Hey everyone. I know you've seen my reviews on the page, but I was told that I should probably go and introduce myself. Well I'm BlurryPhoenix. As you can tell, I LOVE Sonic the Hedgehog games. I grew up playing the SEGA Genesis, and I still currently have it hooked up to my TV. I work for a super amazing gaming store called BragGame Rights. If you're asking yourself "what the hell is BragGame Rights?" you aren't wrong to ask yourself that. Currently there's only 1 open, and it's in the frigid Duluth, MN. I own a Wii, kinda regretting the fact that nothing is being released for it that has any resemblance of a "video game." My gamertag on Xbox Live is BlurryPhoenix (ha, big surprise there). I've started writing reviews for both this site and the BragGame Rights forum just for the fun of it. I was really hoping that I could start writing reviews for Destructoid (hint, hint Niero or Jim Sterling (whoever I have to hint towards)). The thing that really turned me over to Destructoid was the podcasts. I started listening to Podtoid and found it HILARIOUS beyond belief. Then following that with Retroforce GO! and Podcastle, my week was set. I tended to listen to the podcasts while working at the movie theater that I worked at as a projectionist, putting movies together. I'm glad that people enjoy my rating system. I realize how confusing it can get without the legend on the side. But just as long as people agree with my rating, I'm perfectly happy.

Well, I'm not sure what else to add on here, so I hope that this is sufficient.

Let's Tap is a new innovative game that was recently put out by Nintendo. You play it by setting the Wiimote face down on a box (or something similar) and you tap the box to do any of the games. It's sensitive enough to recognize the different forces that you tap the box. There are 3 different types of "taps" though (light, medium, and hard). During the running game, you are supposed to tap lightly in order to make your character run, and tap harder to make your character jump. This can cause some difficulty in knowing how hard you're tapping until you end up jumping into some obstacle that you weren't intending.

There are 4 games that you can play. Tap Runner, the running game; Rhythm Tap, kinda like Guitar Hero where you tap in beat and with the certain forces; Silent Blocks, kinda like Jenga; and Bubble Voyager.

Silent Blocks


Tap Runner


Visualizer


Rhythm Tap


Bubble Voyager


This game is insanely fun, for about an hour. Anything after that, it's boring. It's meant as a party game between friends. It's definitely meant as a game to unwind from the day considering it's not difficult by any means. It's not fun, at all, to play by yourself.

Rating: Super Silver

(Holy crap, 2 reviews in a day?)



There's not a ton to say about this game. There's not much new. I'm glad that they decided to keep the same basic layout as Guitar Hero: Metallica. I do have to say, however, that it's nice to go back and play the songs that were on the games before Guitar Hero: World Tour and be able to play them on bass, drums, vocals, or lead guitar. It's was originally going to be called "Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits" because that's all that's on here. I've also noticed that they don't have any songs from World Tour or Metallica. I'm assuming because those games were already in the new "full band" layout.



I like the fact that they have hits from the first two Guitar Hero games because they didn't have either game released on the Wii. But, I've always hated games that basically re-release the same game and call it new. I played "Through the Fire and the Flames" on Smash Hits and concluded that the intro is now finally doable, but the rest of the song, to me, is more difficult (either that, or it's really been just that long since I've played it on Guitar Hero III)

The track list is as follows:

Tracks from Guitar Hero:

* Blue Öyster Cult - "Godzilla"
* Boston - "More Than A Feeling"
* Deep Purple - "Smoke On The Water"
* Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
* Helmet - "Unsung (Live)"
* Incubus - "Stellar"
* Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - "I Love Rock N’ Roll"
* Ozzy Osbourne - "Bark At The Moon"
* Pantera - "Cowboys From Hell (Live)"
* Queen - "Killer Queen"
* Queens Of The Stone Age - "No One Knows"
* The Donnas - "Take It Off"
* The Exies - "Hey You"
* White Zombie - "Thunder Kiss ’65"


Tracks from Guitar Hero II:

* Alice In Chains - "Them Bones"
* Avenged Sevenfold - "Beast And The Harlot"
* Danzig - "Mother"
* Foo Fighters - "Monkey Wrench"
* Iron Maiden - "The Trooper"
* Jane’s Addiction - "Stop!"
* Kansas - "Carry On Wayward Son"
* Lamb Of God - "Laid To Rest"
* Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Free Bird"
* Mötley Crüe- "Shout At The Devil"
* Nirvana - "Heart-Shaped Box"
* Rage Against The Machine - "Killing In The Name"
* Reverend Horton Heat - "Psychobilly Freakout"
* Rush - "YYZ"
* Stone Temple Pilots - "Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart"
* The Police - "Message In A Bottle"
* The Sword - "Freya"
* Warrant - "Cherry Pie"
* Wolfmother - "Woman"


Tracks from Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s:

* Anthrax - "Caught In A Mosh"
* Extreme - "Play With Me"
* Judas Priest - "Electric Eye"
* Poison - "Nothin’ But A Good Time"
* Ratt - "Round and Round"
* Twisted Sister - "I Wanna Rock"


Tracks from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock:

* AFI - "Miss Murder"
* DragonForce - "Through The Fire And Flames"
* Heart - "Barracuda"
* Kiss - "Rock And Roll All Nite"
* Living Colour - "Cult Of Personality"
* Pat Benatar - "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"
* Priestess - "Lay Down"
* Slayer - "Raining Blood"


Tracks from Guitar Hero: Aerosmith:

* Aerosmith - "Back In The Saddle

Rating: Knuckles

I've never liked golf games on the Wii, let alone sports games in general, but Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 has gotten it right in how it was created. Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 utilizes the new Wii Motion Plus, and using that, it makes the game so much fun. If you're a golfer, you'll be able to feel like you are golfing from your living room. The game has been released for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii. I'm reviewing the Wii version. I tried to find screenshots from the Wii version, so if they aren't, I apologize.



