Feels Creepy and it Should
From the moment I started playing Deadly Creatures it gave me the willies. The quality of the animation of the creatures is simply great. Some of the best animation I have seen in any game, ever. Just walking around as a spider give you the creepy feeling you get when you see or think about spiders. The sound design also adds to the tension and provides a great atmosphere for the game.
The gameplay does well to utilize the Wii controls by using simply gestures and gesture based events (QTEs, finishing moves or what have you). You can even change the sensitivity of the gesture recognition so it won't pick them up by mistake. Each creature you play gets new moves as you progress and this help keep the gameplay from getting old too fact. For those that like a bit of collecting there are plenty of collection tasks. While not that rewarding, they feel right in the game and are in no way punishing.
The general adventure gameplay is also very well scripted. It has a great and plodding pacing similar to some great PC adventures of the past. Given the subject matter, another great adventure game "Bad Mojo" came to mind. This game has a good mix of action and adventure with some very good story telling provided by some very highly regarded actors; Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Hopper.
The biggest problem, I see with this game is, despite its quality, it does not seem like a good fit for the Wii. I don't mean in terms of the games technicaly, I mean its intended audience. The game seems geared to adults who want a thoughtful, creepy, slower paced adventure. And while the Xbox or PS3 crowd may not dig the slower paced part, I get the feeling that it would find a bigger audiance there. Given that the animation and graphics are so good on the Wii, I would love to see what these developers could do on those systems. This game on a 360 or PS3 may just be too creepy to play at all.
Anyway, I leave that up the to marketing folks to figure out. My guess is, it will not sell that well on the Wii and that will be a shame because its one of the most unique, immersive, high quality games on the system. If you are a fan of the more traditional graphic adventures but you like you adventures with action, atmosphere, and a bit of creepiness, I think Deadly Creatures will fit the bill. I just picked it up for cheep because I had rented it a while back and promised myself I would pick it up when it inevitably dropped in price. And I could not find any used copies which is not surprising.
NOTE: I am a total wimp when it comes to "bugs". Having lived most of my life on non-ground level apartments in cooler climates I have not had to deal with too many of these creatures. Not sure if that added to the enjoyment of the game but I find it makes the game a bit harder to play becuase controling the bugs really does give me the willies :)
