is pretty impressive and any Sega fan will be impressed with the range of non Sonic characters Sega have gone for, that’s not to say I wouldn’t of liked to see some Streets of Rage characters in there as well (Note – I wont be writing the list of characters in the game for those who want to be surprised when you unlock them, I’m pretty sure you can find a list on Wikipedia if you really want to find out). When you start you have about half of the character list, most being the well known Sega characters with plenty more unlocked through play. Each character has their own strength in a similar to Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Sonic is speedy while Amy is an all rounder.

Every character has a power up which you can unleash upon the enemy, it’s a bit of a shame that the power ups are pretty rubbish when used and most of the time just makes the ball spin around the court. I’m glad the power ups only last one point and I’m even happier at the fact you can turn them off.

While most sports are multiplayer orientated I’m glad Sega have put a fair amount of single player options in. you’ve got the basic Quick Play, where the computer does everything for you and you jump straight into a match, Tournament, which puts you (and possibly a AI partner) in a tournament for 3 different cups (this unlocks characters!), High Score and Mission, which lets you play small minigames involving certain Sega games such as Virtual Cop, Puyo Pop or Chu Chu Rocket. All of the modes are fun and involving and most have benefits like extra courts or unlockable characters.

Away from single player, multiplayer has your standard modes of play with Single-Card and Multi-Card both available (however Single-Card takes a while to upload) which run well and shockingly enough Wifi. The reason its so shocking is because the Wii version doesn’t have Wifi, but we will get into that when we check out the Wii version. Wifi play runs smooth and the matches I had were fun and fast, as always Nintendo have allowed you to play with your friends at the sacrifice of a long numbered code.

Before I do my closing comments on the review may I just applaud Sega for doing something a lot of games SHOULD do, add in rumble support. Yes, that’s correct, stop rubbing your eyes, this game has rumble support. I know only a small percentage of DS owners have rumble packs, I know an even smaller percentage of DS Lite owners have rumble packs (especially in Europe, as they were never released here and you have to import the little buggers). But that doesn’t mean games shouldn’t include the feature. I’m impressed Sega added in such a small feature that I enjoy having and when it comes to timing your swing, the rumble certainly helped.

Closing Comments
Sega Superstar Tennis is a nice surprise for a handheld version of a console tennis game. While the idea of the game wasn’t overly appealing to me as Nintendo have been doing sports spin-off’s for years, it manages to have enough original content and gameplay to make it enjoyable, accessible and worth buying. Single player options are plentiful, multiplayer matches are fun and Wifi and Rumble make me happy like a fat man with a bucket of KFC. If you want a portable tennis game on the DS this is the best out there right now.

Score 8.8

+ Wifi & Rumble support
+ Large character list
+ Fairly impressive graphics
+ Smooth gameplay

- Sound clips can get tired after the first few games
- Touch screen controls just aren’t good enough
- Specials are pretty rubbish

Bleach: Shattered Blade Review (Wii)

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Like many other 18 to 30 gamers out there, I watch a bit of anime. I wouldn’t loads, but I know my Naruto’s from my DragonBalls and one of my favourite anime’s is bleach.
Unlike the Naruto game that will soon be released in Europe, Bleach slaps you straight in the center of its story and to the uninitiated this can be more than a little confusing.

Bleach is about a school student named Ichigo Kurosaki, a boy who from a young age could see souls and spirits. After a chance encounter with a Soul Reaper, Ichigo gains the powers of a Soul Reaper and vows to protect the good spirits while killing the bad. The series is hugely popular in Japan and has recently become available in the UK on DVD.

While the game deals with characters from the anime, it has nothing to do with any of the story. The original series writer, Tite Kubo wrote the story for the game and introduces a new character named Arturo Platedo who is trying to escape from being imprisoned. The name ‘Shattered Blade’ is a reference to a legendary sword known as the Sokyoku, which has been shattered into pieces, Ichigo and co must try and collect these pieces and put them back together. Unfortunately this is a trick by Arturo Platedo to help with his escape.

