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Wii Game Roundup Review
Wii Review by Richard Leadbetter
Page 3 of 4.
Page 2: "Heatseeker"Page 4: "Rapala Tournament Fishing" 
Rampage Total Destruction
Midway's original Rampage coin-op was a near-perfect concept for the mid-'80s arcade market - 20p bought you a few minutes' worth of monster-fuelled city destruction low on variety, high on enjoyment. It's just a shame that the game ever left the arcades because the core concept of relentless, monotonous destruction simply never worked on the home consoles.
Rampage Total Destruction tries to paper over the cracks with a bogglingly large array of enhancements to the core game. For a start there are 25 different monsters to unlock, each with a range of power-up abilities you earn by achieving different goals set on each level. Secondly, the threat level has been upped considerably with bullets flying at you from all sides and far more military hardware on-screen causing bother. Finally, the game has made its way into the third dimension, with a limited amount of depth to the gameplay arena that essentially boils down to having additional rows of buildings to bring down before the curtain falls on each level.
Unfortunately, the basics haven't changed since it first debuted in arcades in 1986. Bringing a building down is all about climbing it, bashing it, watching it fall down, then moving onto the next... then the next... and the next. Sure, powering-up your monster makes the job easier but the relentless pounding grows tiring within 15 minutes, no matter what power-ups the game may have, or what additional enemies are despatched to bring you down. It's all extremely monotonous - distressing so, I'd imagine, if you'd paid GBP 20 for the game.
The fact that Total Destruction is essentially a GameCube port doesn't help matters either. It has a supremely basic control system that takes next to no advantage of the Wiimote short of the odd swipe or smash here and there, and graphically it's all very backward with no progressive scan or widescreen support.
On paper, Rampage Total Destruction has a lot going for it: a vast menagerie of monsters to control, plenty of cities to destroy and complete arcade conversions of the original Rampage and Rampage World Tour available to unlock. But the bottom line is that the core gameplay is tedious beyond belief - so much so that I doubt you'd even get value from renting it.
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Related Games
Rampage: Total Destruction
Heatseeker
The Godfather: Blackhand Edition
Rapala Tournament Fishing
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The Godfather is actually QUITE a decent Wii game even if it does feel like playing a PS2 game with the Wii Remote controls tacked on (as an after thought) at times.
The last Wii game I bought was WarioWare: Smooth Moves (January) and the two rather enjoyable Excite Truck and Kororinpa in February - since then, fuck all unfortunately. |
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Saladin, you might not realise how many games actually come out every month, but it's way more than we can cover.
As it is, we do roughly 60-65 full reviews every month, and decided that the best way to cover the rest was to simply round them up. We don't have an unlimited budget to cover every single game (and individual versions of every game - now with the Wii and PS2 versions often totally different to next gen and handheld, it's an even bigger headache), so this is the best compromise we could come up with. The other thing is...they've proven very popular. Single reviews of obscure or lesser titles (or just late ports) aren't generally very popular, whereas this format seems much more attractive to the average reader.
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most recently on 11/05/07 @ 11:36
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Says something about the Wii library when four new releases get reviewed in the same article.
EDIT: just read krudster's post and, yeah, okay, but my point still stands. Were the Wii not getting boatloads of shovelware or underdevloped tripe, this bunching of reviews probably wouldn't have happened. How can a piece of hardware with such potential be getting so much uninspiring bile on such a regular basis? My faith in the industry is dented:(
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most recently on 11/05/07 @ 11:42
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dirigiblebill
11/05/07 @ 10:41
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I think the multi-review format is solid enough for obscure or ported titles, and I appreciate the limited budget.
Anyways- the Wii continues to suffer a bit of a drought, poor thing. |
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It's anoying that developers have interpreted Nintendo's lack of emphesasis on visuals as "lets not bother at all then".
Sure, it's not next gen but there's still allot of nice things you can do with NGC/Xbox type hardware. It's as if developers have suddenly completly forgotten how to make games for that kind of hardware. |
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For these games, I think this sort of round-up is the perfect format.
Let's face it, two are shit (so we wouldn't really want EG to waste its time doing a full review) and the other two have already been reviewed on other formats, so this serves as a perfect little addendum to the lead review by describing what's different on the Wii. |
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All_the_girly_men
11/05/07 @ 11:24
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Jeez, how much longer before the Wii collapses under the weight all the crap that's being shovelled onto it.
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I love these roundups. You just should more of them for XBLA and VC and leave long reviews to bigger titles or games that really deserve it.
Of course, for EA, The Godfather's key advantage is that it's the only sandbox game in town and with few publishers keen to port their next-gen wares to Wii, it's a state of affairs unlikely to change. So it's just as well that this is generally a decent, well-thought out and enjoyable conversion. Scarface fan (the game, not the movie) number one here would like to point out that when Scarface Wii comes out The Godfather is not the only game in town. And I think it's coming out quite soon. |
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mechamonkey
11/05/07 @ 11:47
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Loving the review round ups, great idea.
I thought Heatseeker was great fun , shame aout the graphics but still worth a shot. |
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Trendyninja
11/05/07 @ 11:48
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The only purpose this article has served for me is in reminding me what a great decision I made in getting rid of my Nintendo Wii.
