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controls didnt lock for me either. but the game just SUCKED! way crappier that CoD2, and no redeeming values (multiplayer) for the wii. all in all i wasted my money on CoD3 and id have to strongly agree with Grinch. JUST RENT IT! theres no point in buying it, its like a 7hr game, with no multiplayer. sure the gameplay is fun! but its gets boring after a while. what else is there to say.

Great review of Trauma Center

I was a huge fan of the DS version, i thought it was one of the most innovative games ive seen in a long time. Although the idea of a surgery game is a little odd at first, the concept works really well and I found that i couldnt put the game down.

I do have a few questions though, are the gameplay mechanics (for the missions that are the same) a simple port from the DS version? Is the gameplay controlled all with IR or does it use the tilt sensors too? And perhaps most importantly, do you think that the small amount of added content is worth $50??

I love this thread, ive had a good time reading your reviews and everyone else's responses. Keep up the good work!

I also loved the DS version (minus the long dialog before the operations, would probably be better if it had sound, not just reading which gets tedious) and I've been temped to buy the Wii version so many times but I haven't seen anyone playing it yet and I have the same worry as you that it will just be a DS port with better graphics.

Red Steel (even with minor glitches) > Call of Duty 3

sorry guys. thread got lost in all the others and i've been seriously busy. i'll get a couple more reviews up today but i'll address some recent posts 1st.

all of the direct ports simply use the pointer just as you used the stylus for the DS. it's a little difficult to get used to the movements and how they affect your pointer, but nothing Twilight Princess didn't teach you already with the bow & arrow. in the one new mission i got to play, the game does use the tilt sensing. there are bone fragments in a man's arm and you have to turn the remote to twist the bones so they fit properly. amazing use of the sensor.

and yes, i completely recommend this game. if you bought the DS version and enjoyed it, trade it in for the Wii version and wait for it to be used and use a discount card to save 10%. you'll end up spending $5-10 at the most to upgrade to the Wii version. well worth it.

thanks alot for the feedback. glad to see my work is being appreciated by the community. i'm really trying to find a way to continue working with GameStop when i move. if i can't, i'll just have to get a GameFly subscription. hell, if enough people enjoy the reviews and pitch in even a dollar a month (likely even less), i could start posting full reviews for some serious look into the games for my readers

1.11 Rampage: Total Destruction

I actually own this game but haven't put in alot of time with it yet. If there's a huge request for it, I'll do a full review later, but this'll do for now.

The first word in the title of the game basically gives it's own review. It's Rampage plain and simple. The game has a slight 3D quality to it. Some buildings have another building in front that you must destroy first before getting to the one behind it. Otherwise, this is what you've come to expect and either love or hate.

You get to choose from a wide selection of monsters to wreak your havok. Each has slightly different attributes based on how hard they hit, how fast they run, and how hight they jump. There's also a difference as to what your monster can eat to either boost it's Rampage meter and restore health or lower its health. The A button is a basic attack while shaking the remote left-right unleashes a stronger attack. A motion up-down causes the monster to smash the ground. The controls haven't been altered too much for the Wii console. If you own the game for another system, there's not enough difference to make you pick it up for the Wii.

The Rampage meter is a new addition. Destroying certain things and eating certain things raise the Rampage meter. Once the meter is full, your monster goes into Rampage mode where it hits faster and harder for a limited time. The levels are a little more in depth with the addition of objectives. After completing an objective, you either receive bonus points or a special ability which is the same for every character. This does actually add some replay to the game as well. Another replay factor is the hidden characters. To earn all the characters, you'll have to find them in the levels. The only way to accomplish this is to destroy a certain unmarked building. Basically, just keep doing what you've been doing and hope a new monster pops up. "Bosses" also make an appearance, but are barely more than a tough vehicle you have to kick multiple times to destroy.

