Wii Sports Club; How To Train Your Dragon 2; Urban Trial Freestyle, gaming reviews

Baseball makes good application of the GamePad in Wii Sports Club

Wii Sports Club

***

Wii U (£39.99)

The original Wii Sports was Nintendo's most effective showcase for motion controls, captivating families and gamers alike. It was hugely successful and with this Wii U update, Nintendo aims to serve another ace by facilitating online play for tennis, baseball, golf, boxing and bowling. Baseball makes good application of the GamePad, as does golf, which allows players to make exacting shots. But without more novel uses for the GamePad in the other events, it's difficult to shake the feeling that you've seen most of what it has to offer before.

Sam Gill

How To Train Your Dragon 2

*

Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, 3DS (£26.99)

Soaring in the open skies astride a winged creature may sound like an elegant proposition, but How to Train Your Dragon 2 suffers from badly designed scenery, which stutters beneath your beast as you fly around. None of the mini-games remotely captures the charm or spectacle of the films, and a high frustration factor with the poor camera angles soon drains the title of any novelty value. With little to recommend to even ardent fans of the books or films, this release ends up more damp squib than fire-breathing monster.

SG

Urban Trial Freestyle

***

iOS (£1.49)

Styled by someone whose only experience of a city appears to be from The Warriors, Urban Trial Freestyle is a physics-based Trials clone, released originally on consoles and now re-released for iOS devices. It's unsuited to touch-screen controls but the levels are varied and interesting, and there is quite a deep customisation system for the bikes and the rider – plus, it includes a level editor. It may not do anything groundbreaking, but Freestyle is a fun enough distraction – with a bit more depth than many of its competitors.

Jack Fleming