[magus113]

Well Earl and I took the 10 dollar plunge into this little WiiWare title and we played for about a good hour or so. We only did online co-op which wasn't really co-op per se in the sense that you follow the story to the letter with cutscenes and such, but it does let you take on the story mode with some friends which is good enough for me on the Wii I suppose.

The graphics...could use some work, but they are pretty decent considering only about 40MB to work with, and it being a WiiWare title. Few games I know that are downloadable have more outstanding graphics than they're disc counterparts, so I say bravo to Hudson, especially considering the game is smooth as silk with no framerate drops.

The game plays decently control-wise. While the Wii was anticipated to be the FPS console, it hasn't really shone very well save for a few games that made amazing control schemes and customization options (Medal of Honor Heroes 2). There is no change to the default button layouts, and kinda spotty sensitivity adjustment (from letters D-A), but it works, and the controls feel nice. Press B to shoot, press C to prime a grenade and throw with the chuck, press Z to pull out a plasma whip that you swing with the chuck, shake the mote for a reload, and D-Pad for switching weapons, which from what I can guess you can gather new weaps and upgrades for your weapons from playing the story mode by yourself.

The game is pretty simple in it's implementation too. You're given conditions for victory, conditions for failure, a time limit, and a hell of a lot of baddies to gun down. You can go guns blazing with a shotgun to mow them all down, but be warned that getting too close and shooting your enemies will cause them to explode and spew bug juice on you, which cause a little wag of the chuck to wipe it away before the poison starts sucking at your life bar. You have to plan things out too, which sadly isn't as easy without a microphone, and I don't believe this game has Wii Speak support either, so get out your laptops/PCs and microphones because Skype seems to be the way to get things going. You don't want to end up like Earl and me, stuck in two completely different areas, trying to take down hordes of enemies by yourself.

I haven't played the arena deathmatch mode (or whatever it's called but I'm sure that's the other multiplayer aspect) but I can imagine it's pretty much more of the same and would require mastering the controls. All in all I can say it's worth the 10 bucks for a nice beat down. Your thoughts, Earl?