Nostalgia has always been a hit or miss thing with me. Sometimes the best parts of a game aren't articulated well enough in today's gaming world, while others hit the ground running, reminding us how far the video game industry has come. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is certainly the latter. During a time in which the industry is ruled by the all-mighty FPS (along with the expansive sandbox title), NSMB: Wii strives to keep the nostalgic factor at exceeding levels, just like when we first laid eyes on our favorite mustached plumber in the 1980s.

But, with nostalgia, there also come the preceding factors such as gameplay and ingenuity. Like its predecessor on the DS, NSMB: Wii is another classic retake on the 2D antics of the Mario games of old, one that makes good use of how to make a great 2D platformer. This time though, Nintendo is selling this new title on the idea of cooperative multiplayer, a new addition to this line of Mario titles. At first thought, you might think this is a quick rehash of New Super Mario Bros. on the DS, but rest assured my friends, this is one experience both young and old alike should not miss out on, even if you're too busy with the plethora of titles released during the holiday season. The idea may be the same, but Mario still has our hearts hooked on the Mushroom Kingdom.

Hit the jump and I'll tell you why Princess Peach is in another castle, and it's worth the trip.

There’s a lot about Dead Space that makes sense as a rail shooter. There are a lot of pop-up scares, a lot of atmosphere, and that whole “going crazy” aspect that they can milk. There were just parts of Dead Space that weren’t scary because we were divided from the “action” by always being able to see this faceless, heavily-armored and extremely competent avatar. So moving the scenario to a first-person affair with no camera control was a great idea to let gamers soak in the horror.

Well, it tries, at least. Maybe it was me, with my little TV, my insistence to play with the lights on and my genre-savviness, but I just didn’t find myself greatly terrified, just occasionally startled. Once you got deep into the game, the feeling wasn’t “oh god it’s the necromorphs!” but more “Oh, it’s these jerks again.” Dead Space just can’t seem to realize that pacing is important to the horror genre, and our heroes really shouldn’t have a flamethrower.

Revisit the Ishimura after the jump.

It’s easy to be skeptical with a Sims game. While the idea of guiding a bunch of morons you designed through the rigors of normal life has this unique godlike appeal, the series never seems to know what it is doing, with a variety of bad ideas and pointless expansions drowning the initial kernel of brilliance. Its spinoffs especially tend to feel really derivative, like the Sims Online (which quickly became a festering hole for cybersex), the Urbz (which was a horrible and offensive idea), and MySims, the series targeted at a younger audience.

The MySims series keeps on wavering on this line of competence, the first criticized for being too mechanical and the franchise senselessly including a racing game. But MySims Kingdom was a pretty decent adventure game, if a bit exhausting with all that building, so maybe there’s something to MySims Agents, which seems to be going the same way only with the rarely touched world of spy stuff. Kids like spy stuff, right?

Luckily, this idea bares a lot of fruit, with the game stripping away all the lamest mechanics of the first parts of the series and giving a fun and quick, if a bit easy and streamlined, adventure in the world of high investigation.

And much like (most of) his movies, Boom Blox Bash Party is a solid form of entertainment. We're surprised at some of the simple things that weren't corrected in the 14 month gap between the two releases, and while some of the nuisance game types were annihilated, others were introduced that'll prove to be just as effective at exasperating and infuriating many gamers.

But those quibbles are minor, and we'd like to get them out of the way early. Because ultimately, this is a superior sequel. EA could have rightly subtitled this game "One step further". Bash Party is all about going the extra mile, and giving you plenty of value for your money.

Hit the jump. But hold your hand steady... one wrong move, and you might collapse a tower.

Animal Crossing was a revolution in 2002 when it was released for the GameCube. Its simple casual gameplay, its year-round calendar and constantly changing location, its deep gameplay that drew you back each day to see what was new, its "memorable" characters; it's amazing that it's taken them this long to get together a TV screen sequel, Animal Crossing: City Folk.

Unfortunately a lot has happened since 2002. Vast, deep content is becoming more and more a norm, casual gameplay and simulation received a huge burst because of the Sims and online gaming, and MMORPGs hit the mainstream, creating dozens of games that people had a reason to come back to every day. Now Animal Crossing's benefits are all too common, and it looks like Animal Crossing hasn't brought anything else to the plate.

