Water Warfare

Water Warfare is a different beast to Onslaught. They might both be FPS Wiiware downloads released by Hudson and their controls are very similar, they may even use a great deal of the same code for all I know, but the tactics of the game are very different indeed.

Where to start?

Before you can begin you have to create your own avatar by selecting, gender, hair styles, clothes and facial expressions from the selection on offer and then on to the tutorial levels which are reasonably simple to complete. Learn how to jump (Z), shoot (B), use an item (C), pick up new weapons (B), run around (nunchuk), use the rifle zoom (A) in a safe learning zone before going out into the one player game.

The one player options are mission, where you have to complete set tasks against the clock, or battle royale which can be either a single player deathmatch or a team deathmatch. The reviews I've read suggest that completing the missions unlocks new items for your avatar, a subtle way to brag of your achievements. But all of this is really just a warm up for the main reason you spent 800 Wii Points on this game - the online battles. Compete in either single player deathmatches or team events (CTF or Deathmatch) against random other players or, if you've exchanged friend codes, a room full of your mates. Up to 8 people at any time can play in each of the 4 different arenas and in the few games I played online so far that had up to 6 players the smaller maps can feel quite crowded and frenetic.

Graphically Water Warfare is worlds apart from Onslaught. No grim barren alien biosphere for this game; instead a cutesy playpark and a Delfino Square style harbour area are joined by two others to make up the different play areas. But don't be fooled into thinking this is a shovelware title because of it's appearance. Underneath the childish graphics lies a competent game that rewards the brave and tactically astute and punishes the timid or foolish player. The controls are well executed and the frame rate didn't falter even in the most frantic moments online. If I was being picky then the camera angle is a little too high but not so much that it spoils the game.

The weapons are scattered around the area and you pick them up by pointing your target at them and pressing B. Each one has it's own characteristics from the basic water pistol that you start with through to the water bazooka and sniper rifle. You can even, by finding a second identical weapon to the one that you are using, double up and have two water pistols at the same time! Each weapon has a water gauge that is displayed at the bottom right of the screen. When it is empty you need to find a new weapon or fill up the one you are holding from one of the water sources that are scattered around. Filling your weapon takes time so keep an eye out for other players who might ambush you while you do it! I lost track of the number of times I tried to refill my weapons by shaking the wiimote. At the top of the screen you have a t-shirt that gets wetter when other players squirt you. If it is totally soaked you lose a life and respawn although in most games you are limited to 2 respawns and then when you get soaked the third time you are out.

Here's a video of the game to help you visualise the action



Overall then?

I like this game. It might be cutesy but it's tough because of the way that the weapons are designed. Just like in a real water fight you are constantly thinking about where the next refill will come from as someone bears down on you trying to soak you to the core. Mirroring my performance with Onslaught I've already hit the top 20 ranked players in the country (top 500 in the world) because of the low uptake of this title. I think that many people won't buy into it as they wait for The Conduit to be released which is a shame because this is a lot of fun for £5.60

If you like the look of the game why not come and splash around on the Gameov3r Forum

Icarian:Kindred Spirits

As is often the case when I come to write about games I have a confession to make. I'm rather partial to well designed side on platformers. Oh I've dallied with the 3D and the psuedo 3D but my heart belongs to the side on platformer so when I saw a new wiiware title I thought I'd give it a go. I exchanged 1000 Wii Points for Icarian:Kindred Spirits and began playing.

The story line is your usual mortal falls in love with goddess which is forbidden but in an unexpected change of heart the senior deity allows the goddess to search for her missing beau when he disappears after a crisis affair. Graphically it is a scorched ancient desert replete with columns and pillars, amphorae and viaducts. The soundtrack is atmospheric and also conveys a feeling of Ancient Greece played as it is on instruments such as the harp, santur and duduk.

The game can be played either one player with wiimote and nunchuk or two player where the second player assists the first by taking over control of some of the powers that are accumulated during the levels. The first is the ability to grab and move some objects, the second is to control the paths of wind, I've not yet reached a third ability but I believe that it is some kind of lightning strike. You run, walk, jump and fly through the levels trying to avoid enemies and scenery while solving puzzles that will allow you to progress further. A couple of times I've kicked myself once I've spotted the choice of path (it always seems so obvious once you've solved the puzzle) but on the whole the seasoned gamer won't have too many difficulties in smoothly progressing between restart points.

