Deadly Creatures Hands-on Preview

Gooey green blood splatters on the screen. A hiss is heard, the kind that sends shivers down your spine. The tarantula shakes, its last vestiges of energy coursing through its abdomen, before it flops on its back and dies, its legs pointing towards the sky. I’ve just killed a wolf spider using a gruesome, bone-crunching three-part finishing move in upcoming Wii action horror game Deadly Creatures… as a Scorpion.

It’s clear Deadly Creatures isn’t going to be your run of the mill Wii game. In fact, it won’t be like any game on any system. But, for a Wii game, it stands out as being particularly surprising. Here we have an action horror game, developed by Phoenix, Arizona-based Rainbow Studios, that’s both creepy, disgusting, jarring and bizarrely compelling all at the same time. This ‘aint no Mario or Sonic clone, that’s for sure.

Deadly Creatures won’t be for those of you who had nightmares after watching cult 90s horror Arachnophobia. In fact, it won’t be for anyone who screams and runs for the hills when they find a spider in their house. But it will be for Wii owners who fancy something a little different, because that’s exactly what Deadly Creatures is.

Divided up into 10 chapters, DC sees you play alternatively between a Tarantula and a Scorpion, rivals in the game. Thankfully Rainbow hasn’t attempted to “cute-up” either playable character – they look exactly as they do in real life. We managed to snag some hands-on time with the second chapter, which acts as the Scorpion’s tutorial. The level, which starts underground in an old coffin, sees you move through a number of tunnels, killing wolf spiders and pill bugs with button presses and short, sharp coordinated flicks of the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. Movement is with the Nunchuck thumb stick, A locks on, B triggers an attack with the Scorpion’s stinger tail, Z attacks with the front pincers and C blocks.

There are other unlockable attacks and combos, including a 360 degree tail spin move, which you’ll gain access to as you progress through the game. Once you’ve whittled the enemy’s life down so that it starts shaking you can trigger a finishing move by grabbing it – B and Z together – and following on-screen prompts. For example, move both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuck up, down, left and right. It’s the gruesome finishing moves which result in the green blood spray on the camera. Lovely.

The combat rekindles memories of plenty of other action games which have lock-on based targeting, dodging and attacking. Indeed Rainbow Studios cites God of War as a major influence. Attacks are meaty and feel as if they carry real weight. But it’s the audio which, at this very early stage, excels. The hissing and bone crunching of combat is good enough, but it’s the clicks and short, sharp sounds that you hear from somewhere off screen which help to lend Deadly Creatures its action horror feel. It’s disgusting and eerie all at the same time.

The second chapter culminates in a boss encounter with a GILA monster. The Scorpion is too weak to kill it, forcing you to avoid its slow but devastating attacks by burrowing a hole with shakes of the controllers. Once the hole is big enough for you to funnel through, the Scorpion scuttles off, living to fight another day.

The game is currently at a very early stage of development, so graphics and environments are a tad ropey and basic, but we can tell that the look and feel of Deadly Creatures is down already. The animal animations are solid and realistic, not overplayed, which helps make the game even more creepy. The combat is clunky and a bit unresponsive right now but expect that to improve, too. What’s important is that Deadly Creatures is a brave move, especially on the Wii, which has proved to be a difficult platform for third-party games to gain success. Creepy crawly haters may wish to look elsewhere, but for everyone else this will be one deadly creature you’ll want to keep a close eye on.

Deadly Creatures is scheduled for release some time in Fall 2008.