Reviews: April 2007 Archives

Nowadays you can't swing a cat in your office, college or school without smacking someone in the face and sending their multi coloured, personalised mobile phone flying into the blue yonder.

Whilst that image tickles your brain (we don't recommend it by the way, cats tend to enjoy being on four legs), consider this. Personalised is the name of the game these days, is it not? That personalised touch; the ability to customise your equipment has become almost automatic, people both expect and demand it.

So why should your home console or your hand held gaming unit be different? Like us, more and more companies are saying 'Yes!' to personalisation in one form or another. This week, we put Wrapstar's skins to the test and took Thrustmaster's Wii Nunchuk & Remote secure holding devices for a test drive.

Wrapstar think that you should be able to cheaply and easily personalise your hand held gaming experience. Whether it's a DS or DS Lite, they make an array of different designs to skin up your little box of tricks. After testing a few of them on our DS Lites, we realised that certain designs do go much better on certain colours than others. For example, it looks rather strange sticking a skin on your black DS Lite which is white with purple/pink hearts. On a white or pink DS Lite, it looks perfectly fine. The simple lesson here is to think about what colour unit you have and then choose an appropriate skin that goes with it.

The stickers are made of stern stuff which is easy enough to apply to the gaming unit. So long as you are careful and have the space to work free of hassle, the skins go on with ease. Affordable at £4.99 a pop, we think this is a relatively cheap and easy way to make your gaming look personal, without falling into the naff trap of an obviously badly stuck on set of stickers.

This brings us to the Wii T-Protect, part of the Thrustmaster range for Nintendo's Wii. This set of two rubber supports can be fitted around your Wii Remote and Wii Nunchuk. Thoughts of Scandinavian movies and bondage flipped into our minds as we looked upon the offering before us - the black, rubber strap-like devices appeared to turn our innocent Wii controllers into a fetish pair!

All joking aside though, the Wii Remote is certainly easier to grip with the straps on. They don't obstruct any part of the controller and make it less likely to fly out of your hand. The criss-crossing bands of black against white do cause this bondage gear look which may not be to everyone's taste. Since you can get them in white (or until Wii Remotes come in black!) then the problem disintegrates. We did find the Nunchuk support less useful than the one for the Remote, but they both offer improved feeling on the controls; more secure and safer.

So whether you desire to dress your DS in army fatigues or get slightly kinky but in better control of your Wii, we think accessorising your gaming kit professionally certainly has the thumbs up! Just remember to colour code your gear...

Wii sports! Perhaps it sounds like something you'd do down the park with your six year old cousin. But instead, this is the title that's being given away with every sale of Nintendo's latest Wii console.

The five games available with Wii sports are; bowling, tennis, baseball, boxing and golf. Each one specifically designed to help gamers become acquainted with the unqiue Wiimote contollers. Learning has never been so animated!

In tennis the wiimote is swung from the right for volley shots and from the left for backhand shots. In baseball, it can be swung from behind the shoulder as though the player were swinging an actual bat. In golf it can be swung sideways on with the pad pointed vertically towards the floor. You get the idea.

Two to four player, multiplayer mayhem is where Wii Sports excels, asthe one player experience can get a bit lonely after 30 mins. Make no mistake, this is a title for people who have friends to spare. Inevitably, that also means four wiimotes may be required and
(shockingly) they don't come with rechargeable batteries.

Although it'd be easy to be put off by the lack of events that wii sports offers, for a giveaway game it'd also be hard to complainabout what's on offer. What it lacks in depth or longevity, Wii sports more than makes up for with fun and simplicity. This is pick up and play gaming at it's near finest. A wealth of mini-game options to practice skills at each event, offer a surprising amount of variety, as well as being enough to test even the most hardened Wii gamer...