Did you like The Lord of the Rings Playstation 2 games?‚  You know, the ones where you played as Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, Frodo and others, hacking and slashing thousands of enemies with nary a mind paid to defense.‚  I know I constantly thought to myself, “I’d love to play this game, but without licensed characters, with ridiculously dark backgrounds and bad lighting, and a stupid gameplay feature, set thousands of years in the future!”

“¦ Wait, actually, that never happened.‚  But somewhat unfortunately, Spyborgs did.‚  If you lust for the days of mowing through thousands of enemies, then this game is kind of okay.‚  I mean, on a primal level, it is fun to just repeatedly jam on a button to beat things into a pulp of mechanical gadgetry, completely oblivious to the block and jump buttons because you don’t really need them anyway.‚  However, Spyborgs has several nagging features that make this seemingly simple goal harder to accomplish.

For starters, they do not believe in lights in the future.‚  Apparently, they live in a despotic world run by Al Gore, and all light sources have been eliminated in order to fight global warming.‚  This might be a slight exaggeration on my part, but only slightly so “" Half the time I was playing Spyborgs, I had trouble discerning the character I was controlling from the enemies I was fighting, especially since everyone looks weird and robotic.

I could talk about the characters, but really, they’re just an excuse to hit the button to attack the other characters who are attacking you.‚  There is a bit of a plot in place, the type that would be enjoyable if you were still a kid and watching Saturday morning cartoons.‚  Basically, your female robot ninja, machine gunner and robot must fight through these creatures because, uh… Well, they’re trying to kill you.‚  Oh, and at some point, some evil organization double-crossed you, so of course you have to get revenge against them.‚  The female ninja is kind of hot, so you’ll probably want to fight with her most of the time.

Anyway “" Smushing stuff talk.‚  The enemies come after you, wave after wave, with a typical stage having in upwards of 50.‚  You and a buddy, or you and a computer-controlled buddy, have to attack them, while you also bust open crates and boxes for health and power boosters scattered inexplicably throughout the stage.‚  The primary goal is to string together attacks to create combos “" The more hits, the better the combo rating, and the more points you get at the end of the stage to upgrade your characters.

Like every game of this type released since God of War, and similar to Madworld, you can fill up a power gauge to perform super combo attacks with your buddy or the computer-controlled character.‚  These are kind of neat to watch, except that using them almost always kills the enemy you’re currently attacking.‚  For point-harvesting purposes, it’s normally better to just beat them up yourself as opposed to relying on the combos.‚  They are somewhat neat looking though, and their application “" slashing the Wiimote, or pounding down with it and the nunchuk “" are one of the few productive uses of motion controls in Spyborgs.

That doesn’t mean that the combo attacks are the only motion controls used, just that they’re the only production controls.‚  I would have scored this game a half-point higher if it weren’t for the frustrating method used to discover “hidden” items.

Basically, by pointing the Wiimote at the screen, a little blue circle floats around.‚  Certain parts of the background look transparent, and pointing the circle at them will reveal hidden crates, kind of.‚  You actually have to point the Wiimote at it, then press A, and then yank up with the Wiimote, in order to reveal whatever you’ve found.

This sounds kind of neat, but its actual application is a nightmare.‚  There is a “ping” noise each time your Wiimote comes across a hidden crate, which would be fine if it was an occasional thing.‚  It’s not, as there are dozens of crates hidden in every god damn stage, all of which must be “uncovered” to be broken open.‚  Even worse, in later stages enemies are cloaked, so you have to manage this feat while they jump around like idiots, shooting green laser blasts at you.‚  By the way, the “hidden” crates are also placed right next to existing crates in the majority of stages, meaning you would have to be an idiot not to find them.

Blast Factor: I constantly felt like I was about 10 years old while I was playing Spyborgs, so I guess that the hidden crates next to existing crates was the right move.‚  If you have a small kid, they might enjoy this game.‚  But if you’re no longer stuck in a Saturday morning cartoon mindset, you’re better off playing the ultra-violent Madworld, a classic like Final Fight or checking out some of the more “epic” mash games like Lord of the Rings and Dynasty Warriors.‚  There really isn’t anything new in terms of gameplay to recommend here, and the cloaked items and enemies detract from an otherwise average experience.

Spyborgs is available exclusively on the Wii, and retails for $39.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for review purposes.

Spyborgs is out next month for the Wii, and we gave you our thoughts on the game following Comic-Con last month, but Capcom wants to make sure that you know as much about the game as possible leading up to release. That’s why they have setup this video of a boss battle from the game, so you can get a sense of how these things work. It’s a different boss battle than the one I got to play through in San Diego, so this is new to me as well.

This is shaping up to be a pretty good looking title, so keep your eyes on it. We’ll be covering it up to and through release.

Once upon a time, Capcom introduced a game called “Spyborgs” to the world, which was to be developed by Bionic Games. They were short on details, but from the look of things, it was going to be a game with a kiddy look, sort of a Saturday morning cartoon thing. The Internet, unfriendly beast that it is, was not kind, and Spyborgs disappeared from the minds of gamers for a time. It was then reintroduced, right around the time everyone started to wonder just where the game had gone, sporting a brand new look and direction. If you’re one of those folks that was turned off by the original design, make sure you pay attention here, because all traces of that game, except for the name itself, have been wiped away.

Spyborgs is a brawler with two-player co-op and plenty of enemies to take down. It’s also not an easy game by any means. There is a block button, and if you do not use it you will lose. It’s as simple as that. There are three different characters, each in their own class of weaponry. Clandestine is the female ninja that can bounce around the screen much quicker than her male teammates, Bouncer is the large robot that can do some serious damage, but at a slower pace, and Stinger is the male with the gun for an arm; he’s faster than Bouncer and with a bit more firepower than Clandestine from what I witnessed, so he’s a good balance pick among the three choices.

Even if you do not have someone to play with, two of the three characters will be on screen. If you are in single, you can jump between the two characters, so you will get a chance to use all three extensively, especially since the game allows you to choose your team again often. Stringing together attacks into combos with any of the characters is the most efficient way to take down enemies, as you can see in this video:

You may have also noticed the orange orbs collected by Clandestine in that video. Those go towards a meter–the pulsating orange one, for those of you watching–which when full allows you to unleash a team attack. These attacks are very powerful, and are quick-time event based, but as with most QTE that use motion, they work effectively. They can (and should) be used against bosses as well, given how powerful they are. In co-op you must both activate the attack at the same time by holding down block while facing the enemy, and then moving the Wii Remote in a downward motion. While the motions worked, the biggest hurdle I faced doing this was just getting both of us to do it at the same time. It might also be easier to coordinate verbally when there isn’t a Tatsunoko vs. Capcom tournament going on five feet behind you as well though (no hard feelings Tatsunoko vs. Capcom!)

While I did not get to witness any of this during the demo, there are upgrades you can buy for your attacks by collecting “crimson spark”. There is also an achievement system built into the game that allows you to unlock concept art and additional challenges for the game. I’m glad companies are starting to put achievements into their Nintendo titles, even without a unified system like gamerscore or trophies in place.

Outside of the challenging gameplay, the other thing that impressed me the most were the graphics. They have a stylized yet realistic look to them, and the thing that stuck out to me was how impressive some of the effects were. Check out the explosions and fire in the screens included in this preview to see what I mean; Bionic Games knows how to squeeze some life out of the Wii’s graphical abilities, and it shows when you see Spyborgs in motion. We’ll have more info for you on this game as it releases, but you can look forward to a release date of September 29th of this year for now.