Surprised by NBA Jam's 9 - better than I expected.  Still refuse to pay full price without the online though.

Not so surprised by Wii Party's 7.5.    As long as they thought it was a lot of fun.

I'll pick up Sid Meier's Pirates,  never played it on PC, but they better not expect full price for such an old port.

Ya This game will be played on my HBC Wii. Not buying a sports game with no online. The new NHL wii game has voice, motionplus, and online. So don't tell me they couldn't get online for this game.

Wii Party is fun, and better than all the Mario Parties. Believe me I know!

My Wii Party Footage!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFFUw5VJmjQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIPNhVeXd9g

Clearly they could have.  EA's had great online on all their sports games up until this and NHL Slapshot.  Hope this isn't a sign of them abandoning online on Wii altogether.  Plus it's fully implemented on their 'free' version on HD consoles. I have friends I'd definitely been playing Jam with online.   So this is a shame.

I'm sure I'll be picking Wii Party up at some point.  

Say, Where's the Kirby Review?

That'll be nice when I buy it next year at a heavy discount.

More importantly, Sid Meier's Pirates! got an 8.5. So glad that it does right by Sid's best franchise. A game with an exclamation! mark is not to be denied.

Kirby's Epic Yarn review will be in the next issue.

I don't entirely agree with their Lord of the Rings score. People are only giving that game a bad score because it's a family friendly Lord of the Rings title. I own the game, and I can confirm it's DEFINITELY a Lord of the Rings game. The story is very much intact with the movie series, the voice acting is superb, and even the graphics aren't as bad as people are making it to be. The lighting and blooms effects are gorgeous, and having 50 enemies on screen at the same time is something unheard of on the Wii. It's definitely not an eyesore like some Wii licensed games are. Certain areas have the same dark and eerie atmosphere that you expect to see in the movie series. I'm actually quite shocked this game maintained the Rated E ESRB rating. Honestly speaking, some areas could startle little kids, even though they dumbed down the appearance of Gollum (for obvious reasons). The only issue I have with the game is the controls. Would it have hurt to have Aragorn's Quest have Wii Motion Plus capabilities, instead of gesture based combat? There are many things to do in this game, go on a whole bunch of quests, chill out in The Shire, and play the main story. I guess when a game has an art style its score shoots way down. I guess the Wii hasn't taught some people something. Technical achievements don't really matter all too much. 

I'd definitely give Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest a 7.5-8.0.