E3: Spyborgs (Wii) Preview

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 06.05.2009

Hands-on: A new, fun action platformer exclusively for the Nintendo Wii.

There was a lot going on in the private lounge area of the Capcom booth for the private media party yesterday. Major props to Ramon for being the king of awesome.

One of the new offerings from Capcom at E3 this year is the action-adventure platform for the Nintendo Wii, Spyborgs. Capcom had a playable demo setup in their booth where you can play single or with multiple players. In Spyborgs you can choose from several super cyborg spy characters. The design style is very animated, simplistic, and exaggerated, sort of cartoony. The gameplay is heavy on with the Wii motion controls, and its important to learn how to aim well with your Wii-mote in order to fire on your enemies. The producer on the game, Daryl Allison, played along with me and helped navigate me through the controls and the idea in the boss battles. Allison called the game basically Devil May Cry meets Ratchet and Clank, in that the tone and presentation of the game is very much in the style of Ratchet and Clank, but the action and gameplay is similar to that of Devil May Cry. I see it, and there's also a little bit of the Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Spider-man: Friend or Foe style as well.

After getting the hang of the motion controls, the fighting with the 'borgs is a lot of fun. Once you make it to a gigantic robot boss battle, the action kicks up to a whole other notch. Besides the motion controls, there's a lot of double team and cooperation you have to do with your partner in order to beat the giant robot and rip out his mechanical brain. Also when you are fighting regular enemies, if you hold the Z-button when the screen prompts you, a big cutscene movie ensues as your players deliver a special move that looks very much like something out of an anime or manga when a big dome of color appears when you kick some ass.

Spyborgs is exclusive for the Nintendo Wii and is due out tentatively this Fall.