A "LMX" Review
Back when the Wii was revealed, there were a few games that were shown along side it. Nearly all of them had come out, such as Metroid and Smash, some had ceased to exist, such as Project HAMMER, and one was seemingly in limbo, it was Disaster. But behold, for Disaster: Day of Crisis has seen a release in the PAL region as America watches its sales to judge whether they should bother localizing it over there. All I have to say is: Suck it, Reggie. Obviously this game isn’t going to sell amazingly, but it is still better than two thirds of the Wii’s current line-up. In fact, so much so that’d I’d equal this games popularity probably with No More Heroes. This is because both of these games appeal to a similar audience, the neglected Nintendo hardcore base. Both of these games suffer from being incredibly underrated as well, Disaster more so because some Americans seem to be completely writing the game off without even trying it. To be fair, I can’t really blame them for since it seems they’ll miss out on it.
In terms of scale, the game is nothing really short of epic; you’ll find yourself trying to outrun floods whilst saving people. You’ll find yourself driving along on a highway after the eruption of a volcano while dodging rocks and debris as you try and make it to the end of the stage. Gun fights in floods, mid-eruption, during earthquakes. The natural disasters are both the most interesting point and sometimes most disappointing part of this game. But enough of the prelude, let’s jump into the meaty part of the review where you guys can see just what it is about Disaster that makes it so interesting.
I’d like to see Jack Bauer outrun a tidal wave.
Starting with one of the game’s focuses, the story, we can already see that Disaster is setting itself up as one of the Wii’s more mature and much more fleshed out game experiences while still maintaining a style of game accessible by new gamers. We are set up from the very beginning with Raymond Bryce (our protagonist) and his good friend Steven as they are presumably conducting some rescues after a volcanic eruption. Both are a member of the International Rescue Team (a somewhat unoriginal name), surprisingly Steven dies after the opening prologue of the game. This of course sets up our protagonist as a man with a chip on his soldier and a slanted view of the world. He has given up his rescuing ways until a slew of natural disasters strike his home, Blue Ridge City, and what he is eventually lead to is the pursuit of a group known as SURGE who have kidnapped his deceased best friend’s sister and her professor. Oh, and they also are in possession of some nukes, hooray! So what else is there to be done than to become a vigilante and try and stop the terrorists and save your best friends sister while combating natural disasters and saving as many people as can on your travels. Like I said earlier, the game’s plot has all the makings of an action movie. It develops at a decent pace, but I must admit there was a few times I thought the game would have been over and then something would happen that increases the games length. One such moment occurs at the Church at Port Alex, you’ll know it when you get to it.
The main character is nothing really unique in terms of characterization but that’s not too say he’s much of a bore either. His guilt complex is always coming back at him, which can become somewhat annoying. But if anyone has learned anything from games these days, a lot of main characters have similar problems. So it comes as nothing out of the ordinary in today’s modern gaming. As the story progresses it is still interesting to see Bryce facing the need to rescue people again, after watching his closest friend plummet into the molten lava at the beginning of the game. Most of the time throughout the game you are only really dealing with the central character, with interaction generally only with people you are rescuing. However there are a couple of characters you have extended interaction with, such as a little girl called Iris. Iris is an innocent young girl who you lead from a cabin to a rescue team after a volcanic eruption and along the way dealing with extreme amounts of ash and even saving her from a Lahar. By the way, if you don’t know what a Lahar is… you’ll soon know. But my reasoning for mentioning Iris is I found it interesting and human for her to seemingly revive Raymond’s belief that he can save people, that he isn’t as useless or expired as he had believed he was. From here his character picks up and he becomes that typical action movie hero, only since its Japanese he has radical hair. But hey, some character development is better than none after all. And everyone loves a good action movie every now and again.
The look of the game is probably the lowest point, but I refuse anyone the right to attack it because we of course know the Wii is the home of subpar graphics especially if you look at the low-end stuff on the other consoles and realize, “wow, even that looks better than the Wii.” Having said that, the game does seem a bit bland in terms of visuals, there are some really badly done character models and sometimes you’ll wonder if you’re saving a person or a pixilated blob with a vague face. The main characters don’t look too bad, and there appears to be some detail on their skin textures. But one wonders if Monolith even really bothered with the models of the people you find yourself rescuing, and because there are 45 rescues you will be seeing a lot of badly designed random characters. On the game’s main start screen you’ll be able to see one of those nice shiny videos that showcases what the game contains, usually it’s an old trailer sometimes its just gameplay videos. Disaster: Day of Crisis has an epic little montage of footage that is basically just CGI’d moments from the game’s story that have been done up to look even prettier. And, boy does it look good. So much so that you’ll be left wishing that they actually used some of that stuff during the actual game but unfortunately you’d be out of luck if you were hoping for that. Which is a real shame because it looks really good in that opening montage and when you see the moments you witness in the opening later in the game you may find yourself feeling somewhat underwhelmed.
Suffice to say, he is shocked by how bad the trees look. Not the flooded city where he once lived..
But visually, apart from the bland character models, the environments seem quite nice. Within reason of course, looking out over Blue Ridge City after the disastrous flood and seeing sky scrapers that have been submerged in water is a sight to behold, though only in Wii visuals. While some of the events you’ll see look powerful, it cannot be disputed that there are many other games that look far better than this one. Which is a shame really, because we have seen what the Wii can do and Disaster simply doesn’t seem to tap into that potential completely. To summarise, if you are coming here to see some of the Wii’s best graphics then you are going to be thoroughly disappointed. But much like No More Heroes, the game picks up the quality in other areas where some prettier Wii games neglect it.
