Ignition land on the Wii with Mercury Meltdown, and puzzle fans should rejoice.

Wii

Mercury Meltdown Revolution

The scourge of the early Wii calendar has been developers with little idea of how to integrate the motion-sensitivity with gameplay at a level of intuition and common sense. Any game that can take advantage of the sensitivity imaginatively and successfully is worth a look in our books: more essential is a game whose core concept gels perfectly with the Wii controls. Mercury is one such game, for obvious reasons: originally conceived with the ill-fated PSP tilt sensitivity firmly in mind, it translates perfectly to the Wii, offering one of the best Wii experiences of the first half of the year.

Hold the controller on its back, and tilt it to tilt the puzzle environments. Your blob of mercury moves accordingly. It is a concept that works so wonderfully well on the Wii it would be criminal if the franchise never made the format leap, and the designers have adorned it with all the bells and whistles of a compulsive puzzle title: plenty of tight, varied levels; a difficulty level that forces real skill at the later stages; tricky, challenging obstacles; generous level advancement. Another triumph for Ignition, and a title worth serious consideration by all reading.

Verdict: Mercury rising.

Pangya! Golf with Style

The crux of the question is this: do you pay for a copy of Pangya! Golf with Style on the Wii, or pay nothing for the downloadable Pangya on the PC? The latter offers a full online structure, so you can dress up your little golfing buddy and pit him against a sea of global competitors. This update has no online multiplayer, but does have the motion sensitivity of the Wiimote. Which you've probably already been enjoying with Wii Golf. With the odds stacks against it, Pangya does come out with its merits: good courses, cute visuals, and a manic Korean style that out-obscures anything in Wii Sports. And swinging with the Wiimote is, of course, entertaining. But if Wii Golf is enough for you, foreign styles won't be enough. And if it's not, there's a massive online community waiting for your download. Rock, meet hard place.

Verdict: Ooh! In the rough.

DS

Brothers In Arms DS

Convention dictates that one should be weary of a game that gets released without accompanying reviews, at least in the main outlets, but preview material for Brothers in Arms DS has been encouraging. A sort of translation of the mobile Brothers, but with stylus abilities and much-improved visuals, the game recreates a PC-like partnership of the d-pad and touch screen for moving and shooting, in a variety of presumably war-affiliated missions. More ambitious than most DS shooters, fans of military combat should give a purchase some thought. But, as ever, we wait for final judgements.

Verdict: Fog of war.

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