Related Sections: Wii
The wee Wii world of spider/scorpion sim Deadly Creatures
I never got to play Deadly Creatures, a Wii game about a spider and a scorpion. I think. I've somehow gotten it into my head that it's like Chibi Robo meets Bad Mojo meets Mister Mosquito, with voiceover by Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Hopper. Reading this excerpt from the post-mortem in Game Developer magazine, published on GameSetWatch, reminds me that I should put it on the backlog list.Deadly Creatures has a unique look that takes commonplace environments and twists them into startling unfamiliarity when viewed from the perspective of its insect protagonists. Effectively visualizing this sinister landscape became a major concern for the team.
And then this bit makes me think I should take it right back off the list.We limited the remote's gestures to cardinal directions--up, down, left, right, forward, backward--and the Wii nunchuk to non-directional shaking, as testing proved that users can make these gestures with a high degree of accuracy.
Then, we created usage scenarios that required a pattern of timed cardinal gestures with ample delay between each gesture. We also tried to map all cardinal directions to a valid input, so if players gesture-mashed, they would still get a satisfying experience during combat.And that's after scaling back from more elaborate gestures.
There are some truly awesome games on the Wii. No other system could do as right by House of the Dead: Overkill, Boom Blox Bash Party, Lost Wind, SimCity Creator, Trauma Center, or WarioWare. But reading about Rainbow Studios shoehorning their brave new microworld into a Wii waggling experience just reminds me of games like MadWorld, de Blob, and Excitebots, all dragged down by gratuitious Wii gimmickry. If I do put Deadly Creatures on the backlog list, I won't be fasttracking it to the top.
By DragonIV at 9:39 AM ON 05/28/09
The game is fun to watch, less fun to play. The controls are certainly LCD, and the layout of maps comes across as very contrived *and* very limited (almost on rails) *and* very sparsely populated. Playing this game, you'd never know that there are a bazillion more insects than humans in the real world.
It's really not worth the price of admission. If you can pick it up for $20 or less, it's possibly a fun weekend romp, but the replay value is almost nil.
By ps at 3:20 PM ON 05/28/09
I don't like this game but I do like Dennis Hopper. Hopper has done a lot of voice work of late. i just got him on my GPS from a company called Navtones. They do real celebrity voices for GPS and one of them is Hopper (And Mr. T!!!).
Game bad, Hopper awesome.
By Doldrum at 6:06 PM ON 05/28/09
Did you notice that the writer you quoted called spiders and scorpions insects...
By Tom Chick at 6:27 PM ON 05/28/09
Heh, I almost commented on that, Doldrum, but a good game designer doesn't necessarily have to know his taxonomy. :)
Tom Chick:
Heh, I almost commented on that, Doldrum, but a good game designer doesn't necessarily have to know his taxonomy. :...More »