Spyborgs Hands-on
Capcom's ground-up Wii brawler is a blast. Check out our latest impressions.
by Mark Bozon
July 15, 2009 - Capcom and beat-em-up gaming go back a long, long way – confused? Take one look at Final Fight – so when Spyborgs was announced and then later confirmed as a mix between classic arcade pounder gameplay and an RPG lite hack-n-slash nobody was all that surprised. Once the company announced a few months back that the game was going through some big changes though? Well, I'll be the first to admit I didn't have a whole lot of confidence that what we'd be getting was A material.
It's good to be wrong sometimes.
Now I won't go coining Spyborgs as "Final Fight for the next generation" or start handing over awards and stating that the bar has been raised from what Platinum Games has done on Wii already this year with the beat-em-up genre, but it's obvious after just a few minutes of play that Spyborgs isn't a cash-in Wii product. After an hour or so it then becomes very apparent that this one has a strong team behind it with some great arcade roots. As I sit here now, it's looking like the beginning of a longtime franchise on Wii; at least it has the potential to be.
We touched on Spyborgs at E3 last month, but with another chance to dive on in (and way, way deeper) it's high time we give you guys an update on just what Capcom is bringing to the table. Spyborgs consists of four chapters, four main boss fights, and from what I can tell anywhere from six to eight actual stages in each chapter. The first one took about an hour to complete, the second one another hour and a half, and the third seems to be ramping up quite nicely to make for about a six to eight hour experience depending on difficulty level. Spyborgs includes a list of 40 achievements – many of which are so hard I can't see anyone (or a very select few) getting – four starting difficulty levels, and unlockable fifth, an infinite brawl mode, boss rush, and upgrade system for each of the three playable characters. The combat is pretty simple overall with only two major buttons, and the game doesn't have much of an overarching "hook" to speak of, but it lays the groundwork for a strong by-the-books action game. On Wii, that isn't easy to come by.
The story behind Spyborgs is starting out pretty simple, though there's obvious depth to be found within the unlcokable extras within the game. As a once-strong team of superheroes, the Spyborgs (modified humans with machine parts; except for Bouncer, who might be full-on robot) have dwindled down to three fighters left against a strange attacking army of robot berserkers. Details are slim thus far in the story, but after completing certain sections of the game or unlocking the in-game achievements (called medals) more extras are handed out in the form of audio files, cinematics, and original movie content. The audio files include everything from Spyborg member logs to doctor notes left from nearly 100 years prior to the game's opening, stating that "Project Spyborgs" is looking grim, and that any tested animals work fine, though humans hemorrhage or die of cardiac arrest after being exposed to the program. What this all means is still to be seen, but the game is setting itself up for some nice twists and turns, as well as some possible new Spyborgs near the end of the game that could move into a potential sequel. One video has what looks like eight or so Spyborgs in a picture, then fading down to the final three in the game.
And that video can be found right here.
Click it!
But at least the three kick a lot of ass. The roster includes the gun-armed Stinger, a heavy attacker named Bouncer, and a girl named Clandestine, or "Clan." Each plays the role of standard fighters – Stinger as the mid, Clan as the quicker light fighter, and Bouncer as the slow pounder – and with a quick tap of the C button can launch into special attacks. A is used to jump around the battlefield, Z is your block (and you'll need it; this game isn't a pushover), B is regular light attacks, and a combination of B and C allow for pop-up attacks or distance slams that send enemies flying. After grabbing a few power-ups during post-stage leveling up (via red God of War-like orbs that serve as currency) I unlocked the ability to dodge via Z + stick + A, and the ability to dash attack via a similar method with the B trigger instead of A. With the dash attack players can seek to nearly anyone on-screen moving, quickly from enemy to enemy in an almost Too Human lite fashion, though not quite as fine-tuned or stylistic. The change in mechanics is pretty huge though, as my combo attacks went from the high 50's to well over 100 after gaining the ability; proof that your level-ups do in fact matter in Spyborgs.
