- Experience the brutal world of the Sonoran Desert as a tarantula and a scorpion
- Actively stalk prey and engage in fast, brutal attacks using the unique Wii motion control system
- Enjoy 360-degree access to detailed, 3D desert environments full of dangerous surprises
- Use each creature’s unique abilities to battle snakes, rats, and other dangerous predators–including man
- Witness an unraveling narrative of deceit from two unique perspectives
Product Description
In this unique predator-themed action-thriller, it’s hunt and be hunted as you become two of the desert’s creepiest predators: the Desert Tarantula and the Giant Desert Scorpion. Travel across a vast, detailed world, where every area swarms with enemies and natural hazards. Ambush and feed on your prey. Use the Wii controls to unleash a variety of fierce attacks against vicious enemies: rival spiders, lightning-quick lizards, divebombing wasps and hungry rats. S… More >>
This game is unlike anything I have ever played. I have been following this title since I first heard about it early this year, and am glad to report that I was not disappointed! This game is an interesting take on gaming, since I really can’t compare it to anything else on the market. There really isn’t any other game to compare it to. I only hope that it will catch the attention of Wii owners, since this kind of creativity is all too often overlooked by consumers. Here `s what I liked:
CREEPY gameplay and sound effects: 10/10 I do not like bugs (in person)…but I am fascinated by them. The protagonists of this game are a Tarantula and a Scorpion, and as such, the game is played from their perspective. From the very opening scenes of the game, your senses are assaulted with creepy and foreign sounds that I really can’t explain… but they work: you will be completely immersed in the world as these insects see it. It is a really interesting feeling: The cutscenes and sound track are very well done, and manage to create a really creepy and immersive atmosphere… almost like a survival-horror game. And I can’t say enough about the sound effects… all these little random bug noises (and also some not-so-little bug noises!), and the sound of the creepy-crawlies walking around is especially interesting (considering that, like I said, I am not a big fan of bugs!). Also, take note of your surroundings while you walk around. There is a storyline to follow involving humans, and you have a front row seat from a bug’s perspective… and as such, you will encounter all sorts of interesting things buried and hidden in the desert.
Gameplay/Fighting: 8/10 – Around every corner waits a battle with thug-like Gila Monsters, stealth and deadly spiders, venomous beetles, or a number of other interesting adversaries. You will quickly find that as the Tarantula/Scorpion you are well equipped to defend yourself. As you progress through the game, you unlock new moves/combos, as well as increased abilities and strengths. Let me tell you… the fighting portions of this game are VERY rewarding… some of the “finishing combos” that you perform are really interesting and cinematic…and surprisingly brutal. In addition, since you are an insect, you endowed with really interesting abilities that add some interesting elements to the game: swinging around by spider web, crawling up and down walls, charging up and delivering powerful venom-charged attacks… I had a really good time playing this game, and would be really happy to see a sequel. For sure, this kind of creativity should be rewarded. If only more developers had the guts to put out this kind of new stuff. A game like this could ONLY be done right on the Wii!
Controls: 7.5/10 – The controls are simple, and they work. There aren’t any gimmicky waggle controls. When you perform the finishing moves, you do have to chain together some wiimote and nunchuck movements that are prompted on the screen in order to complete the combo, but I found that this really made the game enjoyable, and weren’t gimmicky. The motion controls don’t feel tacked on, as is the case with a lot of 3rd party Wii games, and there aren’t any dumb mini-games. The camera was also really well done, despite what I read in some reviews online… I was actually surprised at the quality of the camera in fact.
Replay value: 7/10 – I started the game off on Normal difficulty rather than on Easy, and the game seems nicely balanced. However, after a few levels I thought I would kick it up a notch and play on “Deadly” mode… and proceeded to get jumped by a pair of scorpions that handed by butt to me repeatedly… so I dialed the game back down to Normal difficulty and was able to proceed. So, I am certain that once I beat this game on Normal, I will likely give it a rest for a few months, then come back and try it again on Deadly, and no doubt it will be just as enjoyable and challenging as it was this time thru. I should mention, though, that the game has NO multiplayer modes. It would have been nice to include the option to allow for you and a friend to play through the game together or perhaps some kind of versus mode, and this would have made the game’s replay value better. Once you have beaten this game on Deadly mode, there really isn’t much to say or do. That said, it is still a solid single-player game, and definitely worth a play-through!