The graphics look pretty good, but I'm docking the game for the sound. While destroying cities, the sound is what you'd expect, but during loading screens, every button press unleashes some childish immature sound effect. I don't mind the burps during the game, but hearing a fart when i push a button makes me wanna cry more than laugh. Is this what Rampage has to do to get players?

If you're wondering about the extra games, they're nothing special. I enjoy the newest addition more, but they're there for nostalic players. I'm glad the series has found a way to bring some of the fun from the old days to the new generation of gamers. Now if they'd just make a new Battletoads game...

Graphics: B
Sound: C+
Originality/Story: B-
Gameplay: A-
Overall: B

1.12 Elebits

Finally. I'm just as glad as you guys to finally review this game, sorta.

Most of you know the story on Elebits. You use your pointer to move objects to find Elebits which are mystical critters which apparently power homes in some odd alternate universe. After a blackout, your character sets out to capture the Elebits as he blames them for his parents not paying him enough attention. Hopefully the Elebits will pay the psychiatrist bills as well as turn on the lights.

Most Elebits just help you turn on the lights in the room or unlock doors. After earning enough watts from the Elebits to turn on an appliance, the Elebits which spew from the appliance help your capture gun become stronger so you can lift/move heavier objects to find more Elebits to turn on more appliances to make you gun stronger to lift heavier.....yeah, and so it goes for the whole game. Thing is, you don't carry over the watts or strength of your gun from previous levels, so each level you have to find a lot of Elebits to meet your goal. Sounds entertaining, so what went wrong?

To start, the graphics are horrid. The scenematics are shots from a book which adds a bit of character. The problem is that I had flashbacks of the popularity of Precious Moments watching it. The humans' eyes were over sized and consisted mostly of pupil. Creepy. The sound is pretty bad too. The music is childish and aside from "crashes" and "thuds" from throwing things, the only sound effects are the squeaks from the Elebits. Finding the elusive critters gets more tedious than fun. It pretty much turns into "What haven't I tossed around yet?" It's not real difficult to meet each level's goal (atleast early on), but to unlock all the doors in a level takes a lot of Elebits and gets pretty annoying. I've looked everywhere I could but the door's still locked. Can it even be opened in this level? I have no idea. Would've been nice to know if I'm shooting for an impossible goal though. The game gets more "in depth" when breakable items cause penalties. If you throw an item, or it falls and breaks, you get penalized. Enough penalties and you fail the level. I don't know about you, but if I can through it, I'm going to throw it. Now I have to look at what I'm throwing and thinking if I'm going to lose for tossing it? Forget that.

The multiplayer is pretty much just "Find more Elebits than your opponent." Real original idea. The "Edit room" mode lets you put objects in a room and put Elebits in there as well. To experience this without playing the game, simply take everything in your house, put it in a pile, do the same with your neighbor's house, put the items in random places throught one of the houses, then put smiley face stickers throughout and even hide some. Does it sound entertaining? Because it's not, and it'd take as much time to do it in real life as on the game. Pretty much just a waste of the developers' time.

Honestly, I had fun with the game for about 10 minutes. According to my boss, the game is more fun when you're good at it, but that's the same as saying "Smoking's not so bad when you're used to it." You may not cough when you inhale anymore, but does that make it better? I had high hopes for this game, but when it comes down to it, there are better ways to spend my gaming.

Graphics: C+
Sound: C+
Originality/Story: A-
Gameplay: B-
Overall: B-

I have Elebits and I love it, but you said that you couldn't unlock certain doors...well ya, if it doesn't have a speech bubble thing with a certain amount of watts displayed in it then it can't be opened.

I love the game and think they did a good job, I guess that's my opinion.

Hmmm, I've never wanted Elebits but after this review and the fact that it got a lower score than Rampage just cements it for me. Sure everyone has a different opinion but I have agreed with most of the reviews here (though this one I haven't played yet) and this review of Elebits sounds just as horrible as I picture it to be. I'll give it the ten minutes of my time that it deserves but beyond that I'll have to see how I feel about it.