The story of the game won’t win any Oscars anytime soon but it works for the game, its reason enough for the characters to have a scrap, and that’s all the player wants to do anyway, have a good brawl. In Bleach: Shattered Blade there are over 30 characters to choose ranging from Soul Reapers, humans and Espada. But unfortunately only a few of them are selectable when first turning on the game and the majority need to be unlocked via the Story or Arcade mode.

Arcade mode is as you would expect, fight through several stages of one on one fights until you finish, its simple and fun for the most part, as long as you don’t get a tired arm. Controls in the game are interesting, Sega have adopted a motion sensing combat system which is what you would expect for a game where most characters carry massive swords, holding certain buttons pull off heavier or special moves and depending on the direction of motion alters the move being made, for the most part the motion works flawlessly and I can tell Sega have tried to make a good fighting system but it comes off sometimes as cheap. Let me also add that there are no other control options for the game, Wiimote controls are the only option you have to play.

While there is a stamina system in place to stop the player from simply attacking with waggling the Wii-mote around, slashing automatically for several seconds in a row before running away to let their stamina charge back up and then go back in for an attack still happens far too much. It’s a shame that some people (and the computer) sometimes do this as I think it spoils the games design.

Specials and Bankai’s stay true to the series, with each character having a special finishing move which can be used, these work as a short cut-scene and then you get control of what you want to do. I like the mechanic but some specials seem too powerful for what they are, while others seem a little too weak. I wish there was a little more balance in the game but I can see a lot of work has definitely gone into it.

While the anime was originally voiced in Japanese, a Japanese language option hasn’t been included in the game, instead only English is available which is shame as I feel the English voice actors don’t do the characters justice compared to their eastern counterparts. Lines don’t sound correct in English and I think it sometimes gets lost in translation with lines like ‘I grow bored with your face’ which I will admit, made me spit out tea with laughter the first time I heard it. Also accents and pronunciation is a big problem with words like ‘Bankai’ being pronounced as ‘Bonkay’ fans of the series will grind their teeth.

The game is definitely great fun 2 player and even more fun for a 3rd person watching two people standing up and flailing their arms. It’s a shame no 4 player battles where included in the game or online fighting modes. Seeing as the DS fighting game had this I hoped the Wii version would of also.

Closing Comments
Bleach: Shattered Blade is a fine example of a Wii fighting game, mainly because there aren’t that many to compare it to. Its expanded character list is great for fans of the series and brawlers alike, but a lack of additional multiplayer options means this game could get stale quite quickly. A good base for a fighting franchise, I hope the next one will be better equipped for a match to the death.

Score 7.1

+ Stays true to the anime
+ Large character list
+ Motion controls are fun..

- …until your arm falls off
- No online play
- Voice acting is terrible.

Battalion Wars 2 Review (Wii)

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Battalion Wars on the Gamecube was one of the last enjoyable games before the purple box breathed its last 3rd place breath and admitted defeat. Nintendo (the lovely scamps that they are) have now given us the 2nd iteration of Advance Wars big brother franchise, Battalion Wars 2.

BW2 is unlike most games on the Wii; it tries to combine two different genre’s together, those being Real Time Strategy and Third Person Shooter to bring a quite unique flavor of gameplay. Although you control an army (or battalion I should say), you do it from the point of view of a grunt. Taking control of any solider, tank, boat or plane, you then issue orders to your squad being it by type, single unit issues or an overall command.

Those who have played and enjoyed the original will find much of the same here, as what the original started, BW2 tries to follow. It does this quite admirably and you won’t hear too many complaints from me…but there are few problems.

But first, let’s talk about the game a bit. When you first boot up the game, fans of the series may notice the opening music sounds very similar to the original, in fact I think it could be identical. The rest of you will notice the simple menu- Single Player, Multiplayer, Options and Extras are the only choices you have, that’s it. The game is at its core, very basic and it isn’t trying to be anything else.

