Deadly Creatures

"A great game for the--OH MY GOD, THERE'S A SPIDER ON YOUR SHOULDER!!!"

Confession time loyal readers: I'm afraid of spiders. Now I'm not deathly afraid of spiders, as in I can't even be within 100 feet of one without going into a mental episode, but I am afraid enough to think that they are going to jump on my face whenever they are in my vicinity. So when THQ and Rainbow Studios announced Deadly Creatures, a Wii-exclusive game where one of the main characters you play as is a giant tarantula, you assume that I'm going to stay as far away from it as possible. You would be wrong though, as I'm a Survival Horror junkie and I thoroughly enjoy games that can potentially creep me out. To my surprise, Deadly creatures also turns out to be an original and strong addition to the Wii library.

8-LEGGED STORY

Two prospectors, named Wade and Struggs, go out into the blazing hot desert in search for a hidden stash of Civil War gold coins. Sounds simple enough, but there's a catch: the entire story is told from the perspectives of both a Tarantula and a Scorpion. The two mortal arachnid enemies track each other through the desert's dark and critter-filled underworld fighting to survive, while above ground the prospectors loom in the distance telling their own story of greed and murder. Despite it's simplicity, the overall story is pretty gripping, as you find yourself wanting to see how the tale eventually plays out. Also, even though they are a couple of the most unlikely protagonists in video game history, you'll find yourself attached to the two insects as you help them to survive battle after battle. The only mark I can give here is that the ending is both underwhelming and at the same time somewhat satisfying. Still, we need to crawl to that conclusion somehow…

8-LEGGED GAMEPLAY

Deadly Creatures is an action game basically set up like a Devil May Cry game. The game is divided up into 10 chapters: 5 for the tarantula, 5 for the scorpion. The basic goals in each chapter is to get from one place to the other while battling enemies. T and S share a few basic controls between each other: the nunchuck's analogue stick moves your arachnid, holding the 1 button on the Wii-mote will enter a first-person view and allow you to look around using the pointer, and holding the 2 button will cause a helpful hint arrow to appear that points you in the direction you need to go. The camera is situated right behind your arachnid, and pressing down on the Wii-mote's d-pad will re-center the camera if it goes astray, which it will quite a lot. Exploration-wise, T and S have very different attributes and abilities to help them through the levels. T is the faster and more agile of the two, and the Z button on the nunchuck will cause him to *shudder* jump, which helps him get over and onto obstacles in his way. Eventually, he will also earn the abilities to crawl upside-down and shoot webs to allow him to zip-line to other surfaces. Holding the c button on the nunchuck will enter a first person view similar to holding the 1 button, only this time when you point at an object and release the c button, T will shoot a burst of webbing at whatever you pointed at. Zip-line spots are marked by shining spider-webs stuck on surfaces, which usually line up with another spider-web that you have to jump to. I don't know much about Tarantulas, but if they can actually do a zip-line thing in real-life, then I'm never going near a spider-web again!! The Scorpion, on the other hand, is much slower than the tarantula, but trades that in slowness for more power. In terms of exploring the levels, he isn't able to jump and he can't crawl upside-down, but he does have a couple of useful pinchers to use. S can dig through certain dirt patches in the ground by waggling the Wii-mote and the nunchuck up and down on the spots, and these will usually lead to tunnels and other hidden areas. S can also use his pinchers to chop down certain types of grass by walking up to them and waggling the Wii-mote and nunchuck from side to side, which of course opens up new areas.

When it comes to battle, the two heroes play just as different. Keeping with his quickness, the tarantula has an easy time dodging enemy attacks but he's weaker and can take less damage to kill. The scorpion, on the other hand, is a tank in battle, and he is able to guard against attacks by holding the Z button. The A button on the Wii-mote controls both arachnid's basic strike attack, with the tarantula performing a single quick lunging strike, while the scorpion can perform a 3-hit combo with his pinchers. As you go through the levels and defeat more enemies, you'll earn points that will go towards earning additional moves and combo strikes. Most of these moves are performed with motion controls, such as swinging the Wii-mote from side to side to perform a crowd-cleaning spin or tail whip attack, while you can supplement an A button strike with an up, down, left, or right motion for an additional strike. You'll also earn the ability to poison enemies with either arachnid by holding down the B trigger and making a downwards motion with the Wii-mote when next to an enemy. Of course, each arachnid will earn special attacks exclusive to them, like T's stealth strike and jumping strike or S's burrow strike and dash attack. T will also get the ability to feed on enemies for extra health when he knocks them on their backs by hitting A and swinging the Wii-mote and nunchuck up and down. S, just like another famous “Scorpion”, can perform finishing maneuvers on weakened foes by hitting the c button when it flashes on the screen. You then perform a quick-time event using button presses and motion controls to complete the very brutal finishing move. Health is gained back the regular way by eating crickets, pillbugs, and other small insects that appear in the levels. You can even eat special green crickets to permanently increase your health. Health will be important, as T and S will be facing a variety of deadly foes in their travels. Black Widows, Wolf Spiders, lizards, beetles, tarantula wasps, and even rats are just the tip of the dirt mound. You'll never want to walk through a desert again…or ever. The enemy AI can put up quite a fight too, as enemies get harder and more numerous in numbers as the game goes along. That's not even counting the boss fights, which unfortunately are too few in numbers, but are good enough not to spoil here. The battle system may not be deep, but taking out the stuff of your nightmares never felt so good.

