Xbox 360
Fungus, just think about that word for a moment. Fungus. It's not exactly the most appealing noun in the English language. The most famous mushroom in history was Toad from Mario and nobody liked that squeaky-voiced little cretin, except the even bigger cretins who liked to play as him in Mario Kart. So who on earth would possess the desire to make a game based on Fungus? Red Fly Studios apparently do in hopes of making a quirky old school 3D platformer positively brimming with artistic ingenuity.
Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars takes place in a micro machines scale world where a rogue asteroid has transformed mushrooms into sentient beings capable of talking, fighting and using telekinesis. The fungi themselves have been split into a number of tribes, each fighting over the remnants of the asteroid that are strewn everywhere, especially in improbably hard to reach locations such as mole tunnels, tall shelves and the back of a fridge freezer. You play as Pax, a lone mushroom wanderer with the uncanny ability to absorb the meteorite chunks inspiring most other mushroom men to knock his over-sized head off.
The presentation follows a slick B-movie styling, evoking images of hokey 1950's sci-fi films. As the ‘radiation' from the meteorite infects everything around, you'll find yourself face off against a number of humble back garden creatures driven mad. Everything is beautifully designed from luscious concept art to a charming sense of scale and wonderment. The music has a mischievous texture to it and nicely adapts to your environment, for instance becoming more tinny when you travel through drain pipes. What lets the game down though are the visuals. While they don't overtly affect the gameplay, the fuzzy textures, weak animations and occasionally drab colour palate are very hard to ignore and it's difficult not to wonder what this game, given the top-notch artistic design behind it, could have looked like on a flashier system.
The Wii remote controls don't really work all that well either and usually come across as superfluous. The only use of motion control, other than waving violently to attack, involves moving objects around via telekinesis, which admittedly is nicely done, if limited. Otherwise you'll often find yourself longing for a more traditional controller and a more condensed set of buttons. This is most apparent when considering the incredibly weak camera which regularly falls out of place requiring you to stretch your thumb up to the D-pad to correct it.
The basic mechanics however are solid; jumping has a nice floaty feel to it and combat is fun, if repetitive. It is also impossible to die, being resurrected a short way back when your health runs out, which does go some way to limiting the game's challenge. In many ways it feels very much like an N64 platformer in the style of Banjo Kazooie or Donkey Kong 64. You'll run around a largely open, thematic area, collecting objects (the most interesting of which are the dozens of inventive weapons made from household items) and fighting creatures before finishing the level in a large boss fight. This comparison does however, once again, highlight how dated the game feels from time to time, which is a tremendous shame.
Mushroom Men is an undeniably charming game with great design and solid gameplay, but with far too many set-backs in terms of general execution. It's hard not to assume that it is in fact the Wii itself which is holding this game back, confusing the controls and strangling its visual adventurism. The game can be funny, attractive and rewarding but stumbles in some critical areas.
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