Parent's Guide: Nintendo Land - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Nintendo Land is a compilation of twelve different games, each one themed around one of Nintendo's past and present game franchises. Whether it's working together to corner your Mario-suited friend by running around a maze, busting some dance moves in an octopus's underwater garden or using the Touch Screen to waft your balloon-carried Mii through a peril-plastered sky, there's something for everyone. Hailed as the Wii U's answer to Wii Sports, you'll likely find the games aren't quite as intuitive or easy to pick-up-and-play for youngsters, although there's plenty of interest here.

Likely to be the highlight for kids are the competitive multiplayer attractions of Mario Chase, Animal Crossing: Sweet Day and Luigi's Ghost Mansion. The easiest games in the pack to get your head round, these are basically variations on the playground games of tag and hide and seek - Mario Chase sees a group of Toad characters scouring a map in search of the red-hatted mascot, while Animal Crossing: Sweet Day has a few comically large-bonced animals racing round picking up as many sweets as they can whilst avoiding capture by GamePad player's guards. Luigi's Ghost Mansion has the GamePad player taking on the role of a ghost invisible on the TV screen who needs to catch a group of ghost hunters, who'll be trying their best to catch him in their torch beams. For a co-operative game, Pikmin Adventure is likely to be the best bet, as it's a simpler smash 'n' bash romp through a world inhabited by oversized space creatures intent on having you for breakfast. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that the three competitive multiplayer games don't have a single player mode, so you'll need at least two players (and preferably four) with the relevant peripherals (most competitive games can be played using just a Wii Remote, whilst most co-operative ones require a nunchuck and a Motion Plus add-on) to get the most out of it.

Conversely, the games that may pose more of a problem are likely to be The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest, Metroid Blast and Takamaru's Ninja Castle. These seem to be the games aimed more at the 'serious' player, and as such have a bit more of a learning curve, or tend to be generally more difficult. In Zelda, the player with the GamePad acts as an archer to the Wii Remote player's swordsmen, as they fight their way through a series of felted enemies in pursuit of the legendary Triforce, but with health shared between all the players (meaning a lone not-very-good player is enough to halt the entire team's progress), some devious enemies and a tendency to leave the GamePad player behind, it's probably a bit on the tricky side. Even more problematic, space shooter Metroid Blast's ship is steered by a combination of two analogue sticks and tilting the GamePad, which is an awful lot to think about even for experienced players. The other players don't have it much easier either, moving their players with the Nunchuck and aiming with the Wii Remote's pointer. And while Takamaru's Ninja Castle's 'point controller at the screen, swipe Touch Screen to shoot stars' concept is a lot easier to follow, in practice it's nigh on impossible to hit the majority of the speedy Ninjas with your shuriken as the game takes into account both the direction you're pointing the controller, and the force you put behind each star, meaning you have to get two things right.

That said, with the right group of people, your child will likely get hours of fun out of Mario Chase, and the other competitive multiplayer games, which truly show Nintendo at their same-console multiplayer best. Like most minigame collections, it's one of those games where kids will likely find a game they like, and then play it over and over, ad infinitum, until you need the TV, or tell them it's time for bed.

As a Nintendo themed minigame collection, Nintendo Land is basically a bit of harmless fun - with nothing all that untoward included - certainly no bad language, gore or nudity anyway. Most of the games are as clean as a whistle, being just glorified games of hide and seek, a bit of dancing or some high-speed car racing. Perhaps the only real 'questionable' games are The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest which sees you hitting a series of knitted monsters with either a sword or arrow, at which point they disappear in a puff of smoke, Metroid Blast where you're shooting at a load of aliens with a laser, which promptly explode when defeated, and Takamaru's Ninja Castle where you're hurling throwing stars at a series of cardboard cut-out Ninjas. Any perceived violence is very mild, though.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Nintendo Wii U