Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars - Nintendo Wii

*Introduction*The 3d platformer is a dying genre. Once one of the more popular styles of games back in the N64/Playstation era it seems like the only notable titles in the current era are the Super Mario Galaxy games. There have been a few sleeper hits like Psychonauts, but they have been few and far between. Now we have Mushroom Men, a quirky new platformer that is reminiscent in many ways of the old N64 style platformer with a few twists of its own.*Story*The premise of this game involves a shower of green glowing meteors that bombard the Earth and turn the plants and fungi of the world into sentient beings that form their own societies. You play as Pax, a Bolete mushroom with telekinetic powers, whose village was destroyed by the poisonous mushrooms. Without his home, he becomes a wanderer and stumbles across a village of peaceful mushrooms in the middle of a festival. After taking part in the festivities, he is given the honor of holding the villages prized meteorite. Unfortunately, once it is given to Pax, he somehow absorbs it, so he sets off on a quest to replace the villages meteorite, although he has a bit of trouble doing this, since he also absorbs all of the other meteorite fragments that he comes across. Along the way he runs into a tribe of evil poisonous mushrooms, who are also on a quest to collect meteor fragments, while they battle with the peaceful tribes.The story isn't fleshed out a whole lot, but it's better than standard fare for the platforming genre and sets the stage well enough.*Gameplay*The gameplay is fairly standard 3d platforming. You jump around levels searching for collectibles and battling enemies. Pax's abilities include jumping, gliding, and psychic powers. He also eventually gets a sticky hand which he can use as a grapple to get to certain objects that are really high or far away. His telekinetic powers are controlled by the Wii remote pointer and allow him to manipulate levers and other objects around him, to progress through levels and fight off foes. There are objects to collect scattered throughout the levels such as the meteorites which grant him more hit points once he has enough of them, parts to put together into weapons, and well hidden pieces of junk that unlock concept art. If you don't like the collectathon style of platformer, you can put your fears to rest, as the majority of the collecting is entirely optional. If you do like collecting, then you will also be happy as there are 81 meteorites to collect and a lot of weapon parts. The best part is that all of the collectibles are actually useful to collect. They aren't random baubles that you need X amount of to open some door, like other platformers.The level design ranges from somewhat linear like Super Mario Galaxy, to open and explorable closer to the Banjo-Kazooie games with other levels falling somewhere in between. They are all fairly well designed, with a few small issues like sticky hand objects not being immediately obvious. The most explorable worlds are the most fun, but the linear levels are pretty good as well. There are some options presented in a few of the tasks. For instance, you can either fight a tough enemy head on, or you can explore the level and use the objects around it to take them out. The only problem with the level design is that if you are playing to find everything, in a couple of levels areas get blocked off from you as you progress, and in others you'll end the level if you complete a certain task. However, this isn't a big problem as you can replay levels any time you want.Weapon creation is really clever. As you find ordinary objects like paperclips, bottle caps, and tooth picks, Pax will assemble them in various ways to create different kinds of weapons. This is a fairly automatic aspect, though. I would have liked to have a more active hand in figuring out how to put the things together. There are 4 weapon types of Bashing, Slashing, Thrusting, and Radical. The weapons of the first three categories are the main weapons you will use, while the Radical weapons are unique and require ammo. There is no reason to use anything but the most powerful weapon of each type, and the unique radical weapons slow down Pax so much that they are a pain to use. I would have liked to see a bit more varied usage among the melee weapons.The combat is the weakest part of the game. Your attacks are all controlled by shaking the Wii remote, but it's nothing more than standard attacks that could have been controlled by a button. You can also attack using your telekinetic powers to grab various objects with the Wii pointer and then shake it to throw them at the enemies. I found the all of the Wii remote actions to be a little unresponsive and annoying to use. Thankfully, the combat in this game is easy enough that it doesn't matter too much.Dying in this game is not a problem. It works in such a way that when you die you will merely be sent back a little bit in the level and all your progress remains. This helps keep the game fun without ever feeling too frustrating. There are rewards for beating the bosses without dying, though.*Replay Value*The game length is around 8 to 10 hours if you want to collect everything, and about 6 hours if you just rush through the story. At the main menu for the game, you have the option of replaying every level to collect things you missed or just replay them for the story. Overall, there is not a whole lot of replay value, but that's fairly standard for this type of game.*Visuals*The game looks really good for a Wii game. The style is darkly quirky and sort of reminiscent of the visual style Psychonauts. The worlds are all visually interesting, varied, and detailed having you explore areas like piles of junk, a back yard, an old shed, and a run down farm house. It's amazing to go through and see all the clever little details like the product parodies and the ways the mushrooms use human items for their architecture and technology. They really make you feel like a tiny mushroom exploring this huge human world full of vicious giant monsters like rabbits and chihuahuas.*Sound*The music in this game is as quirky as everything else. It contains lots of unusual unconventional sounds and really adds to the atmosphere perfectly. The levels almost seem to pulse and move to the beat at some points. There aren't a whole lot of memorable melodic tunes, but it works perfectly in this game.*Summation*This game was quite a pleasant surprise for me. It is an overlooked Wii gem that anyone who enjoys 3d platformers at all will have a great time with. It's well worth the low price it's going for, so if you like quirky 3d platformers go out and buy it.

