Spyborgs

08 Jun 2009 at 17:42:10 by Tim McDonald

Spyborgs has had a bad time of it. It's changed a lot since the kid-friendly, cartoon-like first iteration, and that's a good thing as these days those are two phrases that don't tend to bode well when it comes to games. Happily, it's now been turned into a slightly more mature game styled after Streets of Rage.

The premise is that the Spyborgs are a team of robotic heroes, punching and smashing their way through a series of levels. I got the chance to play through a boss fight, and y'know what? It's surprisingly good fun.

It's a Wii game, which means that motion controls are in, but they're a fairly minor part of the experience, being relegated to quick-time event sections. In the boss fight, which took place against a gigantic robot, certain attacks were avoided either by moving out of the way or by using the waggle QTEs to parry the attack and get the boss into a position where he could be more easily punched in the face. They're reasonably tight but there are still a few that need a bit of work, with the space between the prompts flashing up and the input window ending being far too small to get it right on a first attempt. Other than that, you can use the Wiimote to spot hidden objects, but this didn't have any real place in the boss fight, as you might expect.

It's a Wii game, which usually means that the graphics are pretty dire, but it finally seems that developers are cottoning on to the requirements of this particular console. Spyborgs runs along at a fair clip, and it looks decent while doing it. It's not going to compete with Crysis, but it doesn't need to: characters are well-defined and the new, grittier look doesn't detract from the style of the game.

It's a Wii game, which means that multiplayer is a big part, and this is where I suspect the game will shine. Two Spyborgs are required for each level. In multiplayer, each player controls one; in single-player, one is controlled wholly by the AI, who does a decent job of following your lead. When I dodged attacks, it tended to do so as well. When I ran in to punch things in the face, it did the same.

And it's a Capcom game, which means that screen-spanning bosses and giant robots are in. No complaints here.

Spyborgs isn't a title that's likely to be on anyone's must-buy-on-launch list, and it doesn't really do enough different to stand out from the crowd, so that's maybe not surprising – but that's also doing it a disservice. No, it's not the most spectacular game I saw at E3, and I doubt it's going to be breaking into the UK charts at number one, but from what I saw, though, it's a deeply enjoyable pseudo-3D brawler. On the multiplayer-centric Wii, this is a genre that's sorely lacking, and I suspect this could become a weekend favourite with a small group of friends. Depending on how much you pine for the days of Streets of Rage and Golden Axe, you might want to ratchet up your expectation levels accordingly.

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