Rating: 5 / 5
The premise of the Deadly Creatures is promising. The player takes the role of either a tarantula or a scorpion in the desert and must battle for survival. The storyline surrounding the game is honestly quite cool and has some of the nicest voice acting I’ve heard in a long time. Deadly Creatures tries to be fresh and innovative, and it succeeds in many ways, but ultimately I found the game to be lacking.
GRAPHICS: Solid. The game looks good, better than a lot of Wii games. It is clean and crisp looking, but isn’t without issues. Many of the environments feel very similar because everything is drawn in the same drab desert palette. I would have liked to see some brighter colors with more contrast, especially on the insects, lizards, and other critters. The desert itself isn’t typically that beautiful in most people’s opinions, but many of its denizens have beautiful and bright markings. The game fails to capitalize on that, which is a shame.
STORY: Very Good, but odd. The player has very little to do with story until a little more than half-way through the game. Until then, you basically observe snippets of the story about two humans searching for treasure and stuff. Ultimately it is a story of betrayal and drama, and very well written. Strangely, storyline is one of the best aspects of the game.
CHARACTER DESIGN: Very Good. The two characters, tarantula and scorpion, function very differently. The spider can walk on walls and ceilings, jump, use webbing to temporarily trap opponents, use webbing to jump from one web to another, and do stealth pounces from a great distance. The scorpion is more of a brawler who swipes at enemies with its claws, strikes with its tail, burrow underground for surprise attacks, and can finish weakened enemies off with some finishing moves. Additionally, the scorpion can dig holes, remove environmental debris, and cut obstructing weeds with his claws. As far as I’m concerned, the character designs and abilities are good, well-rounded, and well thought out.
CONTROLS: Very Good. If there is one thing this game did well, controls would be it. Most Wii games don’t control nearly as well as Deadly Creatures does. Moving your critter around is fairly intuitive. The primary movement is controlled by the analog stick on the nunchuck and is very responsive. Motion controls are used heavily in the game to good effect and pointer controls to a lesser degree. Waggle motions are used sparingly and the motion controls are tight and responsive. In addition, the player is given the option of increasing or decreasing the sensitivity of the motion controls. This is something most games don’t do but should. The only exception is the camera, which would sometimes freak out and get terribly confused. Camera issues were thankfully very rare, but very annoying when they happened.
LEVELS: Lackluster and linear. Much of the hype around the game indicated that the tarantula’s levels would be more stealth oriented and the scorpion’s levels more combat oriented. The scorpion levels were actually better than I expected, but the tarantula’s levels were a letdown. There is actually very little stealth involved, which is a shame because the spider’s moves and skills lend it perfectly to be a stealthy hunter. Essentially, the tarantula levels end up playing a lot like the scorpion levels except you find yourself also doing the same things on ceilings or using web-jumping to get to an area before you brawl with more desert critters that want to eat you. Finally, the game looks like you do a lot of exploration, but in actuality the game is very, very linear. There are collectibles on every level, which I managed to get most all of them on my first time through any given level.
REPLAYABILITY: Low. The game can be beaten in a few sittings. I plowed through half the game in few hours. Aside from gathering collectibles on revisits or playing on harder difficulty settings, I didn’t really see much purpose to replaying the levels. The bigger problem is that few of the levels provided me with any compelling reason to play them a second time, regardless of what un-lockable rewards I received.
Overall, I can honestly say that the only thing that kept me coming back was storyline. Ultimately, the lackluster level design drove me away from what is otherwise a very fine game and a very original idea. Honestly, if the tarantula’s levels had been redesigned to focus on stealth I feel the game would have been more rewarding. While I truly enjoyed playing this game, I quickly grew bored with the level designs and eventually quit playing probably about 80% of the way through the game. I recommend renting this game before buying.
Rating: 3 / 5
Just came out today. Really a great game that puts the player in the roles of a scorpion and tarantula out in the desert. You can walk up walls and even on the ceiling!!! Many enemies to fight like a Rattlesnake, lizards, wasps and more…
The game is really fun. It uses the Wii motions very well and does not overdo it. Watch a story unfold from a Fly on the Wall perspective. The Human Characters are voiced by Billy Bob Thorton and Dennis Hopper.
Overall – Really unique sense of scale. It is amazing to view the world from a bug’s perspective. The game’s controls and combat are very fun and satisfying. I highly recommend this title to anyone that owns a Wii.
