GODZILLA UNLEASHED
Published by:
Atari
Developed by:
Pipeworks Software
Available on:
Nintendo DS, Wii, Playstation 2
INTRODUCTION:
Assume the controls
of the world’s most famous terrifying lizard, Godzilla as you battle through
interactive landscapes, destroying popular foes and anything else in your path.
So yeah, that means you are playing as a famous rubber-suited hero, jamming
construction in the faces of your hapless rubber-suited opponents.
GAMEPLAY:
Remember King of the Monsters? It was a dandy little game
that came out as a Neo-Geo arcade game several years ago, and eventually it was
ported to consoles. The idea was simple- pick your favorite giant monster and
smash through cities, in a battle for supremacy.
Godzilla: Unleashed doesn’t present a much different
package, except it updates things in a 3d landscape and tries to use the Wii
remote to accentuate things. First of all, the control is not very good, not
very good at all. You’re forced to use the Wiimote and Nunchuk and your attacks
are relatively simple with the face buttons. You also must wiggle the wiimote
before pressing these buttons to do any real damage. This is where the game’s
first problem lies because the timing is damn near impossible to get right,
which frustrates things.
It gets worse too, because your dreaded fire breath or
beam is really hard to aim due to a terrible camera, and forget about jumping or
grabbing- both are very poorly done. The story mode isn’t very exciting, but
it’s exactly what you’d expect. You go to a city, and you fight a monster while
smashing crystals. Occasionally you’ll fight more than one monster, and
regardless of what side they’re on you’ll likely get the crap beaten out of you
due to poor gameplay mechanics.
If you’re playing with friends, you may dig this more
because the battles are fairly customizable and let’s face it- sometimes you
just need to fight monsters and it gets some aggression out. With that being
said, I can’t see you spending more than a couple of hours with this title
before getting bored with it.
Gameplay: 4.5/10
GRAPHICS:
The
graphics are actually pretty decent in this game, surprisingly enough. The
monsters are good and detailed, they’re large and animate fairly well. The
cities are the best part of the game though, all having been ravaged by some
disaster. You may not be able to tell what city you’re in right away, but they
sure smash up well, plenty of literal bang for your buck.
Graphics: 7.5/10
AUDIO:
The
sound is decent enough, although it’s hard to judge it accurately as the story
mission cutscenes have purposefully bad dubbing and stop-motion dialogue. The
roars are all there though, although the background noise leaves a bit to be
desired. It’s passable though, although this game should be rocking your
speakers off.
Audio: 6/10
FINAL VERDICT:
Ultimately,
Godzilla: Unleashed is a disappointing game that still isn’t what fans are
looking for. There are a lot of characters, but the poor control and lack of
depth really hurt things. Although the game looks nice, it isn’t what true fans
deserve and even if you’re a big fan, I can’t see why you’d play this for more
than a few hours.
Final Score: 5/10