An Arachnophobe’s Review of Deadly Creatures:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! AAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!
In short, I am never going to sleep again.
Deadly Creatures is a spooky action adventure game for the Nintendo Wii, developed by Rainbow Games and published by THQ, in which players take control of two creepy characters, a tarantula and a scorpion, who make their way through a section of the Sonora Desert, fighting bugs, spiders, lizards, rats and anything else that gets in your way, getting stronger and gaining abilities as you go. It’s kind of a bizarre concept, and while the game can be a little rough around the edges, the design is ultimately reminiscent of some of the best games in the genre.
The story of the game isn’t that original: Two men (played by Billy Bob Thorton (Eagle Eye)and Dennis Hopper (Speed) ) go out into the desert searching for lost confederate gold. What is interesting is the way that the story is told, popping back and forth between the perspectives of two badass arachnids: a Tarantula and a Scorpion. The story doesn’t really drive the action of the game, but it does provide additional atmosphere, including the feeling that, no matter how tough your character may be, there is still something bigger than you.
Actually, atmosphere is where the game really shines. Superb art direction and level design give the player a bizarre and frightening world to explore, made especially surreal by giving the player a bug’s eye view of the world. The 3rd person perspective follows your character up walls and along twisting passages, resulting in some wonderful, mind-bending moments as you try to reconcile the games perspective with your own understanding of the space. The world is pretty linear, though it never feels constricted, and gives you plenty of opportunities to explore the nooks and crannies of the world. Also, the game does reuse areas on occasion, though each time you visit an area you will experience it differently, as you play through it with new, unlocked abilities, or as a different character with a separate skill set.
This is the Wii, so the graphics really can’t compare to games on any HD console, but taken on its own, Deadly Creatures looks really good. The creatures are vicious (if a little bit exaggerated) and the levels are great. Also, the creatures are animated very well. Just watching the Tarantula walk slowly makes shivers run up my severely arachnophobic spine. However, though the game is graphically impressive for the Wii, there are a few bugs, mostly minor texture flickering or camera positioning issues. Occasionally I tried to go places that the computer didn’t want me to, or hit an odd seam when climbing around and my character would have a quick twitching fit trying to find an appropriate position. While such glitches can break the mood of the game, none of the bugs are really severe, and never effect the gameplay.
While some of the insects and animals that appear in this game look a little more fierce than they might in real life, the sounds the make are ferocious and terrifying: the roars and growls of your tarantula make it sound like a lion. The shrieks of enemies as you defeat them with one of the scorpion’s finishing moves is shrill and haunting. While music accompanies many fight scenes, the designers also know when silence is even more effective.
While most of the game is very well designed, there are a few areas that might annoy certain gamers. For example, the game contains so-called “quick time events,” sequences where the player is prompted to press a certain button or wave the Wiimote and/or nunchuck in a particular motion or else be faced with certain death… a feature that can be infuriating at times. Deadly Creatures isn’t as bad as most games with the feature, as instant death is used sparingly as a punishment and most of the quick time event type instances are totally optional. But if you’ve been frustrated by this feature before in games like Resident Evil 4 or God of War you should be forewarned.
The game has a very smooth difficulty curve, ramping up appropriately as the game goes on and you gain additional abilities for your creature. At the normal difficulty setting the game provides a good challenge, without getting too frustrating. Save points are also very generously distributed, though there are a few points where I spent time exploring the level and finding collectible grubs and leaf crickets, only to fall to a tough grouping of enemies right before the save point.
According to my Wii’s playtime tracker, it took me 9:21 to fully complete the game at normal difficulty, though your mileage may vary. There are hundreds of grubs to find in the game to unlock concept art galleries, and while many of them are found in the normal course of the game, it takes quite a while to find all of them. Also, the generous allocation of save game locations makes it very easy to stop at any time, and play the game in whatever increments you can. You will rarely spend much time waiting for the next checkpoint so that you can put down the game until another time.
Deadly Creatures isn’t a perfect game, but it offers a spooky, atmospheric experience that is reminiscent of elements of many other excellent games: The level design and atmosphere of dungeons in the The Legend of Zelda; the acquisition of abilities and level exploration of Metroid; the mind bending layouts of levels in Psychonauts; the sense of scale of Shadow of the Colossus. If you liked those classics and are looking for a game to play, check out Deadly Creatures It may be a little rough around the edges, but Deadly Creatures is a solid and fun action adventure title, and a very worthy addition to the library of any Wii owner.
ComicsOnline.com gives Deadly Creatures for the Wii 4 out of 5 roaring arachnid battles.
