Escape from Bug Island review (Wii)

General movement is controlled with the analog stick on the Nunchuk, and melee attacks require you to first line yourself up with your enemy, press and hold the B button, and then repeatedly swing the Wii Remote down...and that's pretty much it. You can't move once you've started swinging, and lining up with your enemies is difficult, especially when dealing with smaller, faster enemies. A half-dozen football-sized crickets can prove far deadlier than a couple of 10-foot-tall praying mantises. Ranged attacks don't work much better. First you have to hold down the A button to enter a first-person view, then once you've lined up your shot, you have to hold the B button down as well, and finally swing the Wii Remote downward to throw your projectile. Again, lining up your shots is difficult due to the inaccuracy of your aiming reticle and the inconsistency of your throws.

You start off with a pointy stick and some rocks, although you can also find a knife, a baseball bat, a machete, a giant ceremonial lance, sandbags, hand grenades, and bug spray, among other weapons on Bug Island. Though better weapons can help you fell enemies, you'll quickly find that the path of least resistance often involves avoiding the enemies altogether. While certain critters will chase you relentlessly, most of the time you can just run right past your enemies with little to no consequence. Furthermore, the game isn't shy about providing you with plenty of health-replenishing foodstuffs from level to level, which makes your weak little side-roll and back-step evasive maneuvers seem exceptionally pointless. If you ever take damage, you've always got plenty of fruit, mushrooms, and canned goods to cure what ails you.

Escape from Bug Island is an ugly game, and the persistent fogginess almost makes it seem ashamed of itself, a feeling that's actually pretty well earned. What you can see looks gray and muddy, with a general fuzziness that almost makes it look like it was ported up from the Nintendo 64. The only memorable aspect of the sound design is a spooky piano piece, though it's only really memorable because it consists of two bars, and seems to loop constantly.

The technical deficiencies of Escape from Bug Island simply highlight the fact that games have evolved since survival horror first turned fashionable. There's really no place for something this clunky. Rather than Escape from Bug Island, why not avoid it altogether?