What a truly depressing round up of games this is, although this does seem to be becoming the standard for Wii games doesn't it? I would go as far as to say that the Nintendo Wii will be Nintendo's last home console. Seriously. |
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stoopidgreg
11/05/07 @ 12:03
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i wonder when the second good wii game will come out.... really, the wii has the worst lineup
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"The wii will fail in the long term, and all you wii owners know it deep down. "
Fail ? In what respect ? I am happy enough with my purchase - and if it was announced that no new wii games would be released -ever- I wouldn't be too fussed*. And apparently nintendo are making enough money - so where's the problem ? (*admittedly I am a hardware geek - not your typical consumer) |
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Brianstorm
11/05/07 @ 15:07
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@Krudster
Liked the round up, hadn't considered godfather beofre may give it a look now. Also, when you review Mario Strikers can you make sure you've played the online element, just read a review in EDGE and couldn't believe they rated it without even trying the online mode, not like them at all.... |
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The review roundups aren't such a bad idea, although I was a bit saddened to see the Godfather lumped in with 3 shite titles - I think there's more than enough interesting points to make about it to justify a full review.
I got it after making the horrible mistake of buying Sonic & the secret rings (AWFUL), took it back to the shop and got the Godfather instead. It's an excellent example of a game truly being improved by the inclusion of Wii controls, the one thing that pushes it beyond "average GTA clone" and making it actually the best version available. Wii title in well-handled port shocker! The graphics are good enough, too, and this ought to be considered one of the must-have Wii titles for early adopters. It's unfortunate that the relative lack of coverage in the European gaming media means it may well be overlooked. |
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@DAMAGE.INC.
The wii will fail in the long term, and all you wii owners know it deep down. LOL - sure it will - what with the top 20 all being Nintendo titles. Jap Software Sales The highest ranked non-Nintendo format game was Capcom’s Monster Hunter Portable 2nd for the PSP at number twenty-two. The highest ranked PlayStation 2 title was Konami’s Pro Baseball Spirits 4 at number twenty-six. There were no PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 titles in the top thirty. (Hardware sales data for the week in Japan will be available from tomorrow morning.) TW LW Title Publisher Format Weekly Sales 1 1 Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings Square Enix DS 109,326 2 3 Super Paper Mario Nintendo Wii 90,151 3 4 Wii Sports Nintendo Wii 84,782 4 12 Yoshi's Island DS Nintendo DS 58,948 5 6 Hajimete no Wii Nintendo Wii 58,718 6 8 Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: MiniMini Daikoushin! Nintendo DS 57,741 7 5 Wii de Yawaraka Atama Juku Nintendo Wii 55,165 8 14 New Super Mario Bros. Nintendo DS 51,681 9 2 Momotarou Dentetsu DS: Tokyo & Japan Hudson DS 45,662 10 13 Motto Nou o Kitaeru Otona DS Training Nintendo DS 44,047
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most recently on 11/05/07 @ 17:15
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@jebus
There's over 120m people in Japan and thus far 2.3 million people have bought a Wii there - around a third of it's global sales thus far. By my reckoning that's under 2% of the population. Hardly the widespread cultural phenomenon that you might think it is. How many people in Japan own a TV or an MP3 player or a Mobile Phone? I think we need to put a little perspective on our (albeit more accepted and popular) 'hobby' is all. If you ask me, it's no more popular now than it was in the 80's but it IS a hobby that sticks with people for years so there's more people in the 30+ category now than there ever was. The point I'm trying to make is: Gaming is still somewhat of a niche market (in the grand scheme of things) and Japan is a surprisingly small (but culturaly significant) component of that market. Quoting the Wii's Japanese sales figures therefore is hardly a guarantee for it's continued sucess as a consumer electronics product on the global stage - particulalry when you look at it's portfolio. Sure, I get that the Wii will continue to sell well there due to it's price, size and party emphasis (all of which are very important to the eastern market) but I DO believe that unless we see a turnaround in the quality and quantity of games being released it will run out of steam on the global stage. Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows. Props ARE due to Nintendo for shifting 6.2 million units and making a profit on each one however. I just wonder who's REALLY going to be smiling when the dust settles...
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most recently on 11/05/07 @ 18:27
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All_the_girly_men
11/05/07 @ 19:41
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">Hardly the widespread cultural phenomenon that you might think it is.
Its been out 6 months and is struggling to meet with demand. I'd say it was. Especially compared to the 360 out there. " Just a temporary glitch I'm sure of it. |
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A product being sold out doesn't automaticaly grant it 'cultural phenomenon' status, smelly. I could build a dozen chairs and be 'sold out' but it doesn't mean I'm about to take down IKEA, does it? Yeah, I know a dozen chairs and 6.2m Wiis is a strange analogy, but it serves it's purpose. We like to believe otherwise (and times ARE changing) but gaming IS still a relatively niche market and I'm not FULLY convinced that the Wii is breaking down quite so many barriers as you might think, in which case gaming lore still applies: starve a console of titles and then release average title after average title and you're asking for trouble.
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"How many people in Japan own a TV or an MP3 player or a Mobile Phone?"
Mobile phone would be 1 to 1. One person owning one mobile phone. Mp3 player would be considerable lower, because that function is covered by the mobile phone. TV would be about 1 to 4. The Wii is not a personal device, but something to put in the living room to be used by the whole family. So I'd say it rates about the same as the Tv. So 2.3 million Wii's sold would be used by about 10 million people. Probably more since those who can't yet get one (there are still lines for the DS) will be using the ones of friends. It's safe to say that it's a phenomenon since it pushed past so easily the other digital entertainment things on the sales charts. You can't compare the ps2 where it is now with where the wii is now. Sure the ps2 has an install base several times larger, but the wii currently sells several times faster as the ps2 does now. |
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The Bodybuilder
11/05/07 @ 23:40
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/Sigh
Hey atleast the godfather is pretty good, especially when you consider its not a "Normal" wii title (as in a party game, it's a 3rd person, mature action adventure). |
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