The single player is quite well put together, you start in a flashback fight, detailing the previous world war and its effects on the current war. You play (to start with at least) as a Solar Empire solider behind enemy lines trying to get to the base camp of the enemy. This is basically a tutorial of the standard grunt unit. All ground solider troops handle and control pretty much the same, it isn’t anything amazing but I like what they’ve done with the Wiimote controls. I will say no Wiimote control is over used in this game.

Aside from the bog-standard solider unit, several other types of solider exist including flame vet, rocket troops and grenadier troops, but far more interesting are the vehicles you can use. The previous game used ground vehicles like Tanks, Anti-Air Cannons and Artillery and now BW2 introduces Boats and Planes also. Planes use the Nun-Chuck tilt mechanic to control the angle of the vehicle which works quite well, while Boats use the normal controls all other units adopt. This mixes the game play up quite nicely and gives you a much bigger army to mess about with. Ordering the multitude of units around in the game around is very easy, simply scroll across using the d-pad and issue the order with the A button, it really feels quite natural in game and in the thick of action players wont easily be confused.

The 25 campaign missions suffer a little however as its not straight out fights, its more of a objective based campaign usually involving saving some troops, taking out some kind of weapon to gain more troops and then stealing back a base. Bases add additional elements of every mission as they respawn your lost troops, I’ll let you decide if that’s a good idea, or cheap.

Graphics are nice enough in-game, don’t expect it to push the little white box like Mario Galaxy, No More Heroes or Metroid Prime 3. They fit quite nicely and are quite stylized in each country you visit. For instance in the Anglo Isles (that’ll be England) there are small cottages and many large trees trying to push a very rural feeling. Textures of the tanks and soldiers look very unrealistic but in the OK kind of way that many Nintendo games try and approach, this isn’t the gritty real world soldiers in Call of Duty 4 or anything like that, they are good enough but like the scenery they aren’t going to win awards.

Sound is a little hit and miss. While the sound effects of shells, guns and explosions work well and seem quite fitting, voice acting is worse than some anime dubs I’ve heard in the past. Everyone who is voiced in the game was not done by that specific nation. The Chinese do not sound Chinese, the Americans do not sound American and the Russians do not sound Russian. I think the developer Kuju could of spent a little more money on the voice cast as they all sound like they are from Leeds (no offence to people in Leeds, you all have lovely voices). I would comment on the in-game music, but there isn’t enough of it for me to say anything unfortunately, it’s a bit of a shame but doesn’t change the real experience.

Online seems to actually be a good portion of the game. With the single player campaign consisting of around 25 missions which could be completed within a few days, the online gives players a chance to test their skills. online comes in varying modes including Co-op, Assault and Skirmish, each of which require more than a few play throughs to unlock more levels for each mode. This is a nice idea and I think one that works pretty well, matches can last from 10 seconds to a good hour depending on how good your opponent is.

Closing Comments

A 9 hour single player, a excellent online component, great controls and a laugh out loud storyline, with those things in mind its easy to see that Battalion Wars 2 is a good game. Kuju have obviously tried very hard to make a fun and appealing game, but the game suffers from being too linear to draw in the truly hardcore gamer. There is a lot this game got spot on, shame it misses some as well

Score 80%

+ Long single player
+ Good, lag free, online play
+ Several unit types to control, all tweaked perfectly

- Repetitive single player
- Linear path to follow
- No freedom to make units

Luminous Arc Review (DS)

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In the past few years a company I have never heard of before have delivered some truly great games on several different platforms; that company being Atlus. Atlus have worked in Japan for many years and now are bringing over some great games to the European shores; they’ve amazed me with titles such as Persona 3 on the PS2, Trauma Center on the Wii and now Luminous Arc on the DS. Now before I go into how much I love Atlus’s back catalog of awesomeness, why don’t we look at Luminous Arc.

Luminous Arc is a Strategy Role Playing game, following the footsteps of the SRPG’s before it such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Vandal Hearts. The game boots to a beautiful fully rendered FMV backed by a great music track. You can tell the moment you turn the game on that the developers liked making this game, if I didn’t know any better I would say the FMV was ripped from the opening of an anime.