I loved playing this game. The controls were pretty easy, the enemies were just challenging enough to not be jarring, and sometimes I had explore quite a lot to progress. The only problem I have is that it's too short. I'm glad I own a copy, but it would have been simple to just rent it over a weekend and beat the whole thing. It has minigames and extras, if you're into that sort of thing, but none of them really kept my interest for long. Solid music for the most part. It definitely sets the mood and gives you a unique experience. There was at least one spot where the game is essentially broken, however. It's nothing that you can't get past easily once you know what happened, but if you follow the same course of actions I did during the final boss battle, you'll be stuck in an endless loop where you can't proceed to the next stage of the fight. Once I realized what I did wrong, it was a simple matter of dying and restarting the battle. Most everything else flowed nicely.

This fun game offers a lot of bang for the buck. The world is visually beautiful and interesting, and the music is great. If I hadn't finished it in only 2 weeks, I would still be playing it at every opportunity. I liked the controls on the Wii, even though I thought at first it would be too simplistic. It is challenging to find all the crystals (the more you find, the harder your mushroom-cap head becomes and the harder you are to kill), but the game is not burdened by impossible or frustrating battles. If you do die, you just reappear a little ways back. Some of the crazed rabbits and other animals were too scary for my 7-year-old, but not as frightening to her as the dark foes at the end of Zelda, and there are no death scenes and cadavers laying around, either. My only gripe with this game is that I wish it were longer and I was still playing it.

I really enjoyed this game . I played through it about 4 times so far trying to find all the secret stuff and to make all the weapons . The only complaints I really have are that some of the platforming aspects are super frustrating where you'll have to attempt the same jump over and over , and the weapon selection menu where you can choose 2 weapons to quick swap between never seems to work . Sometimes I want a club and a slicing weapon to quick swap between and I'll end up with a club and a thrusting weapon or vise versa . But overall I really liked this game .

"Do not judge a book by its cover" when I read the title of this game I was like.."This is an awful title for a game, it's probably a dumb game to". Boy was I wrong, this game is a real hidden gem and I truly wished I picked it up when the Wii first came out.The graphics are not the best out there but the story and especially the gameplay makes up for it. I haven't stop playing it since it came out. I highly recommend this game to anyone, kids and adults.

I actually bought this for a friend, who didn't want to create an account just to use a gift card. She wanted a game that was just fun and not too hard. This arrived really fast! Once it arrived we had a Wii game night at my place and it was tons of fun.NOTE: This says two player, but from what I saw it is really only a one player game. The extra player just gets to press A constantly to "grow" a spore that helps the actual player. So, hey it'd be great for a younger child wanting to be involved but not requiring a lot to do. Other than that though the two player spot is just for laughs! But still a great fun game with good graphics!

I loved this game sooo much! The storyline was amazing and the gameplay was so fun! Thank you for the opportunity to play a new game! :) <3

This was for my nephew and he was just delighted to receive this.Thanks