Read the same old thing again after the jump

To paraphrase Sesame Street, Super Smash Bros Brawl was brought to you by the number 287.  That’s the number of songs in Brawl’s soundtrack, and a perfect example of the gargantuan beast that the latest incarnation of the Smash Bros. series.  Whereas any other game would have somewhere between 30 and 50 songs, Smash Bros. Brawl blows them all away with over 5 times the content of other games, and this theme applies for more than just music.  Super Smash Bros. Brawl feels like three or more games combined on one disk into a single super-game, its dual-layered DVD stuffed so full with digital goodness that some Wiis can’t even handle it all.  A virtual smorgasbord of pugilistic fun, SSBB beats out Mario Galaxy for best Wii game, and is easily my pick for game of the year and possibly game of the generation.

No More Heroes is one of those games that's going to represent a 'moment' in the history of the Wii, because of what it does, and what it doesn't do.  Suda 51's latest creation is bloody, grotesque, sexual, violent, and brazen in a way you simply haven't seen in a while, and certainly haven't seen so far on the Wii.  This is a mature game, in so many senses of the word, on a system whose very nature is the direct antithesis of mature gaming.  After all, the Wii is bringing together families, reinvigorating old people, and bringing the casual market into the gaming fold.  So you would never, ever expect a game like No More Heroes to be available on the Wii, much less as a system exclusive. 

And that's one of the many surprises that No More Heroes has in store for you.  On a system that seems to be plagued with the "Casual" stigma, where concerns about its longevity as a hardcore gaming platform are bandied about left and right, where gamers are now suffering from a sense of Wii-morse as they lack a regular flow of AAA titles, the release of No More Heroes isn't just a breath of fresh air.  It's a slap in the face, shaming us for ever thinking those things in the first place. 

No More Heroes walks a fine line between genius and insanity.  If you don't mind a game that's visually lacking with a mixed aesthetic, you'll love No More Heroes.  For the people lamenting their Wii purchase and wondering why it inertly sits on the shelves of their entertainment center, this is a game worth dusting off the system for, because finally, we have a mature title.  And it is goodness.

Bring a tarp with you when you hit the jump.  There's blood on the dance floor.

Ask any of the 20 or so people who owned one of Sega's 32-bit Saturn gaming consoles back in the 90s what their game of choice was and most will immediately answer with Nights Into Dreams.... Developed by Sega's in-house Sonic Team, the game featured a variety of 3D dreamscapes which could be explored either on foot as a human "dreamer" or in the sky as the titular Nights character.

The never-franchised franchise now returns as a Nintendo Wii-exclusive sequel from Sonic Team USA entitled NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. And the biggest question gamers should be asking themselves right now is why.

Hit the jump for the full review.

Super Mario 64 has been both a blessing and a curse to the world of platforming. In 1996 it wrote the book on how to make an amazing 3d platformer. That was the blessing. The curse is that for eleven years we had never really seen another platformer that surpassed the level of gameplay seen in Mario 64… until now. The curse has been lifted by Mario 64’s very own grandson Super Mario Galaxy. Featuring fantastic graphics, a superb soundtrack, outstanding level design, and transcendent gameplay, Galaxy truly deserves the title “Best 3D Platformer of All Time.”

I deem Galaxy this not just because of the qualities listed above but also because Galaxy learns from the mistakes of its predecessor, Super Mario Sunshine. After years of mediocre platformers aping Mario 64’s general formula, Shigeru Miyamoto’s Gamecube was largely expected to raise the bar of fun far beyond where it had sat since the N64’s launch. However, Nintendo approached the design of SMS as a sequel/extension of Mario 64. In other words, their design idea for Sunshine was “Mario 64 + X” where X ended up being the FLUDD water cannon. This was extremely disappointing because the Mario series is well known for gameplay innovation, and adding what basically amounted to a backpack-mounted gun/hover device does not qualify as innovation to most people. So what Nintendo did when it came time to begin development on Super Mario Galaxy was look at the basic elements of the Mario 64 formula to see if there was something that could be altered, removed, or completely messed with and still have a game you could call a platformer.

What was the answer? Find out after the break.