Nerd Mentality

Wii REVIEW – Spyborgs

Posted October 27th 2009 by Jacob Barnes.

Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like walking into a large congregation of people and killing everyone in sight? Hear me out—I'm talking about a theoretical situation. We all get stressed out sometimes and feel a need to kill or break or destroy something to relieve that. Beat ‘em up games, to me, derive their fun from the same pure mindless roughhousing you imagine when going up against dozens of weak enemies. Bionic Games' latest work attempts to deliver that feeling, albeit in a generic package.

Spyborgs follows the story of three genetically-enhanced cyborgs bent on destroying a corrupt ex-Spyborg traitor known as Jackal and a slew of his robot fighters. There's really not much else to the thin storyline. Each of the three playable characters has unique attributes to aid in your mission. Stinger, the handsome implied leader of the group, has a cybernetic gun arm. Bouncer is the slow but powerful ape-like one. Clandestine, the token female ninja of the group, has more stealthy but weak attacks. I found Clandestine easiest to use because of her fast-paced style, but if players would rather pound away on enemies with Bouncer, then they have that option.

The framework for level design gets a little too linear and repetitive right off the bat. You'll enter a large room, beat up some enemies, maybe press a hidden button and then move on. The goal is to clobber everything on the screen in succession, including boxes, to rack up your multiplier score at the top of the screen, which counts towards upgrades at the end of the level.

The problem is that the fighting itself is kind of boring. Fighting style has some good concepts but falls short of being intuitively fun. You only have two main physical attacks to defeat enemies with and they seem to lag in the real-time action. It's not all button mashing though. You can jump, block (although it's not necessary) and use Wii-specific controls during certain QTEs. These player-controlled cut-scenes have players swing the Wii remote in a motion similar to what their character does on the screen to take down an enemy and keep their combos flowing. And since there's always two Spyborgs on the screen at a time, there is some strategy as to working together with your other player to pull off combos. Instead of, say, beating up a single enemy, it's more beneficial to spread out attacks on multiple enemies to not lose combo points. And don't worry if you're a loser with no friends to play with; I found the computer player performs just as well.

You have a lot of mundane common enemy battles, but the boss battles are fantastic and huge. We're talking bosses so big it's a wonder they can fit in my 32" TV set. Unlike the standard gameplay, these enemies require use of more skills like dodging fire and strategy with regards to switching between characters than the typical enemies. This also shows off some of the better looking graphics for Wii games out there. There's some minor issues with jaggy models but the lighting effects can be impressive at times.

Moments of action are accompanied by average guitar riffs and rock music that intensifies when you enter a room. Some of it seems out of place here, like I would expect something more futuristic-sounding in place of it to match the look of the game. Voice acting, on the other hand, is solid all the way through but doesn't add anything more than standard dialogue.

You can tell a lot about a video game just by looking at the name. The term Spyborgs makes me think of one of those drab kids movie that come around every few months with the words "spy," "heroes," or similar phrase in the title. The game comes in a package aimed at the younger teen crowd that can never break free of the connotation that comes with it. And that's what it is—just a so-so action game and nothing more.

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Tags: Spyborgs

Posted in: Reviews, Gaming

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