Rating: 5 / 5
Please note, when I say “mature” I don’t mean its rated “M for mature audiences” (this is rated “T for teens”, by the way), I mean that the game’s protagonists, a scorpion and a tarantula, aren’t exactly as cuddly as, say, Crash Bandicoot or Mario, or as stylishly violent and over-the-top as Kratos from God of War or Dante from Devil May Cry.
The goal of the game is pretty plain and simple, survive. As you take turns between playing the tarantula and the scorpion, you will find yourself devouring a number of small insects and attacking fellow predators like other spiders and scorpions, various lizards, rats, and even in a couple of pretty epic battles, a rattlesnake, among other enemies. Also, in a pretty clever move on behalf of the game’s creators, it features a compelling subplot between two treasure hunters (with voices provided by Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Hopper) that the two arachnids will run into throughout certain areas of the game.
The controls work pretty good. The lighter and faster attacks are triggered by the large “A” button, and heavier attacks are triggered with the wave of the Wii-mote or Nunchuk, and as you go through the game, you learn new fighting moves and abilities. And there are some parts of the game which features mini-games to progress through the level, much like Resident Evil 4 or God of War. The gameplay does feature a nice bit of variety when it comes to combat controls. The tarantula’s fighting moves are based on speed and it’s ability to jump, and offers a nice bit of platforming thanks to it’s web jumping. The scorpion, however, is built more on power, and has some satisfying finishing moves. It also has a nice bit of exploration, thanks to it’s ability to dig and cut down grass.
The graphics are pretty good. A lot of the backgrounds in the game look great and give an atmosphere of creepiness, but sometimes are a bit too dark for me to clearly see what’s going on. The camera can be a bit problematic at times, too. There were a couple of times where I was playing, and went inside a hole in the ground or a rock, and the camera would remain stuck on the edge of a hole or a cactus (you can center the camera back behind your character by pressing down on the directional pad on the Wii-mote, but even that didn’t fix it). There are a couple of other times, where in the middle of web jumping or combat as the tarantula, the camera would fly around and times where it would get stuck, giving me a nice jolt from seeing the tarantula close-up.
The game does have excellent sound. The music is sparse, yet effective, giving more attention to the ambient sound and the dialogue between the two speaking characters which helps greatly in moving the game along.
Overall, I would certainly recommend this game. It’s a well-made third party title featuring an original concept. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who is arachnophobic, but this is a game that needs support from Wii owners.
Rating: 4 / 5
“Deadly Creatures” is nothing short of a fun game. This one-of-a-kind title would stand out on the Xbox 360 or the PS3, but even more so on the action game starved Wii.
The player takes the role of both a fierce scorpion and an agile tarantula, braving the wilds of deserts of the American Midwest. The levels in the game are designed to fit both creature’s playing styles – the tarantula can climb on ceilings and use webs to reach new locations, while the tarantula uses brute force to claw through rock and grass.
When it comes to battling the other creatures of the desert – hawk wasps, bombardier beetles, rats, etc – both creatures must approach their prey differently. The tarantula is quick and agile while the scorpion is strong and brutal. As the game is rated “T” there is no blood to speak of, but there are artistic splashes of yellow when a bug of some sort is inured, or red when it is a snake, rat or human.
There is a background story which the scorpion and tarantula weave in and out of about two unscrupulous humans searching for treasure. It helps to provide a sense of perspective to your characters, and it works surprisingly well. For you parents out there, even though the game is “T” there are a good number of swearing between the two humans, just so you know.
The levels switch between the scorpion and the tarantula the entire length of the game, which for me lasted a little over six hours. They were a very fun six hours, however. I barely knew that the time was flying by because I was so enraptured by the beautiful and intriguing level designs, and the overall atmosphere and great visuals of the game.
The game does have it’s faults, unfortunately. The camera is not user controlled and sometimes became “stuck” when it needed to follow. As beautiful as the levels were, the presence of “invisible walls” preventing movement were quite annoying. Sometimes it wasn’t even invisible, but just a hovering black fog saying “you’re not supposed to go here”. There is also the fact that I was able to play through the game so quickly, but I can understand it in context with the story. The desire for more time within the game is a testament to how much fun I had with it, though.
Small flaws aside, Deadly Creatures is fantastic addition to anyone’s gaming library.
Rating: 4 / 5