Elebits was actually a hard review. i kinda liked it because of the uniqueness and such, but it just got more annoying and frustrating than enjoyable. of course, i had the same thoughts on Monkey Ball and it seems to do well on sales each new game. maybe i just have no patience for games

P.S. i've played a few DS games (Children of Mana, Castlevania: PoR, Phoenix Wright, FFIII, and also FFV Advance). do you guys want me to post reviews of those here too, make a different thread for them, or just leave em out? it's up to my readers

2.1 Need for Speed: Carbon (Wii)

i finally got around to this one. took long enough i know

This was an interesting review for me. I'm not a big racing game fan, but I enjoyed this game to my surprise. The graphics are simply amazing. I'm assuming live actors were altered to have a unique appearance in the scenematics, but it still looks unbelievable. I originally thought it was just superb CG work closely resembling FF: Advent Children or FF: The Spirits Within, though now I'm pretty sure it's just altering live action images. Even the in-game looks great, except the girl who tells you to start. She just looks horrible. The sound is pretty good. Nice car sound effects. I personally never heard of any of the music on the tracks, but that's not saying much since most is electro, R&B and hip hop.

The story is kind of obscure though. From what I managed to gather from what I played, you used to be a highly regarded street racer, then something happens which makes you leave town. When you come back, some people form a faction with you to help you and others are after you. Now, you street race other factions to take over territory and unlock parts to modify your car, which leads me to my next point, the modifications. After choosing your initial car, you get to add parts to tweak the acceleration, top speed and handling. This will only get you so far though. Eventually you have to just loosen the wallet and buy a whole new car entirely, which you cannot modify. Apparently car companies only make parts for the one car in this world. Fortunately, cars can be sold for money, cars can be won in boss races/battles, and the newer cars already have high enough stats to last you awhile until your next needed upgrade. As far as customizing the appearance of your car, it's a waste of money really. Until you've bought the best car for yourself and still have tons of money lying around, you have better things to spend your money on. It makes it easier to save your money when it takes forever to unlock the vinyls to add spoilers, rims, bumbers, flames and such on your car. Picking your car's base coat paint color is the most I did for hours of gameplay, then I earned a car that already had designs so I didn't need to bother, not that I had the option.

This is a racing game however so I must talk about possibly the biggest aspect of the game, the controls/gameplay. The controlling of the game can be changed based on your personal tastes. The initial setting has you holding the remote like a steering wheel and using the 2-button to accelerate. This way of playing isn't bad, but I really couldn't get the car to turn as much as I wanted it to with it. The next control scheme has you moving the remote down from a 45 degree angle (like a gas peddle) to accelerate, further up to brake/reverse, and tilting the nunchuk to turn with an alternate setup that has the remote used from a 90 degree angle and a button to break/reverse. This is actually the hardest control setup to use or was for me. The car just didn't handle well using the nunchuk. The 4th and 5th control schemes use the remote to accelerate at 45/90 degree angles like the 2nd and 3rd versions, but the joystick controls turning. The 4th option even let's you throw the nunchuk up towards you for the emergency break. I actually found the 4th control scheme to be the easiest to use. Maybe I'm just too used to other racing games. The handling of your car depends as much on your control scheme as your car's stats.

The gameplay is pretty good compared to past racers I've played. The challenges you compete in have several different types of races. Some are simple racing with you and your wingman against two opponents. Some are checkpoint races similar to old arcade racers where you must hit the checkpoints before time expires. Some challenge you to hit checkpoints going faster than your opponent. There are even drift challenges (which are ungodly difficult). Your wingman in some races either try to take out opponents, find short cuts on the course, or help you use a slingshot effect to gain extra speed. Learning the different routes of the courses, finding the best wingman to use, and perfecting my driving skills kept me playing this game for hours on end. This is actually one of the better games for the Wii I've played. I highly recommend it for any racing fan who owns a Wii.

