Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, the Wii-make of the critically-lauded 360 zombie actioner is released today in the US, yet bizarrely - at the time of writing, anyway - there’s not a single review up on aggregator site Metacritic. That’s never a good sign, and indeed, the suggestion that it might not be the world’s greatest port is borne out by the two magazine reviews which currently exist, but haven’t been added to Metacritic just yet.

UK magazines Official Nintendo Magazine and NGamer both carry reviews of Chop Till You Drop, the former awarding it a fairly average 68%, with the latter plumping for a measly 55%. Both suggest it’s an infuriating experience thanks to the addition of zombie parrots and poodles, but that the lack of enemies also disappoints - neither were problems in the 360 game whose mall was absolutely full of the undead. But as NGamer summarises, “a zombie-infested mall doesn’t make much sense without zombies to infest it. Poodles and parrots are among the most irritating substitutes imaginable.” Ouch.

In truth, Dead Rising never seemed like a good fit for Wii, and so this is hardly a surprise, although the addition of tiny flying and ground-based foes which are difficult to hit was a problem that simply didn’t need to exist. Perhaps EA had the right idea turning Dead Space: Extraction into an on-rails shooter, if an experienced developer like Capcom can struggle to port a third-person HD action game onto Wii.

Expect more reviews to roll in later this week, and expect them to follow suit. If you’ve still not been put off, Chop Till You Drop is released in Europe this Friday.

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As if to prove you really can add ‘training’ (or variants thereof) to anything these days, someone has created a new homebrew title for DS called ‘Sexy BlackJack Training’. There are two versions of the game, one featuring Sunny Leone, the other starring Sora Aoi, both of whom are apparently famous for their clothes mysteriously falling off during card games.

How anyone can be trained in BlackJack is beyond me - unless you have some kind of problem with counting to 21 - but then I’m sure learning the intricacies of the popular card game isn’t the main reason people will be interested in this. It works on any R4 cart or other DS flash carts, and can be downloaded from this site here. And it supports the DS rumble pak. Of course it does.

Thanks, DSFanboy.

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The original Touchmaster was a bit like a poor man’s version of 42 All-Time Classics, forever unfavourably compared thanks to the proximity of the two games’ releases and because the concept (and content) was fairly similar. Touchmaster was far from a bad game, but it only had twenty games, which led to many predictable comments that it was half as good as Nintendo’s casual-pleaser. Yet it spent a good few days in my DS, and I wouldn’t put you off picking it up for a fiver or so should it be lurking in your local game shop’s bargain bin.

Anyway, Midway has today announced More Touchmaster - which isn’t the most original name, but it makes a change from whacking a 2 on the end. This will include games such as Poker Slide View Finder, What Is It? Rampage Empire, and the brilliantly-named Beaned! Catacombs. Hopefully Nintendo won’t steal Midway’s thunder by announcing Another 42 All-Time Classics tomorrow - particularly as my wife would never be off the DS.

In less welcome news, Midway also revealed details of possibly the least-warranted sequel of recent years - More Game Party. If ever a title has deserved a ‘no’ at the front more, then I’ve not heard of it.

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Oh dear Lord.

Activision has announced that it is set to launch a new brand, specifically focused on bringing accessible Wii titles to the masses. The first titles released will be Little League World Series 2008, Rapala Fishing Frenzy and Dancing with the Stars: Get Your Dance On, with more to be announced within the next few weeks. Though eyes may begin to roll at the introduction of yet another casual label in a market already crowded with them, I don’t really have a problem with that. The name, however? Well, that’s a bit of an issue.

Activision’s new brand is going to be known as…Wee 1st.

You could not make it up.

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