Escape from Bug Island

"Outdated, but decent survival horror"

Escape from Bug Island, or Necro-Nesia, is the Wii's first completely original survival-horror game. The change from the much cooler Japanese title and box art leaves much to be desired, but the game itself will either disappoint, or surprise you. This budget title wasn't well received so far by the game critics, but it's rapidly drawing players' interest. Most want to see for themselves how bad the game supposedly is, others are curious to see if it's actually any good. I for one still have mixed feelings about it. It's somewhere between good and bad, and starts here...

Michelle, Ray, and Mike; three friends who set sail for a camping trip on a (somewhat) deserted island bustling with rare bugs. The island was ravaged by a tidal wave some years before, and failed experimentation now has mutant bugs roaming the place. Michelle loves bugs and has come there to write a school report, while Ray hates bugs and only came along because he has a crush on Michelle. And Mike is the jerk you'll love to hate. It's no surprise he decides he wants Michelle as well.

Sounding like a bad teen flick yet? Wait 'til you see the twist. After some cheesy dialogue and voice acting, Michelle goes for a late night walk, followed by Mike, and the two never come back. Ray is obviously forced to go look for his missing friends in the dark depths of the island, and so the mood is set.

The game starts off pretty slowly. Equipped with a mere stick and throwing rocks, you'll need to venture into the island to find your friends, and who knows, perhaps solve the mystery behind the island. At first, you'll only come upon hordes of small bugs, but as you get deeper into the island, gigantic bugs will cross your path, along with humanoid lizard women and other scary creatures. Your weaponry will adjunctly also get better as you find new tools such as shovels, sickles, pitchforks -- pretty much anything that can be used as a weapon, even steel pipes and large insect mandibles. The gun doesn't come until later in the game, but what's more fun that beating up bugs with a bat rolled up in barbed wire?

The game does a rather great job at creating an eerie atmosphere, with bugs crawling in every corner and noises coming from all around you. The island is fairly large and the search for your friends will lead you through swamps, caves, forests and other creepy locations. The emphasis being placed on exploration, there are a lot of items to find hidden around, but sadly the game doesn't have any surprises in store for you. It's the same trek all the way through, always doing the same thing: walking and killing bugs. The map isn't of much help; it tells you where to head to, but with no indications of what's around you. You'll often need to backtrack to find objects, but it turns into an almost pointless wandering, trying to fight your way through countless bugs that slow you down when you just want to get somewhere.

Ray is moved around with the Nunchuk, while the Wiimote is used to fight. Hold B, then give a hit with the Wiimote to strike the enemies on screen. A first person mode can also be entered by holding A to throw rocks, grenades and to use the gun. The controls unfortunately don't work too well all together. To even scratch an enemy, you need to get very close to it as the weapons don't have a very good range. Once you start attacking, it's impossible to move Ray around anymore since holding B locks the character in place. If the enemy moves out of the way while you're locked on, you're forced to release B, then move back towards the enemy, press B again to lock on, in hopes the enemy won't move this time. No enemy targeting makes the foes extremely hard to hit, and extremely easy to miss. You'll be struggling with the sluggish controls for a while before putting up with them. Most enemies can be avoided by turning off the flashlight since the light attracts the bugs, but you won't see much in the dark.

Aside from the cumbersome controls, the game feels fairly satisfying. There is something fun about walking around in dark woods, all alone with bugs, though it would benefit from more complex tasks than simply finding keys to sneak into abandoned houses -- it feels pretty dull the whole way through when that's all you find yourself doing. There are some rare occasions where you'll need to do a bit more than walking and fighting, like throwing rocks to knock down an insect nest or tilting the Wiimote to cross a log, and the game has bonus objectives to complete, namely killing a certain number of enemies or finding a particular item, but it's just not enough to keep the interest going at times. If you stick with the game however, you might just get sucked in. There is a little something that kept me playing in spite of the flaws, like I just had to go through it and see how it all wraps in the end.

Although the storyline starts off pretty unoriginal, with a predictable plot and cheesy lines, it gets more intriguing half-way through, and you might actually start caring for Ray and Michelle. It's hard to really get into it though, as the game only lasts ten hours at best. The second part of the game involving time travel, you'll be forced to revisit the same areas from the first 5 hours of the game. New areas will be unlocked and some stuff will be different, but it feels monotonous after a while. You're not in for jumps and scares in the game either, as it's far from being frightening in a surprising way. The atmosphere is spooky and enemies often get you by behind, but the lack of variety in the creatures you'll encounter will wear away the fear factor.

Just like in any horror flick, sound effects and music play an important role at keeping the tension, which the game does fairly well. The tracks are somewhat repetitive and lack inspiration, but it fits the loneliness of the island and leaves place for the scary audio attempts. The fog covering all levels also helps to create a creepy atmosphere, but it also hides very bad graphics. The game could easily pass for a PS1 title, with low polygonal enemies and poor texture work. There are very little effects and everything is at its bare minimum, with drab and lifeless environments. The only thing that tells it's not a game from ten years ago are the character models.

All in all, Escape from Bug Island has its fair share of flaws, but comes out as a decent game down the road. The controls are clunky and the Wiimote doesn't help, the graphics are last generation (and even worse) and the gameplay is empty and bland at moments, but it's a thrilling trek in the woods. The outdated feel should entertain old school survival horror fans.

Story/Presentation 7
Gameplay 6
Controls 5
Graphics/Music 4
Replay Value 6

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/07, Updated 10/01/07

Game Release: Escape from Bug Island (US, 07/25/07)