The core game is played with two players on-screen at all times, be it two human fighters or a human and CPU controlled escort. The second player can drop in and out at any time, and when playing solo you can swap from one character to the other with the tap of the + button, allowing you to cash-in on special attacks or make use of some impromptu combos between you and… well… yourself. On their own the AI does decent, attacking whoever attacks them, but I did see a few times where they stood still next to an enemy instead of kicking the crap out of them. Not until the enemy drew first blood did the computer get physical. Once out of a couple hours isn't bad though, and there's still work to be done on the game.
And really the highlight of the game – lame as it may sound when I say it, but true nonetheless – is that everything just works in Spyborgs. Even in this preview build there wasn't often that I felt like I was critiquing a game, so much as just enjoying something that was polished, well made, and fun. Each new enemy type enters the scene with a cinematic cut-to when dropping in for the first time, you get plenty of variation with enemy entrances – dropping from ropes, teleporting in, crashing through doors and windows, jumping up from would-be pits – and everything that looks like it should break in the environment does. There are plenty of visual effects going on, distortion in cloaked objects (I'll get to that in a minute), lots of sparks, no frame issues, and a clean look. There's something in the air. What is that? Is that… effort? It smells yummy.
The only major downside to speak of is that the game doesn't have that one serious "hook" to pull you in, though as I mentioned earlier the hook might as well be "good beat-em-up on Wii," as Madword is the only other one that immediately comes to mind, and that one is bathed in blood and not good for the kiddies. The only thing close to a straight-up "gimmick," and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, is the Spyvision system, which allows you to point at the screen and uncover invisible objects and enemies. Once found (you can see them out of the corner of your eye as they shimmy, nearly identical to Predator's abilities or Halo's active camouflage) you hold A and flick up on the controller to unveil the object. If it's a box it'll contain some currency or health boost, and in the case of cloaked enemies you can't hurt them until using Spyvision, making the game mechanic a necessity in later levels. It isn't exactly a game-changer, but it's a cool system that the team could do even more with for a sequel.
The other main mechanic in the game is the team attacks, which pit both Spyborgs against an enemy in a cinematic finishing maneuver. Once either player's orange special bar is filled a finisher can be executed by holding Z and then swiping with the Wii-mote (the only motion needed in normal gameplay). From there you launch into a crazy blue world where it's just the one enemy and the two heroes. After delivering a motion-based quick time event with each you'll dispatch of them and gain a slight boost based on what enemy you killed. It's a very cinematic way to deliver finishing blows, and it's obvious that each is basically a video created based on what three characters are in the shot, but that means it was a huge investment. There are different attacks for each set of Spyborgs with every type of enemy, and from what I can tell it also depends on who hits the enemy first.
Team attacks play a huge part in the game, even against massive bosses.
Even boss fights make use of the system, meaning that there has to be 50+ (or more; I'm still finding new enemies) scenes within the game. Holy hell. Also, when I mentioned everything "just works" in this game I meant it. When I screw up motions I fail finishers. When I don't, it registers the right way, even going as far as to catch thrust motions which are normally the black death for any Wii-mote/nunchuk swipes. Every time I get that "it's just a bit too simple" feeling I again pull off an action or see something that is well implemented, polished, or just plain fun, and it keeps me playing.
There's a whole lot more left to play in Spyborgs – I'm about halfway through the preview build (which includes three chapters only), and I haven't unlocked the infinite or boss fight modes yet – but it's already shaping up to be a nice, well-rounded effort on Wii. There's no one feature that I see really blowing people away with this one, but everything from in-level combat to visuals, IR implementation, motion usage, voiceover work, cut scene CG, boss designs and more (the list goes on and on) is proof that there's a solid team behind this game, and that Capcom means business with the Spyborgs franchise. Here's hoping it pays off, as I'm only a few hours in and already looking forward to a potential sequel.
). E parece-me que houve boas melhorias face ao que vimos.
