Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars Review

[steaner]

- After decades of being stomped on and devoured for their valuable growth vitamins in videogames, mushrooms are finally getting a shot at stardom. Red Fly's Mushroom Men has a lot going for it, being a visually unique action/adventure game on a system underrepresented by the genre. The gameplay is a bit less inspired than the art, though, resulting in a rather straightforward platformer that recycles a lot of genre cliches. There is fun to be had with the game, but it's not, as the box quote claims, "the best game for the Wii since Mario Galaxy." Whoever wrote that was definitely playing with some type of mushrooms.

Players control a mushroom man named Pax who finds himself engulfed in the first war for these newly sentient creatures, The Spore Wars. It's a linear adventure, shuffling us through a series of locations designed for platforming and exploration. At Pax's disposal are a bunch of weapons cobbled together from junk strewn about, the ability to glide, and some rather handy psychic powers for manipulating the environment.

The art and sound in Mushroom Men twist together to create a bizarre, Tim Burton-esque world.

Many will be drawn in by the game's artistic sensibilities. The world of Mushroom Men is highly stylized, borrowing much from 1950s sci-fi flicks. It really looks great on the Wii and serves as a showcase title for what kinds of visuals are possible on the console when developers put in the effort. The game also has a fun, dark sense of humor. When Pax takes damage his mushroom cap will piece away revealing his brain beneath.

The environments encourage exploration. When you enter a new room and gaze upon a clutter of everyday objects that dwarf our mushroom hero, your mind sets to work planning the best route by which to investigate every nook and cranny. This is, of course, the effect any good platformer should have on us. Mushroom Men is set in our world, yet it feels very alien when viewed from a couple inches off the floor. As you set about meeting the challenges of each location, you'll often be surprised that the bridge you are crossing is a discarded television remote or that the hot air balloon you're riding is just an inner tube tied to an empty sardine can.

While most of the controls feel good (jumping, manipulating the camera, using your spore powers), combat has unfortunately been relegated to the waggle world. No human being should suffer the indignity of being forced to wildly flail their arm about when all they want to do is relax and play a game. This method robs us of the ability to use any skill or coordination to best an opponent. And while there are tons of items, or "scav," to be found and pieced together into weapons, there isn't much incentive to use anything but your newest tools since they are always incrementally more powerful than the last. An opportunity was missed to allow players to make strategic choices with their weaponry.