An Exceptionally Good Disaster...

I've been playing a fair few new games lately, but there's a few that I have played which have caused some very unexpected reactions to them that I thought I should mention.  I'll do a blog for each game anyways.

Firstly, there is the truly epic, hilario

us, and brilliant (I could go on) Disaster: Day of Crisis  for Nintendo Wii.  The best way I would describe this game is like a video game crossover of 24 with The Day After Tomorrow. The game is all about an ex marine soldier who has been r

ecruited to fight a newly formed

 terrorist group made up of his fellow comrades from his final mission as a marine. But here's the catch, they were as good as dead back then, as he saw the helicopter carrying said people crash after being hit b

y a flaming boulder during a volcanic eruption. To make matter

s worse, they have kidnapped a Professor of Seisomology along with his grandaughter w

ho is the younger sister of his own best mate that died in

 front of him during his final marine mission. And the real icing on the cake is that the terrorists have somehow taken control of the weather itself, and thus managed to cause natural disasters left right and centre all over the city including volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes and so on...And you thought you had it bad!

Basically, as well as battling terrorists, the main cha

racter Ray also has to deal with the very worst of Mother Nature's wrath, thus leading to one hell of a situation for him and then some. The game is an actio

n adventure type, focused solely on survival of course, and it plays like

 a 3rd person shooter with platforming elements and first person shooting sections. It's a lot like games like Jet Force Gemini, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil for instanc

e. As your character makes his way through the continually weather ravaged city, he will avoid to avoid all the consqeunces of the disasters including explosions, falling buildings, cars crashing and flooding whilst having to fight members from the terrorist group and rescue people who are in dan

ger. 

I actually loved the concept of the game from first hearing about it, and I wasn't disappointed upon playing it! I'm a big fan of more unique, individual games, and I saw this going for £15 in the GAME sale, so I had to buy it. The game is amazing to play and watch though, the most 

amazing part is how the city is contiunally being destroyed around you and how the increasing amount of damage actually affects your progess and so on. For example, I was trying to reach someone in distress nearby who was quite high up but there was no way of reaching them due to immense amounts of building

 damage and rubble nearby. All of a sudden though, a b

us comes crashing down along with a dumpster (somehow due  to the earthquake, which is the theme of the second level as well as the first), and due to the way they landed, 

they created a makeshift ramp up to the person in distress which really impressed me for it's sheer creativity and ingenousity. 

Although this game has similarities to other gam

es out there, it still is very unique and it has turned out better than the magazines have said to be honest. Ray has a Stamina bar as well as a Health bar, which depletes gradually over time but  quicker if you're fighting terrorists, sprinting, lifting something and so o

n. You can replenish your Stamina bar like your Life bar, but if it goes down to zero, your Health will suffer instead and you will due if that reaches zero too. As well as those two bars, Ray has a Lungs/Oxygen meter, which is affected by smoke in an area. If there is smoke present, Ray will choke and his lungs will become polluted rapidly which is shown by the meter. You will have to sprint through the area to make it out alive, and once you are in the clear, you can exhale the smoke whilst breathing in oxygen to recover. You can hold down the Z but

ton to speed the process up, and if you press it again at the right time, he w

ill slap his cheeks (0_0) and gain bonus points. 

As well as the standard combat and movement abilities found in other games, Ray can also call out to people to see if anyone needs help nearby and thus find t

hem. Once you choose to rescue them, the rescue process initiates, and depending on the situation, you will be required to do something specific such as treating wounds, carrying someone to safe spot, reaching your hand out for them to grab, give them CPR and so on. I love this part, as I find saving people in this game quite a rewarding and pleasing experience, in cont

rast to killing them in various games. 

As you can see in the screenshot above, Ray is currently trying to resuscitate an unconscious person. In that situation, you would have to push down with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to try

and recreate the real life coutnerpart of this. That added amount of interactivity is definitely perfect for this sort of game, 

and I thinkthis is why the game was chosen to be developed on the Wii, or even f

ormed in the first place.

The ultimate highlight of this game though is the natural disasters in it. The way that vario

us buildings come crashing down, 

or vehicles that come flying past and so on, is just a breathtak

ing and exhilarating surprise. Your just walking along

waiting to see what the game has in store for you, then all of a sudden...BAM!!! a building collapses right in front of you.

If that wasn't bad enough, during certain moments in the game, you will be chased by a chain reaction of events

caused by a natural disaster such as the upper floor of the building your in collapsing due to an earthquake,

or a series of explosions due to a fire, or even a raging flood. You have to wave the Wii Remote and Nunchuck 

up and down like mad to outrun these chain reactions otherwise you go bye bye.

One final thing I want to mention about with the game is the bonus missions you get for cleared levels. When you back

to a level you have beaten, you get extra objectives to fu

lfil on this turn round, and the one for the first level

had me in stitches. The mission was to collect these campaign f

lags that were scattered around the level  

but the funny part was the message you got through the Wii Remote speaker when you collected one.

You suddenly had this jive talking, funky 70's style voice s

houting praise at you like 

"Smooth Brother!" and "Funking Fresh!". I don't know what me laugh more, the sheer randomness of the

whole thing, or the voice itself!  

I've included some more screenshots of the game below for your vie

wing pleasure anyways.

Yep, that's how big the food is in the game. You can eat

 food that you find to recover Stamina and Life, but since when did burgers and cola cartons become bigger than a human's head?!