Spyborgs is a third person action game for Wii that's light-hearted and wacky, and offers familiar looking gameplay. Coupled with humorous dialogue, enemies and random commercials, the game might be one of the system's most intriguing games amid a glut of sequels and licensed content.
With Spyborgs, Bionic Games (who worked on such hits as the Ratchet and Clank franchise and Resistance: Fall of Man) hopes to recapture the magic lost in Saturday morning cartoons. This entails designing a video game that feels like a show, from the zany characters to interactive commercials, where two players battle in minigames that have no impact on the story. It starts with the protagonists, a group of five super spies (Stinger, Kinetic, Voxel, Clandestine and Bouncer) with unique abilities. Bouncer, for example, is a giant robot with brute strength, while Kinetic moves super fast and knocks out enemies with lightning quick punches and kicks. When combined, both characters play off each other, allowing gamers (as Bouncer) to bust open doors while players (as Kinetic) zip around while keeping evildoers at bay. They'll achieve these goals using a combination of motion controls and good old fashioned button mashing, and Bionic tailors these actions to each character's strength. Seeing as how Bouncer raises his arms and breaks things, gamers will mimic those actions with the remote. Since Kinetic doesn't rely on power, players will just hit buttons to execute his moves.
In keeping with the Saturday morning theme, Spyborgs has a cute, cartoon appearance, with over the top environments and enemies. During the course of our demo, for instance, we watched as Bouncer and Kinetic infiltrated a disgusting sewer and squared off against flying crocodiles and heavily armed goldfish. Of course, being that they were in a sewer, the game has a lot of toilet humor, and we chuckled at some of the intentionally filthy (yet appropriate for kids) jokes. Later, we viewed a boss battle against a maniacal toymaker that had parked his floating pirate ship in the middle of what appeared to be some dream land, and funny commentary ensued.
As for the commercials, Bionic Games plans to create tons of them, all of which are interactive. They'll most likely run between missions and other transitions, and up to two players can grab remotes and compete in a series of mini games, such as blasting garbage as two gold fish belt out a tune, or pummeling each other in a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots knockoff.
Despite its neat appearance, we're not sure Spyborgs has the right stuff for success. Capcom and Bionic Games have plenty of talent to pull this off, but the Wii quality graphics as well as the humor (which could be hit or miss), combined with our concern over a new intellectual property, have us concerned. With that said, Capcom wouldn't let us play the game, but when we do, we might fall in love with this imaginative and seemingly funny beat-em-up.
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