CID The Dummy - Wii Game Review (Oxygen Games)

CID, the hero of this game, is a Crash Impact Dummy who feels like he has a bigger purpose in life beyond safety testing automobiles. CID's prayers are answered as his carping is overheard by inventor Professor B.M. Werken who gives CID a special suit and sends him off on a mission to rescue the professor's daughter MIA who has been kidnapped by the evil villian D-TROIT.

CID is a a 2-D platform game where you use both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk to guide CID through various environmental obstacles that include toxic pits, timed switches, electric fences, guard dogs and more. While the game is targeted to a younger audience, the controls aren't the most intuitive which will keep this game out of reach of the really young.



The game starts with an optional tutorial which is useful for understanding the controls and the range of CID's movements. Unfortunately, going through the tutorial doesn't make controlling CID any easier. Knowing what to do and being able to execute the move (while being chased by an evil droid) are two different things. The one real 'downer' about the tutorial and various cutscenes is that the professor's voice is like nails on a chalkboard...and he speaks vvveeerrryyy slowly.

Anyway -- on to the controls. Moving through the basic side-scrolling screens is very straight-forward but, when CID has to run or shoot his bazooka, it gets a good bit more complex. To shoot the bazooka, you have to swing the Wii-remote over your shoulder while holding the A button. Unfortunately, this move is too close to the puch move (which is done by vertically shaking the remote) so - too often than not - you end up with results that you weren't intending.

The problem with these unintended moves is that they can result in your falling from a ledge or getting killed by an attacking bad guy. A BIG catch when you die is that you have to replay the level (and 're-solve' all puzzles) as there are no in-level save checkpoints.

The game keeps itself interesting with some secret levels, boss levels and a driving mission (which is very "Pole Position-ish"). The secret levels are critical for loading up on health, orbs and lives as, if you have to restart the game, you start with the number of lives that you left off with - not the full quota of five lives with which you started the game. Orbs are important too as, once you colelct 10 orbs, you can launch a panic attack which kills all enemies in the area with a shock wave.

Conclusion
A decent game for younger gamers who have the patience to work through the challenges with the controls

Hurry Up Hedgehog! - Nintendo DS Game Review (Oxygen Games)

"Hurry Up Hedgehog!" is a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS that came out earlier this year from Oxygen Games. This game is based on a German board game called Igel Ärgern and the object is to get three of your four hedgehogs from the left to the right side of the board before your opponent(s) can do the same.

This game is easy to get started with as all of the action is right in front of you on the 6x9 board on the bottom screen. When it is your turn, you can move one hedgehog vertically (it has to be your own) and one hedgehog horizontally (your own or another player's). The turns are not timed so you have plenty of time to chose your moves with care. The challenge comes in making sure that the computer opponent or another human player doesn't shunt your hedgehog into one of the many holes that are scattered around the game board. If your hedgehog falls into one of these holes, it won't be able to get out until all of the other hedgehogs catch up to it.

As you can see from the picture, the top screen doesn't do much outside of keep score and provide you with some visual cues (via the hedgehog) on how you are doing in the game.

As a one-player game, "Hurry Up Hedgehog!" isn't that dissimilar from the iPhone games that I play on the subway on my way to work. Like many of the iPhone game, "Hurry Up Hedgehog!" warrants repeat play but there isn't enough depth to the game to warrant playing past the 15-20 minute train ride. What looks interesting though is that you can play against up to 5 opponents using the DS wireless feature but...I don't know anyone else with a copy of this game so I wasn't able to explore this feature.