Wii

Nintendo and Next Level Games’ experimental fusion of fandom and sports leaps from Gamecube to Wii in Mario Strikers Charged, the sequel to Super Mario Strikers. As in Super Strikers, Charged sees Mario and his Mushroom Kingdom mates take to the pitch for fast and furious arcade soccer matches with numerous Mario-worthy twists like power-ups and obstacles. To take the unlikely series to the “next level,” the developers…

Golf, Pinball and Shining Force? Sign us up!

The fifth Harry Potter game, and first on Nintendo Wii, marks a radical departure for the series. While the other console versions are pigeonholed into classic control schemes, the Wii version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is able to take full advantage of motion controls to turn the Wii Remote into a viable magic wand accessory. On top of that, this is by far the biggest and most polished Potter adventure yet, dragged down only by the companion novel’s slow-paced…

I profess to never having played the Nintendo DS, much less the handheld gaming system’s immensely popular Big Brain Academy. The game’s recent jump from handheld to the Wii, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, provides an opportunity for strictly home-based console players to see what all the fuss is about, myself included. I’m willing to put my brain on the line as a test subject, but I won’t forget the game was originally designed to work with the DS touch-screen and not the Wii-mote. The setup is…