Let’s get this out of the way right now; yes the game has a large amount of waggle which is generally to be expected of your typical Wii title. I can’t really think of many Wii games that aren’t guilty of this. Ultimately it comes down to how the waggling is used, some games get it right and some games don’t. Disaster sits in the between the two extremes. While the game doesn’t really excel with waggle, mostly using it in generic fashions there are actually a couple of cool motions that it also features. General movement is very straightforward; you walk around by using the control stick on the nunchuck and can control the camera angle with the d-pad on the Wii-remote. However you can also press the C-button to focus the camera on certain events, you’ll know when you can do this when the icon on the bottom-right corner changes. Some examples of this are when some debris are flying towards specific areas or when buildings are collapsing in front of you while you are trying to escape the city. Waggling the Wii-remote will cause you to smash boxes and crates that can sometimes contain items and pressing the A button will allow you to jump.
In terms of innovation, the biggest let down is the combat. Pretty much every bit of combat you will face in this game will be faced in an on-rail shoot-out. Now we should already know how I feel about on-rail shooters and how badly I do not like them (I’m looking at you Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles) and this really isn’t a lot different. Point and shoot, and rinse and repeat. Boss battles are no different really either and this is a real shame. Because a lot of this game revolves around your combat against the opposing group, SURGE. It can be become tiresome to constantly have the gameplay broken up by point and shoot battles, but really if you enjoyed Umbrella Chronicles then this isn’t really much different. However there is no Albert (Whiskerssss) Wesker in this to make it cooler, so that is unfortunate. The game does sound very generic and somewhat boring, but really it needs to be given a chance. It’s far too easy to jump to conclusion and do a Reggie, the audio isn’t as laughable as a lot of other Nintendo Wii games and the gameplay certainly isn’t as stale as half the Wii’s known library. But at the same time, it doesn’t innovate which is something people seem to like Wii’s games for. So while the controls aren’t innovative, they work for the game and thankfully don’t deem it necessary to over-complicate things with ridiculous movements for stupid actions.
What gun will you choose today?
The sound and music are two of the game’s strongest points, minus the voice acting. While the voice acting isn’t top notch, I can guarantee you that I have heard a lot worse in the past from video games. So maybe that has de-sensitized me slightly to the mediocre voice acting. The game has some decent sound but the most impressive element is what sounds like a soundtrack that I would probably buy. I thoroughly enjoyed the music that the game had, and would like to offer kudos to the composer. No stand out tracks comes to my head, but just a well rounded soundtrack is presented along side this game. I’m actually hunting around for a copy, dreaming of the day when I’ll own it. And I haven’t wanted a game soundtrack since Metal Gear Solid 4/The World Ends With You. So it’s quite an achievement on this games behalf. Interestingly, as with the use of cut scenes, the music gave the game a very Metal Gear Solid kind of feel. This is also probably why I’m quite partial to the music. Being such a big fan of cinematic games definitely helps one enjoyment of this game’s soundtrack. If you every find any details about the soundtrack, please forward them to me as I am very interested in learning more about it. But all you need to know is that the game has a great soundtrack and it is one of the strongest focal points of the game.
Voice acting is the lowest point of the sound, not because its necessarily bad but because its so horribly cheesy. Having said this, it was wrong of Reggie to label it as laughable. I’ve heard Nintendo games with god-awful voice acting, I’m looking at you pre-pubescent Pit and speech-impaired Wolf. So really Reggie needs to get down on his high-horse, but really that’s dragging a completely un-related note into this review so I’m going to leave Reggie outside in the cold where he belongs. Cheesy voice acting really does restrict the storyline but when you take a step back this game is basically a big cheesy Hollywood blockbuster sort of game, disasters strike the world while terrorists hijack a bomb and a retired rescuer has to save the day? Come one, it could nearly pass as a season of 24. In fact, it probably will be a season of 24 one day, you heard it here first.
Long live the Ki… oh wait, I’m meant to help you. Whoops.
Once you finish the game, you may not feel overly compelled to go back and play through it again. A syndrome that Wii games generally suffer, I feel, which harms their overall quality. There have been a couple of exceptions to the rule such as Metroid Prime 3 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but Disaster is not one. If you really do want a reason though, there are costumes to unlock and 45 rescues to complete. As well as various different difficulties to try all the stages on. So really, if that’s your thing then you may enjoy going back through it again. And if so, then good for you because this is a decent game and probably one of the Wii’s better titles. There are also achievement kind of things you can get for doing different things, its just a shame that they don’t really count towards some kind of Gamerscore or Trophy Card though because it’d be neat if they did. Pity that Nintendo are too casual to incorporate a system such as that though, but at least Monolith are prepared if Nintendo ever do decide to do something smart for a change.
Overall, this game isn’t going to be winning any Game of the Year awards. However at the same time, if it wasn’t for Brawl coming out this year, it would probably have gotten the Wii Game of the Year award from me, as its one of the Wii’s best offerings this year. And for me I’d probably equal it to No More Heroes, except it’s above it for me as I didn’t think too highly of No More Heroes. However, when all is said and done though this game is no World Ends With You sequel. That is a game that SquareEnix should definitely make and put on the Wii, because I would buy it day one.
It really was one Hell of a day.
PROS
+Nice change from the typical Wii garbage.
+Movie-like plot.
+Easy to pick up controls.
+Some amazing natural disasters to behold.
+Solid soundtrack.
+Outfits to unlock if you really want.
+Jack Bauer gets a run for his money.
CONS
-A bit short, comes in around 10 hours.
-A lot of pure waggle controls.
-Driving can be very annoying if you hate the Mario Kart Wii Horizontal Wiimote.
-Combat can get a bit old.
-Bland visuals.
-Cliché plot.
-Metal Gear?!
*LMX*
- D4rk 
