Reviewed: October 15, 2007
Reviewed by: Brian Wylie
Publisher
Secret Stash Games
Developer
Spike
Released: July 24, 2007
Genre: Action
Players: 1
5
5
3
4
4.3
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
How many of you have ever looked back and said, “Why did I do such a stupid thing for a stupid boy or girl?” Well that is exactly what Ray must have been thinking when he followed the girl of his dreams, Michelle, and his best friend since high school, Mike, to an island created to protect and study bugs. Quickly into the game you come to realize that the bugs have begun to evolve and Ray can’t stand the sight of them. The same can be said for Mike.
After a painfully awkward conversation around the campfire about who should date Michelle you all go your separate ways. Almost immediately you are jumped by giant bugs that are trying to eat you. So now you must save your friends and yourself from a painful and gruesome death as you try to Escape From Bug Island.
Before your dinner conversation you have the opportunity to run through the game tutorials. You walk through the area to find a stick and some rocks. Once you have picked these weapons up you learn how to use them with various motions of the remote. This balance of weaponry made me a little upset because Mike starts out holding a shotgun.
The stick is used in two ways to fight off overgrown bugs. The most frequent method is by swatting. You have three levels in which you can do this. To swat things on the ground you must hold down the B button on the Wii remote and then move the direction joystick on the nunchuk down, then swing the remote forward. To attack in the mid range area all you need to do is swing the remote forward. To attack about the head you do the same but push the joystick up.
Then you have the quick attack and the power attack in each of these areas. To perform the quick attack all you do is swing the remote three times very quickly. For the power attack you swing twice quickly and then take the remote further back and swing quickly. The power attacks leave you open for counterattacks compared to the quick attacks, so you need to think about when to use them. The second stick attack is the lunge attack. You can only use this attack in the first person view by holding down the A button on the remote. Then to perform the lunge you press the B button.
After you master the stick combat you move on to throwing rocks. This allows you to attack enemies from a safe distance and to knock down things and retrieve them. To throw your rocks you must hold down the A button to switch the view to first person and then hold down the B button and swing the remote once you have placed the aimer on the target. Later on in the game you do have the chance of upgrading your weapons to a gun. To shoot all you have to do is hold down the A button then aim and press the B button.
The biggest problem with the game is with the player movement. They will quickly remind you of the movements from the original Resident Evil game. You can only move forward and this really makes the combat frustrating. To move backwards you must move the joystick on the nunchuck down and then whip it up towards you and you'll jump back but not enough to really separate you from the enemy. The reason for this is because the camera trails you from behind. This is the hardest and most frustrating thing about the game when you are fighting and you forget exactly how to use the controls to correctly navigate through each scenario.
If you love dark games that use their darkness to cover up blurry graphics then you will love this game. All the scenery is dark except for the area in which you shine your flashlight. There are some creatures, like the praying mantis, that are nicely modeled and showed some promise, but then there are just as many (even more) that are very poorly done and really make this game a joke.
This is one of the worst sounding games I have ever played on any system. YES ANY SYSTEM. The voice acting, and there is not a lot of it even though there is a lot of dialogue, is horrible. Now I just have one question to ask, “What the hell is Mike cocking and pointing his gun at during every part of his dialogue?” The bug noises are a little bit better, at least a bit creepier, but nowhere near enough to save the game in this aspect.
Escape From Bug Island is just under $30 and even if it were only $20 it still wouldn't be worth it. Now if you hate shooting zombies and would rather kill giant bugs instead, this might the game for you, but with Resident Evil 4 out there for the same price, and the new release of Umbrella Corporation just around the corner I would have to advise you to look at those games before thinking about buying this one.
If you can suffer through the entire adventure you will have wasted a good 10-12 hours of your life. Sucks to be you.
I really wasn’t looking forward to playing this game. At one point I had the opportunity to play this game or study for my econ test that I had to take 5 hours later and after playing this game for about 45 minutes, I was ready and even preferred studying over playing this game. I also didn’t enjoy the little twist that the game throws you about 5 hours into the game. This twist with either make you love the game even more or throw it out the window. Let's just say that the game can travel a long way. I just hope that when you get there you enjoyed the first couple of levels!
With all the new games coming out this upcoming holiday season this would be at the very bottom of the list on my need to buy list. If you love giant bugs and the whole saving the damsel in distress and don't mind shoddy graphics, dismal sound, and repetitive gameplay, give it a shot. But you've been warned.