N-Philes

Page 15

Nik: I love the Monkey Ball games, and I enjoyed this one. It's very hard, but that's not unlike the series. You use the Wii controller to tilt your monkey and flip it upwards (or press the A button) to jump. Collect bananas on your way because you'll need them. Every twenty you get will give you an extra life.

I didn't make it to the boss, so I can't give you details on that...

The proudest moment came when I beat one of the levels which involved lots of jumping, and I completed it only dying once, wheras the guy before me used up almost all of his lives on it!

 

Desiré: Such fun! Colorful, exciting and just easy to pick up.

 

Danny: I was surprised that this wasn't one of the most popular games in the booth, if not only to see how good the controller was utilized for tilt sensing. Monkey Ball looks like its Gamecube brethren but the Wiimote makes it feel perfectly natural. This game is perfect for the Wii.




Adrian: For me there are a lot of sounds that bring joy to my soul: the shrieks of terrified schoolchildren on my lawn when I release the hounds or the delicate tinkle of fanboy hearts breaking with every new bit of Nintendo news, but the sound I love most of all is the sound of destruction and that's exactly what Project H.A.M.M.E.R seems to be all about.

There are times when I yearn for a bit of Tetris or a mind-stimulating round of Brain Age, but most times I just want to destroy crap and what better way than with a giant steel hammer? Sure some people like to get complicated by using advanced weaponry like lasers or heat-seeking missiles, but there's nothing like smashing things to pieces with heavy, blunt instruments.

At the beginning of the level you're offered generic sacrificial items to destroy like wooden crates and trash bins, but soon enough you're confronted with gullible and ever-so-crunchy softball-shaped robots just aching to be whammed to Murgatroid. And that's exactly what I did.

There are multiple ways you can take out your enemies. The first is easiest; tap the A button on the Wiimote over and over for your character to start swinging his hammer back and forth which, if tapped continually, will turn into a simple move that slams the foe directly in front of you backward. Although you could just do these smash moves all day, eventually the horde of robots becomes overwhelming and you become smothered from all sides. This is where some more involved movement comes in.

By holding the controller out in front of you, use your arms and wrists to start swinging in a circular motion and your character swings his weapon in a circular motion which takes out enemies in every direction. Keep moving as long as you need to in order to get some air and dwindle the numbers enough so you can use an even better move.

Hold the controller outward and tip it backward as if you were rearing back to smash the PS3 to bits and your character will do the same. Although you can bring the hammer forward into the cranium of whatever is in front of you, keeping the controller "cocked" for longer will "charge" your weapon allowing you not only to attack in a forward movement, but the eventual strike will cause the ground to shake and for energy to sweep outward, jarring some enemies to the ground and tearing others apart.

At the end of the level an overwhelming number of enemies swarm around you and the only way to stop them is by taking out the machine that is creating them in the first place. I found out that by using the nunchuk trigger button, your enemy can ram himself forward, forcing part of the crowd to the ground. Take out the machine and finish off the army to start the level over again. Although the demo wasn't exactly awe-inspiring, there's a lot of potential to expand the weapons to allow for greater destruction and to take better advantage of the controller. For the time I spent with it, I'd give it a big hammer right to the forehead. That's a compliment.

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