Word of the day: Cheese.

Whaaaat? A blog update? What the hell?

I am so sorry for not updating for a long long long LONG time, but I’ve been busy with work, being out of work, concerts and playing around with ideas that work on the blog. A few friends have been asking me why I am not updating the blog. Here's a reason why not:

1) I’m lazy as hell

2) I’m REALLY lazy.

Anyways… Today, I’m going to look into a Wii title that I actually had a lot of fun with, but still can’t quite remember the plot. That’s why I’m going to have to dig deep into my memory, and rummage around it for clues… So this post might be a little jumbled and might jump around a lot, and might have to do another playthrough of it. 1, 2, 3, GO!

Since it’s 2012, I thought it would be a good time to review this one. The game is Disaster: Day of Crisis, developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo.

It centres on Raymond Bryce, a former US Marine...

No! NOT HIM!

Yeah! That's the guy!

Of course, he’s an ex-marine! What action game doesn’t have an ex-marine as the protagonist?

Uhm, right… And ex-marine who’s now a member of the International Rescue Team. Is there such a thing as an International Rescue Team? If not… There should be! Someone look into it!

Anyways, I’m sidetracking yet again. So, Ray and his partner Steve Hewitt are on a rescue mission near a dormant volcano. I had to look up the name of the volcano, Mt. Aguilas, and to my disappointment, it’s not a real volcano. Now we KNOW this is fiction. Anyways tragedy strikes when the volcano unexpectedly erupts. Oh no! Now we need Tommy Lee Jones or Pierce Brosnan! Steve falls into the magma below, letting go from Ray's grip in a real dramatic scene, where he goes on about that they can’t both escape, and Ray now has to get to safety, and that Ray has to give Steve’s sister, Lisa, his antique compass. What a dramatic tutorial! Don’t you think?

The game then jumps ahead a year and Ray is still beaten up by the death of Steve. And we find out that he still has the compass. What’s the matter Ray? Couldn’t meet with Steve’s sister? I guess he lost his cojones… I know how that feels.

Ray has quit the Rescue Team, and has practically lived as a hermit. But Blue Ridge City has a need for an ex-marine who used to rescue as well, and the FBI contact Ray and tell him that a former military organization named SURGE have stolen nuclear weapons and kidnapped seismologist Dr. Davis and his assistant, Lisa Hewitt. Hewitt? This must be Steve’s sister! What a coincidence!

SURGE makes demands to the US government and threatens to detonate the nukes if the White House does not comply within 24 hours. Ray joins the mission on the account of Lisa's involvement, and vows to save her since he was not able to save Steve. Oh Ray! My hero!

Ray was just supposed to be a counsellor for the FB, but ends up taking on all of SURGE single-handedly, during a day of complete and utter natural chaos…

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is the plot! It’s cheesy and cliché! A hero loses a partner and friend, he’s sad for a whole year, but has to come in for consultation, and ends up being THE guy who fights the bad guys. It’s like every dang action movie we’ve seen, but… I love it!

Love, not like! LOVE!

Aside from the story being cheesy, which is just enjoyable (in my opinion), brainless fun! I mean, any of us could write the story to this game, but I don’t know if any of us could program it as good as it is done here.

The controls aren’t that bad, you run with the analog on the nunchuk, and then do all the other stuff with the remote. There are quick time events that require you to jerk the Wii Remote and/or the Wii Nunchuk, and/or pushing buttons. They aren’t so bad, sometimes it can be a bit annoying if you miss-time it, or when you jerk it and it registers it to be a different movement.

But I jerked it to the LEFT!

Mostly you climb and rescue people, but occasionally you have to drive, and shoot. Mostly climb and rescue people, because... Hello, you’re a former member of a Rescue Team. An International Rescue Team!

Then controls for running and climbing work excellent, and if you ever fail on that, you can’t blame the game, only yourself.

The driving however, is really, really clunky. I felt that steering with the Wii Remote, kind of put the game to a weird slow down, as you HAVE to remove the Wii Nunchuk from the Wii Remote, and it just felt weird. And the steering? Let’s just say, it’s not Mario Kart Wii with the Steering Wheel, because that’s damn responsive. On this, the car feels heavy, and barely makes a turn. Let me just put it this way: If I would have been playing the driving sections with one of those Steering Wheel joypad-thingies, I would’ve turned it until it snapped and broke off, just because the car was not turning!

TUUUUUUUUURN!!!!

Okay, let’s blow off some steam with the shooting sections. Where the game kind of, sort of, goes into this first person view, but works more like a rail shooter where you point the Wii Remote to the screen and shoot.

DIE!! In case you can't see it, the crosshair is right on his face!

There… All better!

The rescuing is divided in multiple parts. There’s getting soldiers to safety.

"No, really Ray. I'm fine! I just took a nap!"

Quick-Time Events.

"No, Ray! Stop! I'm ticklish! Don't you dare touching me!"

Or small mini games.

"Huh? What are you doing with my hand, sir?"

And that’s mostly how it goes! Run, rescue, drive, shoot, climb! And that’s it! All you got to do is, to push the buttons and make Ray do your bidding!

This game didn’t get too much coverage here in Norway, so not so many Wii owners might have heard of this game when it came out. I found this game cheap and jumped on it, and I believe I made a good purchase. If I recall correctly, I’ve already played through this game twice, and now that I’m writing about it, I think I’ll have another playthrough of it.

This game wouldn’t have been so entertaining if the story wouldn’t have been so cheesy and cliché! It’s like playing a 90’s action movie. I recommend this game to any Wii owner who loved the action from the 90’s and just wants to have fun, and experience characters that are over the top and cliché. I feel sorry for the North Americans who missed out on a fabulously cheesy game!

From a critic’s standpoint, this game might have its flaws, but I don’t care one bit, I love it no matter what!