Wii

A little bit of myth

HIGH Smartly elegant controls and art design.

LOW The final level is mildly irritating.

WTF Why don't more people know about it?

Something's fishy in Spinner Cay

HIGH The main characters are as strong as before—perhaps moreso.

LOW The secondary characters? Not so much.

WTF Swashbuckly ending! Wait—WHAT?!

Started NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits on WiiWare yesterday. I only had time to get two or three levels into it, but I was really liking what I saw. The art style is very minimal and clean, and the mechanics are immediately accessible.

Basically, you take control of a winged girl and navigate puzzle-ish levels on a 2D plane. The jumping/flapping/gliding works well, and the formula is enriched by using the Wiimote to manipulate certain objects in the environment. In certain sections, you're controlling the girl with the left stick and a button, and moving stone blocks with the Wiimote pointer and a trigger. It's a little like the old "rub your stomach and pat your head" routine, but in a good way.

I look forward to spending more time with it.

I have to be honest, this Wii version of Resident Evil Zero footage didn't exactly blow me away. It's been a long time since I played Resident Evil Zero on the GameCube, but I'd be hard pressed to spot any kind of difference between this version and the original. I kept thinking "how do I even know this trailer is new? They could have taken one from the GameCube release years ago and slapped a Wii logo on it and called it a day…"

That being said, I'm probably not the target audience for this title. Resident Evil Zero for the Wii seems to be aiming at folks who didn't have a GameCube, or just never got around to playing this game back in the day. That's cool—I guess. The title is set to sell at a reduced rated (30 bucks) and will feature Wii-mote controls. I'm not sure how that's going to work with the traditionally clunky Resident Evil interface, but I guess we'll all find out eventually.

There's still no official release date for this game, but it is supposed to be available before the end of the year.

This new trailer for Capcom's Wii-exclusive Resident Evil title (subtitled The Darkside Chronicles) debuted at Gamescon a few days ago. I was saving it for a slow news day—and lo and behold, that's exactly what today is.

This new clip is almost three minutes in length. It doesn't show any gameplay footage, but does spend a lot of time fleshing out the title's story. Truthfully, the story sounds like your typical Resident Evil tale—scientists playing god create horrible monsters who want to kill people.

I'm still interested in checking out the game. I have a weird fondness for the Resident Evil series' wonky narrative stylings and my Wii hasn't seen a lot of action lately. That will hopefully change when this game hits store shelves sometime this December.

Gamescon has brought us some interesting gaming news this week–but most of it has been mainstream gaming news and not horror gaming news. Despite this, I've managed to pick up a few odds and ends for my survival horror-loving brethren.

Here's the newest promo trailer for Ju-On: The Grudge—the video game adaptation of the popular Japanese horror film franchise. The game is headed to the Wii this October and maybe, just maybe, it'll finally give me a reason to turn my Wii on.

The trailer features the usual dingy visuals and moody music, but it also highlights some of the ways the Wii-mote will be used in game (it's a flashlight) and reveals that the game will score players on how calm they remain during the game's numerous scary moments.

Have a gander at the trailer and see what you think. Apparently, the game is set to retail for a mere $30, which should make it more appealing to gamers on the fence about whether or not they want to play it.

This week, a candid conversation with Bryan Jury of Epicenter Studios, the team behind the new Wii release Real Heroes: Firefighter. How did a tiny development team with an even tinier budget create one of the summer’s most original games? Why was the Wii their platform of choice? And does Bryan REALLY admit the graphics aren’t very good? I told you – he’s VERY candid. Our thanks to Bryan Jury for a fantastic interview. With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, and Tim Spaeth.

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Topic and Game References:

• Call of Duty: Finest Hour Review
• Kids' games that DON'T suck: Critter Round-Up
• Conduit
• Interview with Epicenter Studios

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

I would never have guessed it, but I've been completely addicted to Trials HD on the Xbox 360 this week. One of the spotlight Summer Arcade releases, it's basically an updated version of the venerable NES classic Excitebike hopped up on stupidiculous amounts of steroids.

I'm not a fan of games that feature timed runs as a core part of gameplay, and I'm not usually a fan of games that emphasize an extremely high degree of technical precision, but in spite of those preferences, I got hooked immediately and I've been putting an unusual amount of time into it every night.

Ok, so if you read this blog even once in a while, it's pretty likely that you know I'm a pretty big Atlus fan. I'm not quite sure if I've crossed into full-blown Atlus whoredom, but I may be getting there. In any event, because they have a great upcoming lineup (and because I have no other blog topics this evening) here's a quick preview of four games coming down the pipe from the hardest-working developer in showbiz…