Deadly Creatures Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 11th March 2009

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We get deadly.

Deadly Creatures Details:

	Action
	Nintendo Wii
	Rainbow Studios
	THQ

12+

Out Now

I’ve taken up some strange roles during my time playing games, but none has ever put me in the role of a character many people will be disgusted by, hate and generally freaked out by from the off. But with Deadly Creatures this is exactly what THQ has done! Not being content with that they threw in another such character for good measure.

The approach of Deadly Creatures is unique to say the least, as you take up the role of a Tarantula and Scorpion. They haven’t been recreated in a videogame friendly way with caricatured faces and so on, but as true to life representations that are sure to gross many gamers out. The games dark story doesn’t directly include these characters. It progresses as you pass through areas and you over hear conversation between the games human characters who are on a quest to find hidden gold.

Deadly Creatures is best described as a third person action game, with alternating chapters played as one of the two aforementioned creatures. The premise of Deadly Creatures is simple. Complete your objectives whilst doing everything necessary in order to stay alive. Of course the game does its best to try and stop you achieving this and pits you against some of the deadliest creatures the desert has to offer such as Tarantula Hawks, Rattle Snakes, Gila Monsters and all kinds of deadly bugs.

The game makes good use of the Wii’s motion sensing capabilities, which have been reserved for the combat system. At first you start with simple moves in order to defend yourself. However, as you progress through the game and earn points from fighting new moves are unlocked. These require you to perform movement combinations with the Wii remote and Nunchuck, and allow you to unleash devastating attacks on your foes.

The games level design is fairly good and offers a good amount of freedom for exploration, particularly in the latter stages as you are able to scale walls, run across ceilings and burrow through dirt. Levels are fairly large and in general well thought out, although they can seem a little unbalanced at times and the game can often fail to deliver the intensity that is so often associated with action games. This is because large areas simply pass you by, whilst others seem to be crammed full of all kinds of monsters. This sadly, makes the game somewhat tedious to play at times and frustrating at others as progression can be occasionally halted. In general the game play is a little repetitive. With only the odd new bit being offered from time to time, this in turn makes playing the game for any length of time something of a labour, especially during combat heavy sequences that can leave your arms and shoulders feeling fairly ravaged!

The challenge in Deadly Creatures is a little lacking and the various bugs, lizards and so forth you come up against are disposed of with relative ease. The game does feature some boss battles and these do tend to offer more of a challenge! Although this mainly comes in the form of the somewhat awkward camera angle the game tends to switch to, focusing on your foe rather than the Arachnid you are currently controlling.

Despite all it’s strengths though you can’t help feel that developers, Rainbow Studios have held back and not fully explored the unique subject matter of Deadly Creatures. Which some what limits its overall appeal. The game is suppose to be a tense thriller, although it must be said it feels more tedious then tense.

Visually the game is pretty impressive, the Tarantula and Scorpion controlled by the player are nicely detailed and animated, as are the majority of the enemy bugs you’ll encounter. However, they don’t appear to be as detailed or animated as well, most notably the larger creatures you encounter such as rats and the various lizards.

The game features an impressive narrative that is performed by Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Hopper, as is the voice acting of the human characters that progresses the games dark story. The games soundtrack goes some lengths to create the tense atmosphere that the developers wanted to portray, however the games audio design is ultimately let down by some poor sound effects which by modern standards sound a little out of date.

The action genre is a little thin when it comes to the Wii and Deadly Creatures goes some way to fill the gap. A good story and excellent combat system is only let down by the game failing to deliver the intensity gamers have come to expect in this genre!