Well, this was a game that interested me because of the concept… Spiders and scorpions going through large wastelands, fighting bugs and lizards and such. But I was being cautious and just decided to rent it. Well I finally did, and I think I’m ready to give a fair judgement for this game.

See if this voyage through some random wasteland is any good!

Read on!

Looks, sounds and story
Let’s start with the graphics. This game looks fantastic… kinda. The bugs, other than the crickets, look great. Not exactly life-like, the Wii lacks the graphic processing power to go in finer details, but for the Wii, this looks really great. The Spider and Scorpion characters are just about as detailed as they could get on the Wii. The look as close to life-like as the Wii can do.  Getting in super-zoomed in view you can see a bit of flaws, but from the distance you’ll usually see the bugs at they look great. And the animation… wow. Everything moves exactly as it should, the game creators really studied the movements of scorpions, spiders, lizards and snake a LOT to make the animation as life-like as possible. There’s a few hickups in animations here and there, but overall it’s very well done.
The environments are also pretty well done. But the problem is that you’re in a desert, so… Let’s just say there’s not a lot of variety  in the areas you visit. Most caves look the same, open areas look the same, tunnels look the same… There’s really not much to say here. It’s a desert. There’s cacti, fallen trees, caves, spider webs, bones, skulls, roots, brambles, and lots of sand. The areas are a bit “livened up” by things in the environment… Like destroyed Christmas decorations, bikes, car parts, dolls. Those really help making it seem like a weird desert area where… something seemingly happened…

The sound is great. There’s not really any music. You get some background… noise… You know, a bit like in horror films where there’s background “music” before anything happens, which tells you “someone’s gonna die in a couple seconds, or at least something will try scaring you”. That kind of “music”. It revs up when stuff is about to happen, and calms down when… things calm down. Otherwise you get bug noises, which are quite well done, and sometimes weird roars coming from the insects and lizards and stuff… Very nice. And to top it off, the 2 main human characters are voiced by Dennis Hopper and Billy Bob Thornton, and they do a fine job… whenever you can hear them.

But what are humans doing in a game about a spider and a scorpion? Well, they have their own story going on. Sadly it’s a bit hard to follow, since sometimes you’re underground and you can barely hear them talking, and their appearances are sporadic so it’s a bit hard to piece it all together. Basically they’re out in the desert, or something of the sort, and they’re looking for gold. It’s hard to know if they’re succeeding or not, since, unless you’re close enough to them, you won’t hear a thing they’re saying.

But all of this, put together, does for one great atmosphere. It really does for an interesting and unique experience on the Wii. The game looks and sounds great, and the… lack of a certain story (well, trying to to figure it out at least) gives an experience unlike anything else on the Wii.

Gameplay
This is an action game which concentrates mostly on exploration. You use your “unique” bug skills to navigate through areas to get to the end.

When you’re not exploring, you’re fighting other dwellers of the desert. Other bugs like cockroaches, scorpions, various types of spiders, bloodsucking mites, some weird flying insects, as well as lizards and a rattlesnake. There’s a good variety of enemies. Some lay traps to prevent your movement, some attack from a range, other flying making them harder to hit. Each enemy as some kind of pattern or behavior that make it so that every enemy type is different. Some can block your attacks, others have fast doding skills, some can poison you. Well this game definitely doesn’t lack enemy variety.

But is the fighting good? Well… It’s hard to say. The fighting is relatively simple. You have 1 attack button (A), and different attacks depending on what character you’re using. Basically you just need to figure out an enemy’s pattern and attack it until his health goes down. Once you killed an enemy type once or twice, they’ll never be challenging anymore. You have to change up your strategies a bit when more than one opponent comes at you.  For example, fighting 1 scorpion is pretty easy, but when a second one joins the fray it’s a lot harder unless you change your strategy a bit. But basically, it’s pretty much just knowing when to run, when to jump and when to attack. Using combo attacks will let you do more damage and eventually make fights a lot easier.

So there’s 2 characters you can use: the spider and the scorpion. Each of them fundamentally plays differently. There’s some similarities: both can climb on walls(though not upside-down, and are sometime limited by cracks or invisible walls)… and… both can attack. They also both learn a poisoning attack(Hold B a bit and then swing the wiimote down). They play quite differently really. The spider is more suited for navigation (having skills just to get through certain levels that the scorpion wouldn’t be able to) and the scorpion is more capable in battle than the spider.

The spider starts with a wiimote combo attack, which requires shaking the remote either vertically or horizontally after attacking. He also gets a web shot attack to temporarily prevent enemies from moving (you have to hold C, aim with your remote and release to shoot). And for navigation, he can jump over obstacles and use web strings to attack to some webs and continue through levels. There’s a few other combo attacks he learns on the way too.

The Scorpion can’t jump, but he starts with a combo attack (done by hitting A repeatedly) that hits up to 3 times, he can block attacks instead of jumping and he has a stinger strike if you swing the remote down, which pierces defense. He also learns some wiimote combo attacks just like the spider. And for navigation purposes, he learns a skill that the Spider doesn’t: digging holes through weak walls/grounds. This means that in some areas the spider will take different routes than the scorpion. The scorpion also gets finishing moves, which are QTEs when the enemies are weakened enough. Yeah, QTEs still suck, but they’re used sparingly here and they’re quite liberal about them, making them not being used too much and they’re not badly used like in most games that use them.

Otherwise it’s simple stuff. Killing enemies gives points which make you learn attacks or powers you up. You can find leaf crickets to boost your max health and find grubs to get some extra stuff (concept arts, stuff like that). There’s checkpoints throughout the levels so when you die you’re never left TOO far behind when you restart.

Overall
But in the end the game lacks something. The fighting is slow, the collecting is long and boring, and the exploration aspect, while intersting at first, gets boring fast and after around an hour of play you get bored and don’t feel like playing anymore(so taking breaks while playing this is definitely a good thing).
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a well done game. The atmosphere is great and immersive (until the gameplay bores you), the Wii controls are well implemented(not something I say really often), the QTEs are much better used than in most games that use them (though it’s still a “press this button to not die” affair), the combat is not too bad despite being slow and there’s tons of collecting for people who like doing it.

Though I can’t really suggest purchasing this game, I do at LEAST recommend to rent it. It’s a unique experience, and there is SOME enjoyment to be found, but it’s not something that’s worth more than a rental. At least it’s better  than a lot of the crap I’ve been trying out lately (*coughxbladescough*)

jobocan Console, Games, Review, wii