The action isn't perfect, however. The game's camera has the tendency to get stuck on walls quite a bit, especially during battle. It can usually be corrected with a tap on the d-pad, but during a life or death battle with a praying mantis it can be annoying. Also, I would have liked a lock-on button, as more than once I ended up hitting air and leaving myself open to attack. Some of the game's save points can few and far between as well, making for some lengthy backtracking if you get killed. Finally, motion-controls every once and a while didn't register, making me fail a finishing move animation or something even more important. There are sensitivity options to toy around with, but it didn't really make any noticeable difference.

8-LEGGED TECHNOLOGY

Third-parties take notice: THIS is how you take advantage of the Wii's hardware. First off, DC's environments and levels feature phenomenal art and graphic design. From dark caverns to insect nests to junkyards to a dilapidated old truck, no other game has made you feel like, well, an insect. Exploring these levels are an absolute joy, and it will be worth it to replay the game just to go through them again. It's like Honey, I Shrunk The Kids…but with bugs…yeah. The insect models and their animations are also phenomenal, giving the sense that Rainbow studios actually took enough time to study every single creature in the game and make it as realistic as possible. Yeah, you don't read sentences like that when it comes to Wii third-party games that often. The cut-scenes that take place in-game are also very cinematic and very impressive. Unfortunately, kinks do show up in the armor. The levels stream off the disc, and this leads to loading screens of up to 5-10 seconds to appear every once in a while at random points. This does break the flow of the gameplay, especially if it happens during battle. There are also some bouts of slowdown, as well as enemies clipping through the environment. Tech issues aside, this is the most impressive looking Wii game I've seen since Metroid Prime 3. The game runs in widescreen and 480p to boot.

The games sound design, on the other hand, is straight out phenomenal. The game's ambient music score fit's the mood perfectly with it's soft guitar twangs and Western movie feel. The various squeals and hisses of the creatures will send chills up spines, as will other various sound effects. Finally, THQ spared no expense in getting voice actors for the two human characters, hiring A-listers Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Hopper, who both do an excellent job. A game that screams for a 5.1 system to get the most out of it.

CRAWLING IN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIN…

The lowest part of Deadly Creatures comes with it's replay value, in which it doesn't have much. The game itself is pretty short, taking about 6-8 hours to beat. After that you can collect 450 grubs that are scattered and hidden throughout the levels that unlock various art galleries, and the game has three difficulty levels, but other than that you can watch a couple of interviews with Billy Bob and Dennis as they talk about…stuff. Still, like I said, the game is worth experiencing more than once just to go through the fantastic levels again.

Quality third-party games on the Wii are few and far between, and it's rare to actually get one like Deadly Creatures. It has it's problems, but it's originality and high production values more than make up for them. Unless you have SEVERE arachnophobia, then hardcore Wii-owners have no reason not to give this game a spin. Hopefully this starts a third-party revolution for Wii games in 2009...other than that crap Ubisoft puts out, of course.

KEWL
+A very original concept
+A simple yet intriguing story
+Absolutely phenomenal level, graphic, and animation designs
+Good variety of moves and skills between the Tarantula and Scorpion
+A very fun battle system against a variety of creepy critters
+Phenomenal sound design and voice acting
+It will probably creep the hell out of you

LAME
-The camera can go wonky from a time to time
-Some save points are few and far between
-Would have liked a “lock-on button”
-Motion controls sometimes didn't register
-Some various tech issues
-Little replay value…it for some reason you didn't like the game's levels

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/17/09, Updated 02/20/09

Game Release: Deadly Creatures (US, 02/09/09)