IK+ Wii Review

Of late my wii has slipped into the comfortable role of fitness trainer. My better half doesn't play games normally but she is an avid wii fit user and once the novelty of swinging a golf club had worn off then my wii has pretty mutch been a good way of replacing my wifes gym membership.

Looking around on the wii ware screen a few weeks ago, IK+ caught my eye.

Now 20 years on who could resist the opportunity to play this classic again. Certainly not me as i eagerly paid for and handed over my 500 wii points.

For anyone not familiar with this classic of 8/16bit gaming IK+ was a simple beat'em up from the pre SF2 era. No fancy special moves here just good old fashion Shotakan style Karate. What separated IK+ from the crowd, aside from the, at the time, high production standards, was the addition of a 3rd fighter to a player's game pitting you against not one but two CPU controlled opponents you only objective being not to finish 3rd.

So how has this transferred to the wii?.....Well pretty well as it turns out.

Players, either 1 or 2, fight in short bouts of 30 seconds. Bouts finish when someone scores 6 full points in the round or when time is up. Every two rounds a bonus round is played, these vary between either a dodge the ball game or, if you advance far enough, a dodge the sword game. These sound easy but when you've got balls flying at you from all directions it gets a bit frantic. Once of the main features of the game which has been retained is the variety of moves available to the player using only a single button and the D pad you can access up to 14 different attacking moves. Early on in the game you'll be able to survive with a few fancy moves but as you progress through the levels the CPU ramps up the difficulty and you'll need to make full use of these options. The confidence of the early few rounds does give way to some frustration as you advance through the levels and you do sometimes feel like the games CPU opponents are targetting you above fighting each other. Whilst there are lots of potential moves you can often be frustrated in pulling them off becuase of the wii dpad and the game would benefit from using a better controller.

This version is based on the C64 version of the game and it is a true port not a remake so the graphics are 8 bit at there best. The sound deserves special mention i think. 8 bit or not the sound of a punch being landed or you taking a punch to the stomach is as solid and is as good as it ever was. A nice touch is that the original easter eggs from the game are all still there and can be accessed by pulling up the virtual C64 keyboard so you can have fun making your guys trousers fall down.

At 500 points, it doesn't compare favourable with some of the other titles on the service and won't hold your attention for anymore than 10-15 minutes at a time but overall the game is an enjoyable walk down memory lane for anyone who enjoyed the original.

Lego, Lego, Lego, Lego

There are four legos in the title as I have four lego games. I should say that I have one lego game and my son has three lego games.

My son, aged 4.75 years old (well i was taught under the decimal system, so I think that it's time we started getting rid of these fractions things) loves these games. It all started with Star Wars. Like father like son he loves star wars, we watch Episode iv at least once a week, and it shows you the magical nature of this film that 25 years later my son is doing exactly what i was doing when i was his age, although for me it was a dodgy VHS tape every Sat morning with Shreddies rather than DVD.

We went on a holiday about 9 months ago and i brought along my PSP, so he could watch some divx while we were travelling. I also had Lego star wars along and after seeing me playing it he was desperate for a go and surprisingly caught on to it very quickly. So I picked up a copy of the original trilogy for the 360 for a bit of fun and 9 months and 4 lego games later we are still going strong. We've 100% the original game, done everything apart from the blue minikits in the complete saga, 100% lego indy and are on our way to 100% for Batman. I've seen criticism of these games as rinse and repeat just with different graphics, but to us it's that similarity which makes the games so accessible and so fun. We don't have to learn a whole new control mechanic in every game but there is always something slightly different, be it force powers, whips, batarangs which make it just different enough. Also, there is always a smile to be had watching the lego characters move around the screen and fall apart when hit. Yes they are not hard core gamers games but they are not supposed to be and they don't try to be. Even my wife, who is a dedicated non-gamer, has played these with our son and she was able to go from one game to the next without getting "annoyed" with the controller.

Thanks travellers tales for these games and please please please Lego Back to Future next.