Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars First Look Preview

When most people think of Nintendo’s phenomenally successful motion sensing console, games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games spring to mind. Games like Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, the upcoming 3D action puzzler by little known US studio Red Fly, does not. We’re here to try and change that.

We’re in publisher Gamecock Media Group’s London HQ to take Mushroom Men on Wii for a spin, and we’re loving it. Mushroom Men is barmy and enchanting all at the same time. Its basic premise – a comet crashes to earth spreading a green toxic dust around the countryside creating a race of three-inch high mushroom men who all start knocking lumps out of each other – sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon crossed with a 50s sci-fi flick. Its main character, Pax, a mushroom man with psychic powers who looks like a younger version of the old ninja bloke from classic anime Ninja Scroll, isn’t exactly text book video game character design. Its soundtrack, by electric bass master Les Claypool, might steal the whole show. And its art design, kind of like indie-darling Psychonauts set in a garden shed, is one of the loveliest we’ve seen on the console to date.

Controls are solid – the Nunchuck’s thumb stick controls Pax’s movement, Z blocks and C dodges. A on the Wii Remote makes Pax jump, B triggers his psychic powers and the d-pad controls the camera. This being a Wii game you have to do some waving about, which trigger Pax’s attacks.

He (well, we think he’s a he!) can dodge roll and block, which will hopefully give combat a degree of depth that ensures it’s not spam attack, dress yourself down then move on to the next enemy. Pax can nimbly get around, too, using a grapple hook to climb, his mushroom head to float as he falls and his psychic powers to manipulate the environment and solve puzzles.

In the level our prying eyes were privy too – what looks like someone’s shed – evil, Watership Down-esque rabbits patrol the ground just waiting to make mince meat out of poor old Pax. The idea is not to engage these red-eyed fur balls in combat, although you do have that option. The idea is to stop, have a think, and use the environment and the sheepish Kudzu to dispose of the brutes instead.

The Kudzu, a race of sentient plants created by the same meteorite that spawned the mushroom men, are happy to help Pax out – the rabbits are after them too. Pax gives one a shot of Spore power so it can push a fan onto a bunny, chewing it up off screen. Pax uses his telekinesis power to knock a bowling ball off a rafter, hitting a deer head that dispatches another bunny. It’s compelling stuff.

By far the most intriguing part of Mushroom Men, however, is the weapon creation. Essential to this is ‘scav’, items Pax scavenges as he explores. ‘Scav’ could be anything, rubbers, pencils, razor blades, whatever. They come in three categories, stems, caps and parts, and can be combined to form weapons of increasing weirdness, depending on what you use to stick it all together.

Stems might be cocktail sticks or twigs, for example, caps thimbles or razorblades and parts act as adhesive, like electrical tape or bubble gum. There’s even a DS stylus to be found, which we combined with a thimble via some bubble gum to create the Iron Thumb weapon. There’s a degree of trial and error, but it’s sure to lend the game a ‘collect ’em all’ feel.

Crucially, the weapon creation system has a real impact on gameplay, so you won’t just be making weapons just for the sake of it. Each weapon will have different damage abilities and different animations. Created weapons will automatically be categorised – slashing, piercing, bashing, making some better against flying enemies, others against ground enemies. What’s great is that the game takes any weapon you can dream up, no matter how bizarre, and makes it work not only for Pax but in the world he exists.

‘Scav’ gives Mushroom Men a pinch of the current video game flavour of the month – user generated content. Like LittleBigPlanet, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and anything else that lets players ‘do their own thing and play with it’, many gamers may well find most pleasure from simply creating, rather than playing

There are concerns, as there always are. While the textures and detail are good for a third-party Wii game, the frame rate in the build we saw struggled. And it’s too early to know for sure how satisfying the combat will prove to be after extended play, but we have high hopes for this one. If Pax gets bashed about the head for a bit, parts of his brain will become exposed. We see an infected dead rat with a spore plant growing out of the rotting flesh. Take that Wii Music.

There is always the worry, of course, with quirky, somewhat out there games on the Wii, that however good they turn out to be they will sink without a trace, drowned under the noise of the latest celebrity-endorsed puzzler. This has happened before, with the adult-oriented No More Heroes, the innovative Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure and beautiful nerdcore favourite Okami. We’re not saying Mushroom Men is in the same league as those illustrious titles, although it may well turn out to be. But we’re doing our part by letting you know it exists, it’s coming, and it’s looking great. Mushroom Men joins a list of upcoming quirky third-party Wii titles, including Deadly Creatures and de Blob, that are definitely on our radar.

Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is due out for Wii mid November 2008. The prequel, Mushroom Men: Rise of the Fungi is due out for the Nintendo DS mid October.