Graphics: A-
Sound: B
Originality/Story: B
Gameplay: A
Overall: B+

2.2 Tony Hawk: Downhill Jam

As a bit of a fan of the old Tony Hawk games, I was interested to see how the new incarnation played out. I wasn't so interested in the game once I started playing it though.

The concept is simple for the most part. You're a skater. You skate down courses either against other skaters or against the clock. Sometimes you have to earn points by doing tricks while beating the clock. There are some interesting games that have you beating up pedestrians while beating the clock or breaking things while beating the clock, but the basis is always the same. I never could score that 1 million point combo before, but it's just not much of a possibility here. The best (and practically only way) to earn trick points is by grinding. If grinding's not your thing, get ready for that one big jump in the level.

Graphics are kind of a flashback to the first couple Tony Hawk games. They're not what I'd expect from a next gen game. The sound is what it usually is. Licensed tracks play during the game but never finish since it only takes a minute to complete a course. The gameplay is a bit easier to get used to than I thought it would be, but again this is a Tony Hawk game. Not so hard to get used to it, extremely hard to master. Tilt the remote to turn and flip upwards to gain extra air when jumping. Grinds and flip tricks are mapped to the 1 and 2 buttons, attacking mapped to the D-pad and 1 button while on the ground, and to initiate a boost, simply shake the remote.

I started to get into the game, but it just didn't really pull me in and make me want to play for hours and hours. In a nutshell, take Tony Hawk, add a lot more speed, restrict the tricks to mostly grinding, and put a few more skaters while playing. It just wasn't the huge improvement on the franchise I was hoping for, but really not a bad game either.

Graphics: C+
Sound: A-
Originality/Story: B-
Gameplay: B+
Overall: B

Thanks for the review! This game will be my next buy.

no problem. lemme know if my review was close to what you find when you play it. see how close i'm hitting the bullseye on these reviews

I like your reviews since they are brief but still thorough. Reviews are really just opinions and everyone's will be different. A good reviewer explains what was "good" and "bad" so that the reader can decide if they might agree or disagree.

Take a movie review, for example. Let's say Roger Ebert gives a movie a "thumbs down" because it is nothing more than a series of scenes of senseless violence. Well, if I want to see a lot of senseless violence, then his review tells me I should go see it anyway. But if I don't like senseless violence, then I take his advice. Either way, his review gives me the information I need to make my own decision, regardless of his final rating.

Keep up the good work.

i'm glad you're enjoying the reviews, but i'm getting the feeling no one's really paying attention anymore. i enjoy doing them, but if no one's really reading them, there's no real sense to doing it. i may just keep playing the games, post which ones i've played here, then if anyone's interested in my oppinion i'll send a PM. i'll still help those who want it but try not to bother those who don't want to hear it

I read them but don't really reply that much cuz I want to keep your sectin as uncluttered as possible so it will be easier for others to come here and find a review they're looking for.

D'Oh, I took up another space!...

lol. if things do get too cluttered, i'm sure the staff (at least one who's been supporting me pretty heavily) will help with a new thread or something else on the site to aleviate the fillers. as i said though, even if i have to get a game rental subscription, i'll try my hardest to keep my work going. if i could manage with a full-time job and then some, i should be ok even with school work

I read your reviews and hope you keep them up. I mean there great. But like Mana said I really don't want to make it cluttered.

But you should keep doing them.

Edit:Cool! I'm a Snifit now!!!!

even my competition's trying to get me to keep at it? crap. maybe i was completely wrong about who was actually reading the reviews.

looks like my imposter didn't realize just how many readers i actually have here. HAH. sit on that one and rotate

i'm running out of reviews though. not much coming out on the Wii and aside from GC, DS and GBA games that's all i can review at this time. i know i posted one DS review already. anyone want me to post the DS title reviews? if you don't want to clutter up the thread, send a PM, or post whatever you want, then after a couple days, enough time for me to read the post, just delete it. i think i'm gonna go through and delete some of the posts i've made to clearn some junk outta here, but i have read your guys' posts and i thank you guys greatly for your support