The controls are good and responsive with a feel and style similar to Lostwinds, another excellent wiiware platform game. The learning curve is well balanced carefully introducing new elements of peril at a steady and manageable pace. The only exception to that has been the 'boss' areas that I've encountered where there is a sharp, but not unmanageable, rise in concentration required.

Spread across the game there are 100 bonus items hidden away for you to collect in devious and sometimes seemingly inaccessible spots. Collecting all of these should add some length to the game which, unfortunately is reported to be very short. Some people are claiming to have completed it in under 3 hours.

For what it is, a £7 wiiware title, I rate this game highly. All of the different components fall into place to give a worthwhile experience which and I will be sad once I've completed it.

Come and share your flights of fantasy on the Gameov3r Forum


UPDATE: News today that due to a trademark issue (Kid Icarus if you're curious) the game will be renamed NyxQuest:Kindred Spirits. Not quite as elegant a title I'm sure you'll agree?

Onslaught Wii

Onslaught Wii was released on the Virtual Console on the 13th Feb 2009. Being hugely indifferent to the whole FPS genre I wasn’t really bothered about it but I had 1000 Wii Points doing nothing and, with the temptation of 4 player online gaming making the decision easier, so I downloaded it. I've played for a couple of hours now (on easy mode .. .. .. don't laugh!) so my initial reactions to the game are thus:

You are part of a research team stranded on an alien planet when your ship crash lands and your first task is to make your way to a known base. Using the nunchuk to move and the wiimote to point and shoot you make your way through the dingy caverns, punctuated by the bright green of alien slime. From the outset you have a choice of weapons including a rocket launcher which can be selected by each direction on the d-pad so pick your favourite and off you go. The map in the top left of the screen lets you see where the next group of bugs are so you can decide your route from what you haven't already killed. Complete the mission and you then can progress to the next group of missions. Fairly early into the game you can ride a vehicle and inflict twin cannon destruction on the enemy.

I should probably say at this point that I've enjoyed playing the game so far and for £7 it seems like relatively good value to me. I'm going to focus on the negatives as I perceive thm for a while although I have no real idea of the standards that have been set in this genre apart from a 2 week flirtation with MOHH2 (before the frustration of not being able to reliably connect online boiled over).

1. The scenery isn't hugely detailed, is fairly repetitive and the colour palette is limited. This may just be setting the scene for the alien environment or lack of memory to be able to add more detail. It hasn't detracted from my enjoyment though.
2. There are a limited number of enemy types. Each type behaves, as you would expect from a bug, in a pre-defined manner with little deviation. The difficulty comes from the weight of numbers of these things that can, at times, come at you from all angles.
3. Map layout. One level in particular has had my screaming in rage as I can't find the way to get through to the part where I need to be. I've tried going quickly, slowly, searching every possible route but I can't find how to get to the centre of the level (where I need to be). I might be missing something .. .. .. .. on other levels the path you need to take may as well have flashing arrows pointing the route. This might just be my inexperience shining through.

The positives then?
1.If you liked the movie Starship Troupers and wanted, like every Citizen should, to fight the menace of the bugs then this game allows you to do that!
2.The basic controls are smooth and accurate.
3.There are some nice touches included too. If you get too close to a bug when you shoot it you will get splattered with green goo which needs to be wiped off by swiping the nunchuk. Look up and you can see a dark sky with a beautiful starfield.
4. There are a mix of level objectives including 'reach this point' and 'defend this point' so there is some variety of challenge.


Overall .. .. .. .. so far .. .. .. .. I'm still not a convert to FPS but I will be playing this some more.


Any questions? Ask them on the Gameov3r Forum

Currah! It's Cubello!!

Did you ever have or hear one of those Currah Speech 64 cartridges? It's a black plastic cartridge that plugged into the back of the Commodore 64 and enabled your C64 to speak any words that you typed in. All very clever but the voice sounded like Roland Rat after he'd swallowed Metal Mickey and then inhaled 8.9 cubic feet of helium gas. With a voice so irritating it was only right that I, and probably most other like-minded teenage boys and girls, made the C64 swear like a trooper.

Despite my reminiscing the Speech 64 cartridge isn't what I'm going to talk about but it is important to keep it in mind. You see, I've been playing Cubello, one of the Art Style WiiWare titles, lately and while it is a superb puzzle game that challenges your hand-eye co-ordination, spacial awareness and logic all in equal measure it seems that the programmers either have a special place in their hearts for Currah's cartridge or they have a fetish about a rat, a robot and a large amount of gas.