The weather can be changed to whatever weather you want, or you can change to the setting where it has live streaming weather from the course. I started playing a round in London, and it started off cloudy, but by the 3rd hole or so it started to rain (it was cloudy then started to rain at the course in real life). The graphics are so amazing for the little old Wii. It has the nice little nitches that are in all the Tiger Woods games like when you hit a really nice shot and it's going straight for the pin, the screen goes to widescreen, the video slows down, and all you hear is a heartbeat.



There are a few negatives that I noticed. When playing the career, you're not really good. If you go play the exhibition and play as Tiger, then go to the career, you'll struggle. You start off really weak and can't hit much more than 250 yds. for a drive, while when playing as Tiger, a full swing can get you almost 350 yds. I also noticed that when I was playing in the rain, the greens became almost too slow. I know that greens slow down when wet, I am a golfer in real life, but this almost seemed to slow the ball down to half the speed. Another thing that I don't like is the Classic Putting. It defaults to the shortest length but still make it to the cup. So, when the greens are slow, you have to go and change the length to make the putter able to hit further. The Precision Putting is the way to go, you just need to get the touch down.

Final Thought: This game is really addicting, especially with how realistic it seems. We had this game demoing at BragGame Rights and the employees would switch off every hole. Most of us didn't want to give up the controller after the hole though. But you will get tired after a while. You have to take full swings in order to get a decent shot. So I'd say that you should limit yourself to a round, maybe two.

Rating: Super Sonic

This game is amazing. I love how it's a huge throwback to the original Punch Out games. They kept key scenes that are just such a staple of the Punch Out games, in other words, the pink jumpsuit. The controls are really responsive when you use the Wiimote and Nunchuck control scheme. The controls are VERY simple, (dodge left to right (left and right on joystick), block/face jabs (up on joystick), duck (down on joystick), and lastly throwing punches by swinging the Wiimote and Nunchuck to punch with the respective hands). For all you retro players, it also has the option to play with the Wiimote sideways which makes it feel exactly like playing the original Punch Out for the NES. And even for you new gamers, it is compatible with the Wii Balance Board as well. That's only used for dodging, however it is still fun to actually dodge punches. The difficulity ramp up seems very fairly done. It's not like you're fighting a really easy opponent then the next fighter is impossible. Obviously, they are going to get more and more difficult. Along with them getting more and more powerful. I made it all the way to the 2nd fighter in the World Circuit, and I couldn't beat him. The characters are really fun to watch. They're really dynamic from the thing that they show prior to the fight and even during the fight.



Really, my only complaints are the fact that it's really short. There are 3 circuits, the Minor Circuit, the Major Circuit, and the World Circuit. The Minor and Major Circuits have 3 fighters and 1 champion in each. The World Circuit, however, has 4 fighters and 1 champion, making it just a little longer. I also don't like that getting up doesn't become more difficult the more times you get knocked down. I was always able to get up by the count of 4. But if you get knocked down 3 times in a round, TKO. I would rather have me getting up become more difficult the more times I get knocked down, because I found myself numerous times losing because of the TKO.



They also added a multiplayer option to the game. Both of you fight as Little Mac and beat on each other until one loses. Thank god this was added because that adds even MORE replay value to the game (as if Punch Out didn't have replay value on its own).

All in all, if you liked the Punch Out games, get this game. If you're just looking for a different fighting game, get this game.

Rating: Shadow

Picture Courtesy of www.mwii.com.au

Trauma Center: New Blood is the second installment of the Trauma Center franchise done for the Wii. The first one is Trauma Center: Second Opinion. The game, in my opinion, would be classified as a puzzle game. The catch with it though, is it's severely timed. If you don't do the correct steps quick enough, you patient will die. I found myself stumbling on a few of these situations that always seemed to cause me trouble. The storyline is pretty simple. There are two doctors, Dr. Vaughn and Dr. Blaylock. Both are doctors in a little hospital in Alaska. You go from episode to episode doing different procedures, all the while, "cutscenes" (I put it in quotes because they're not really cutscenes) attempt to convey an underlying storyline for both Vaughn and Blaylock. The failure montage is really dark though. When you fail an "episode," it states, "For Dr. Vaughn and Dr. Blaylock, two gifted doctors who strove for perfection, the pain of their mistake was too much to bear. Without a parting word, they both left the field of medicine forever..."



The basic controls are quite simple. It's controlled with the Wii remote and nunchuck. You select your medical instrument with the joystick and use it with the corresponding buttons along with pointing the Wii remote to the screen. The controls are pretty responsive, and accurate. The storyline makes you feel for the doctors, sort of.

The negative aspects though are that it's not very clear on some parts. Granted, you go through tutorials, that are well done I must add, so you should remember how to do things; but every once and a while, you find yourself in a stressful level not remembering how to do something. There is also a special power called the "Healing Touch." I have to say that I never got the hang of it. I didn't pass the tutorial.




I didn't find out until later that there was a co-op mode. This makes all the levels easier because there is no difficulty change between co-op and single player. It just provides an extra set of hands to work with.

Final conclusion of the game: It's a decent puzzle game for the Wii. It takes the motion sensors and actually uses them well. However, I wasn't a huge fan of the game. It's better than Second Opinion, but that's not insanely great. I will say that I had fun (along with feeling some actual tension) on some levels. I left those levels actually, somewhat, feeling like I did save a life. Those levels were difficult, but not enough to where you'd say, "this is impossible" and rage quit. My recommendation would be to rent it.

Rating: Super Knuckles