WiiU Reviews

The Wonderful 101 is what happens when you take Nintendo's charm and core-appeal and stuff it into a Saturday morning cartoon format. This is a world where heroes scream the name of their power before using it, in which every ability is mercilessly explained in detail, in which you're the hero and in which you'll die. A lot.

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth was a Kinect game originally, and was ported to the Wii U along with an alternative control scheme in the hopes of entertaining a new market. It's actually a really difficult game to review, because although what's there is, by and large, pretty decent stuff, it amazes me that there's enough content here to even fill the blurb on the back of the box.

When the Wii U was released, it brought with it a handful of ports and "enhanced" editions, partly because they were awesome games and partly because Nintendo wanted to prove that the Wii U was just as capable of playing "grown up" games as any of the other consoles. That they didn't need to worry about proving themselves in that way, and that many of the quickly-rushed ports actually seemed to prove the opposite probably didn't come into it.

Transformers: Prime is a successful animated series that, this year, will be seeing its first TV movie. Built around a small group of kids and their relationship with the Autobots, Transformers: Prime - The Game is the first video game based around this specific area of the IP.

Nintendo Land quickly became a joke when it was first revealed. Core gamers everywhere, unconvinced by the Wii U, saw Nintendo end their E3 2012 conference on a mini-game collection built around the franchises they'd used too many times before and that was it. They couldn't understand how Nintendo could go so wrong.

Only Shigeru Miyamoto could have come up with Pikmin, an often difficult real-time strategy game starring cute, altruistic plant creatures that are willing to do anything for strangers, no questions asked. The first two titles were big hits for the Gamecube, and for eight years fans have been waiting for Pikmin 3. Well, the wait is over and, at the very least, longtime fans and newcomers have another excuse to boot-up their Wii U.

The Fast and the Furious films - which I've today learnt have long been cut down to just Fast and Furious - are pretty strongly focussed on a particular sort of person. It is perhaps the best example of the car porn genre, showcasing flash vehicles, sexy women and loud rap music.

007 Legends was released on Wii U at the end of last year, and if it had been the only first person shooter available on the system, it might have been enough to kill the genre entirely. It's not that it's actively bad - not when compared with the likes of Ride to Hell: Retribution - but it might be the very definition of generic shooter. The Bond licence has had some stinkers attached to it, but this one is something else.

Game & Wario boasts 16 minigames that were originally planned to be pre-installed on every Wii U in order to show off the GamePad's abilities. However, Nintendo decided that the games would probably take up too much space, so they opted instead to release them at a later date as the seventh installment of the now decade-old WarioWare series.

Nintendo's “Year of Luigi” is here, and what better way to celebrate then by giving the oft forgotten brother his own game that doesn't involve catching ghosts? Well, New Super Luigi U is that game, currently available as a digital add-on for New Super Mario Bros. U, and set for a stand-alone retail release later this Summer. The result is a game that shines on its own in subtle and cagey ways.