Adam Riley reports:
''To put it simply, Actionloop Twist is a game where players must clear different coloured Gemstones as quickly as possible by matching three or more of the same shade. Whereas on the DS the gems were thrown around using the stylus, now your chosen Mii sits in a rotatable cannon, the Gemstone Launch Pad, and swivels around as players point the Wii Remote at the screen and twist one way or the other, pressing 'A' to fire whatever coloured gem is lined up for launch at that present time. 'All the way around?' you may be asking…well, the Launch Pad sits at the centre of the screen with various different styles and shapes of track surrounding it, depending on the level played. More and more of the varyingly coloured gemstones start to appear at one side of the screen and move along the track, heading towards the Black Hole-esque end of the line in an increasingly speedier motion as the difficulty level gets higher the longer player survives. Therefore, the task at hand is to shoot off gems towards their matching colours on the track and keep clearing as many as possible until whatever stipulation is met (ranging from a set score being achieved, a certain amount of a specified gem colours being cleared, a predetermined number of chain moves being completed, and so on).
PALGN writes: "Welcome to PALGN's WiiWare Review Round-Up. At the start of every month, this article will be dedicated to reviewing the WiiWare titles that have been released during the past month on the Wii Shop Channel and give our verdict as to whether they are worth a download or not. To access our archive of reviews for every other title available for download from the WiiWare service."
Eurogamer writes: "Falling block and tile and logic puzzle games have enjoyed a renaissance on Nintendo DS, whether it's stylus-driven efforts like Meteos and Zoo Keeper or more traditional affairs like Tetris and Slitherlink. With the launch of WiiWare, Nintendo must be hoping to repeat the trick - and it's already had a go with an agreeable if steeply-priced Dr. Mario retread. Actionloop Twist arrives at the same price - 1000 Wii Points, or approximately GBP 7 / EUR 10 in old money - and makes an even better account of itself.
Instantly recognisable to anyone who tried it on the DS under Actionloop and Magnetica banners, or on Xbox Live Arcade as Zuma Deluxe, the gameplay is simple: coloured marbles snake around the screen on a preset path towards an exit hole, and you have to stop them getting there by firing marbles from the centre of the screen into their midst. Any marble groups of three or more of the same colour are deleted when you contribute to them. When the marbles surrounding a disappearing group can crash together to form another coloured group, they do, and disappear themselves. With careful manipulation of the snaking marble line, you can initiate chain reactions to collect more points or fulfil objectives."
It was always likely that WiiWare would provide the perfect platform for the criminally overlooked puzzle genre. These kind of games have always been popular but given their nature they are often unfairly ignored when sitting next to higher-profile releases such as Super Mario and Metroid. With WiiWare already providing us with the likes of Dr. Mario, Pop, Toki Tori and the prospect of Tetris in the future, the puzzle genre is unlikely to be diluted on Nintendo's new download platform. The question is: how does a relatively unknown game like Magnetica Twist weigh up against the bigger names?
Magnetica Twist (known as Actionloop Twist in the Europe) is developed by the Mitchell Corporation and is based on their 1998 arcade game PuzzLoop. The game makes passing references to Bust A Move and Zuma (although given the times of release it's likely Zuma was heavily influenced by the original PuzzLoop). This instalment is based on the DS version which was released to high praise in 2006 and offers the same range of modes and gameplay, but given its WiiWare price tag, is somewhat cheaper than the DS counterpart.....