From the moment you start the game you are greeted with 2D snapshot dialog one character on the left and right with text at the bottom. The difference from the standard DS game and somewhat of a surprise is the amount of the conversations that are voiced. The voice acting in the game isn’t fantastic but it isn’t terrible, it does its job and it’s nice that I recognize some of the voice actors from animes I’ve watched in the past. I know several ‘otakus’ will be upset to hear that Japanese voice acting wasn’t included. I feel your pain.

The game is based around ‘the Garden Children’, a group of specially trained orphan warriors, who follow the ways of the church and god, trained to hunt down monsters and fight Witches that have started to reappear in the world after a 1000 year absence. each one of the Garden Children are trained in a special area, whether it be Knight, Archer, Ninja or Church Mage (your standard character class types) with a few interesting types being made available later on in the game.

These Garden Children are quested with hunting down Witches and killing them as they go against god (naughty Witches). Although this sounds very bland and stale the story mixes things up quickly and never takes itself too seriously so the story isn’t a bore.

Combat in the game is just like any other SRPG out there for people who have never played a SRPG its all about turn based, grid combat. You choose up to 8 of the characters you currently have in your party and go into battle, moving each unit one by one as their turn is made available. Characters gain EXP not through killing an enemy, but only by attacking and they level every 100 points of EXP they receive. The system works quite well for the game with skills rationed for you as well as magic given every few levels, it just clicks and because of its light approach I feel it would be good for a beginner in SRPG’s.

The touch screen comes into use here, but the perspective of the battle makes it somewhat hard to choose what you want to do, I would recommend switching to standard D-pad controls to avoid frustration. this is quite a shame as that I pretty much the only time the touch screen use is used, apart from skipping text or picking choices from a menu, the DS’s features almost go untouched. In battles the top screen displays current character stats as well as enemy stats with damage amounts and hit percentages etc, but that’s all of the dual screen use really. It’s a shame but it doesn’t take away from the game itself.

Outside of combat its very linear unfortunately, traveling is done by warping from place to place, having a chat with someone, battling and moving on. It’s not exactly great, but the story and combat manage to keep it together. Old Skool SRPG fans won’t care too much about those problems but for a gamer new to SRPG it could be a very big disappointment.

The game soundtrack is definitely one of its strongest points, the instrumental music is fantastic and very fitting as well as the main opening theme being sung by a female Japanese vocalist, it all fits together in a great package, just wish there was Japanese voice acting. Graphics are every bit as good as the music, each character has great design and stands out well, although in game conversations aren’t animated, just with the usual static image with a different facial expression. It’s nothing out the norm.

For all of this games production value and effort they certainly did miss a few key things, the biggest of which is a good frame rate. The game runs smoothly in battles, between 50 to 60 frames without issues until about half way through the game, when you have more characters and enemies on screen at one time, the game chugs like an old train. It’s unavoidable unfortunately and as much as I tried to get round it, it’s just not possible to avoid and is a really unfortunate part of the game.

Multiplayer is a great part of the game with local multi-card play and online play also. They do suffer the same slow down in single player, but not to the same extent. player will have to play quite a lot of single player before they can attempt multiplayer however, as the game forces you to play up to chapter 13 before it lets you access the multiplayer menu. I think this is to make sure gamers have a good level party before hand as well as more than 8 players to choose from.

Closing Comments

Luminous Arc oozes Japanese fanboy gifts, it has good depth but is shallow enough for SRPG beginners to jump in and not be overwhelmed. the game takes around 24 hours to complete and is a joy all the way through with enjoyable story and lovable characters, even though it suffers from bad points I still heartily recommend it to RPG fans, old and new alike.

Score 8.8

+ Great visuals

+ Enjoyable combat

+ Likable characters

- Bad case of lag both in single and multiplayer variants

- Not too wonderful English voice acting, would have liked Japanese as a option

- Not enough freedom