Monster Lab Preview

There's elements of Final Fantasy and Pokemon in Monster Lab.

This being a game on the Wii and Nintendo DS, mini-games form a core part of the gameplay. You need to play mini-games to fuse together items you've won in combat back at the Mechanical Workshop. The better you perform in the mini-games, the better quality item the experiment will result in.

We had a chance to have a go at a few of the game's experiment mini-games. The first, Weld-o-tron, involves moving the Wii Remote carefully along a winding path that moves from left to right. Keep the beam from touching the edges of the path and the monster part will turn out great. Perform poorly and it may have defects.

Other mini-games we saw included Buried Treasure, where you dig with the Wii Remote and shatter skulls with the Nunchuck to find hidden treasure (new parts to make monster bits with) and Electro Trace, where you aim the Wii Remote and carefully trace a zig zag. These mini-games won't blow anyone away, but you actually give a damn about how well you do in them because they affect the coolness of your monsters. And you shouldn't get bored of them too quickly either - there will be 12 experiment mini-games and 10 quest mini-games in the final game.

Monster Lab could surprise many when it's released this year.

After each battle you'll get the chance to field repair parts of your monster that have been damaged or destroyed in battle. This involves spinning the Wii Remote as fast as possible against a strict time limit. Again, there's nothing revolutionary going on here, but at least the mini-games feel in keeping with Monster Lab's game world.

But by far the best thing about Monster Lab is the online multiplayer, where you'll be able to take your monster and battle against other players from around the world. This should give players even more incentive to search out high-level items, fuse together and create powerful monsters. And although this isn't confirmed, the development team is working hard to make trading monster parts online a reality.

We only spent a brief amount of time with the DS version of the game but we could tell that it's almost the exact same game as on the Wii. Here you use the stylus as you would the Wii Remote, for example spinning the wheel in field repair. Selecting attacks in combat with the stylus is easy, and even the cutscenes from the Wii version have been reproduced.

Monster Lab's shaping up nicely. It's a feel-good game, with over-the-top voice acting, a Tim Burton-esque art style and a supernatural soundtrack. As a turn-based role-playing game it's basic for sure, but it has a certain charm that Wii owners, if they give it a chance, should enjoy. Look out for a review closer to release. This is one monster worth experimenting with.