A grating robotic voice welcomes you to the game and then talks you through the tutorial. If it's monotone, metallic drone has not perforated your eardrum so far you'll be doing very well. There's no escape though, oh no, that the damn voice won't go away! It comments on all your moves throughout the game and you can't turn it off!

Voice aside.... Cubello is a simple puzzle game. Basically you shoot one block at another block of the same colour by using the wiimote to point and the A button to fire. 4 blocks of the same colour will vanish and it's your task to clear all the blocks from each puzzle. Simple! Well, simple initially. Cubello is superficially shallow. Clear the first few puzzles, acclimatise yourself to the way the puzzle works and Cubello's depth is revealed. A quick game can easily turn into an hour as you try to complete just one more Cubello. And then another one. And another one.

Cubello looks basic but it's sufficient and works extremely well. In fact each cubello sweeps and turns effortlessly and is quite mesmerising to watch. The sound is basic, there's no music, not that I can recall at this moment anyway. This suggests that I've either become senile during the course of today or that it's a crap and completely unmemorable score or there really isn't any music. I'm 99% certain there isn't any but I wouldn't like to rule out the other 2 options completely. Oh, mustn't forget to mention that annoying robotic voice again. Perhaps it's one of the voices that Steven Hawking rejected? Who'd blame him! The gameplay deceives you into thinking it is very basic. It is a clever game indeed that sneaks up on you, taps you on the shoulder and makes you want to play and play and play and before you know it you've turned night into day.

You have two styles of play available to you. Endless Mode which speaks for itself or you can work your way through the puzzle stages one by one. Both ways of playing are excellent and while there is no 2 Player option choosing Stages allows you to pass the Wiimote to another player to see if they can beat the same puzzle or the time you've just set.

The biggest disappointment in Cubello is that the voice doesn't swear. Not once. I considered asking for a refund because of this but have since become hooked on the gameplay. At only 600 Wii Points Cubello represents a bargain and even more important than it's tiny price is that it only takes up 47 blocks of Wii memory.

Cubello is an excellent puzzle game that I'd highly recommend.

Special Gameov3r ear plugs have been ordered. Join the Forum and grab yours before Cubello becomes the phenomenon that it should and we run out! Or Gameov3r tries them all for size. Probably not in his ears.

WiiWare Wait Over!

It's Wiiware day folks and what's this? Nintendo are spoiling us with an actual demo of a game as well?! They're really getting the hang of this new fangled interweb online thing aren't they... but hang on, there's some small print... you can only play the demo if one of your online friends has bought the full version! Way to go Nintendo! Which bright spark thought that one up eh? Oh well, we should all be grateful it's actually here and we finally get to see Lost Winds and Final Fantasy Chronicles, after we've deleted some channels, copied a load of VC games on to the SD card to make some room on the 48k of internal memory and then checked the Wii points website to find that once again they won't be adding any more until 3:37am on the 3rd Tuesday of next month.

I jest of course, it's here! What more could you ask for? I mean it's not my birthday or anything... well, actually it is but lets keep that quiet eh ;)

Let us know what you'll be buying on the GAMEOV3R Forum

Tetris Splash Out

This Wednesday a game called Tetris Splash made it onto the XBLA. You guessed it, it's Tetris with a fishy theme. A little bit on the pricey side at 800 points (£6.80) considering the formula hasn't changed, but then if you don't have Tetris it's a decent enough version with upto 6 players in its online mode, but I have a problem...

On the day of release a whopping 14 additional chunks of content was also made available none of which extends the gameplay in any way. Want to add a fish of your choice that will swim around in the background? You gotta shell out for it. Choice of backgrounds while you play? You guessed it, pay for it. If you want the lot it'll cost you an extra 1200 points (£10.20)! For fish and backgrounds?! Now fair enough very few will probably want to download the whole lot, at least not at that price but surely this kind of stuff should be in the game? As a matter of interest the game itself is one of the smallest downloads from the XBLA I've seen at around 24Mb. Hmmm something smells fishy. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I love the XBLA just like I love the Nintendo VC but I really hope once the Wiiware channel starts that it doesn't set off down this route and I hope we don't start to see more of it on the XBLA. I'm very disappointed in you Microsoft, anyone would think you were just out to make as much money from us as you can!... What's that Bill? Oh, you are.

What's the difference between a fish and a piano? You can't tuna fish! Find more childish humour on the GAMEOV3R Forum