Written By Schrekdog & Predat0r

Spyborgs is a futuristic themed beat ‘em up developed by Bionic Games and published by Capcom. As most gamers would know, Capcom already credit some big name fighting games and beat 'em ups in their extensive library including the Street Fighter, Final Fight and Marvel vs. Capcom series; and for fans of these series and classic arcade beat ‘em ups in general, you will be pleasantly surprised by what Spyborgs has to offer.

The storyline in Spyborgs is pretty light on and is soon forgotten once the action starts; in fact you get the feeling there doesn’t even have to be a story at all. Spyborgs are secret cyber-agents whose HQ has been attacked by a mysterious adversary, and in their quest to find answers and uncover the culprits they get to kill a bazillion enemies with their unique powers. As with most beat ‘em ups the story is obviously not going to win a Pulitzer Prize but the underlying gameplay premise remains simple; get to the next level without dying, keep your mate alive and pick up power-ups to increase your attributes. Then repeat until your run out of levels. A lesson from the arcade games of old no doubt. Be honest, can you remember what the overall point of Final Fight, Golden Axe or Double Dragon were? Saving your girlfriend or something? These games rely on their gameplay to do the talking and Spyborgs is no exception.

The basic pattern of the play is textbook two player cooperative beat ‘em up. You walk through levels until you reach an ‘area’, where you will be restricted to going any further until you dispose of a predetermined amount of baddies. Once you have finished all the bad guys off you will then be able to progress to the next area. As you progress the difficulty gradually increases until your reach the end of the level where you will have a showdown with a huge end of level boss.

Spyborgs contains three central characters each of which has their own strengths and weaknesses. Included is a handy feature that allows players to swap characters between levels. So if you are struggling to complete a level or simply tire of a particular character this option allows a bit of diversity and a different angle to play. “Stinger“ is the alpha-male Spyborg whose arm is replaced with a huge gun (he is the only one with a gun) but it’s a little hard to operate at close quarters. “Bouncer” is, well, some kind of robot-gorilla thing that pounds the bad guys but is a little slow on the delivery. Finally there is the oddly named “Clandestine” a female ninja cyborg who is faster than the others and packs a big sword, but seems to require a few more hits. The characters strengths and weaknesses really adds some variation to the co-operative gameplay because you’ll definitely have to help each other out depending on the situation. You won’t get as far being selfish, although sometimes that’s fun too

The gameplay does involve some button mashing; some would argue it wouldn’t be a classic beat ‘em up if it didn’t. However it’s not all mindless violence as the button mashing is supplemented with swinging of the Wii Remote, utilising the nunchuk and innovative team finishing manoeuvres, which require you to perform specific actions at specific times, ‘God of War’ style. There are light and heavy attacks that you can chain together in combos rated as “Awesome”, “Brutal”, “Crazy” and “Decent”. The bigger the combos the more experience you earn which is in turn used at the end of levels to upgrade all three of the characters attributes, weaponry and special moves.

As you progress through a level killing enemies and destroying certain parts of the environment to collect “orange sparks” which are used to fill your power gauge. When the gauge is full you can then activate the team finishing moves on your opponents. The team finishing moves will switch to a slow motion animated sequence and it requires each player to perform an action at a specific time, like swing the remote and nunchuk up or down. Usually one character pummels the enemy then throws them to the other character who finishes them off. It looks good and generally works quite well. You can also interact with hidden boxes by using the Wii remote and flicking up, which seems like a bit of a gimmick really, considering it would have been much easier to simply stomp on the box or shoot it open.

The controls in general are quite well thought out and if you don’t happen to like all the action-based moves then you’ll be happy to know that the controls are configurable allowing you to toggle off the motion based controls and also adjust the level of difficulty to your liking. Spyborgs can get quite difficult later on in the game and as a result can become frustrating having to keep replaying levels over and over, although some may argue this is just part of the challenge. The team finishing moves are sometimes a godsend because they give you a momentary break from the madness.

The game is best played with a mate as it promotes co-operative play but in case you don’t have any mates (you know who you are) then the AI will take over for you and does a reasonable job (and probably shares more of the health and ammo too!). After a while the gameplay does get a tad repetitive but this is symptomatic of this style of game. It’s definitely not the thinking person’s game of choice, but that said it will still be hard to put down once you team up with a mate and get going.

Capcom have squeezed the Wii system resources to give Spyborgs some excellent visuals. They have delivered an excellent graphical experience from the general gameplay, to the smooth cartoon cut scenes and even the game menus with their electronic backgrounds and crisp comic book fonts. The lighting, shadows and particle effects are also great. The blue 'energy beam' bridges and fire animations add to a palette of bright and glowing colours which bring the at times bland coloured levels to life. The levels in general are also well designed and offer a variety of different locations from futuristic labs, to hedge mazes and libraries.

The objects in some levels however, such as the large rocks in the earlier levels (which can be smashed) look quite rudimentary, in contrast to the other clever additions, such as the shimmering hidden boxes. There are also some slight inaccuracies in lighting and shadow of the main player characters in contrast to the level itself which sometimes makes them look like they are out of place, but this is a rather trivial criticism considering that overall the graphic experience is excellent. There are rarely any issues with choppy frame rates either and the game runs extremely smoothly for the most part.

The characters themselves are well designed and look like they have just dropped out of a concept art sketchbook. The main characters have a 'Tron' like luminescence to them. They also feature excellent fluid moves and are creatively animated, such as Bouncer's ape-like knuckle walk (similar to “Dog” in Half-Life or Donkey Kong) or the slow motion 'anime' style finishing move sequences. Enemies are a little lacking in variety but for the most part look great, in particular the end of level bosses which are massive and yet still smooth, making good on Spyborgs almost flawless frame rate. One of the first bosses makes a cameo early in the level by stomping around in the background, looming menacingly and its these sort of finishing touches that give the game the a classic arcade type atmosphere. You’ll get a nice mini pause in the game to introduce new minion types when you encounter them (House of the Dead boss style), but in general they are all a bit repetitive and unremarkable.

Spyborgs is also a great sounding game, kicking off with an excellent atmospheric electronic/futuristic soundtrack, reminiscent of the old arcade type scores that came before it. In-game contains a heavy metal background track that is rather ‘heavy’ on the bass. The sound effects themselves are good and there is plenty of metal on metal clanking, thudding, smashing and good weapon sampling. The Wii remote speaker also sparks to life in various circumstances such as beeping to indicate poor health and the proximity of hidden boxes. The voice acting of the main characters is well done, even though it does sounds like a little like a run-of-the-mill Saturday morning action cartoon. All in all every aspect of the audio is perfectly suited to the style and general feel of the game.

Spyborgs boasts over 30 levels to fight your way through. There are also medals and unlockable content to uncover along the way. In terms of value, Spyborgs is a great pick up and play game that many older gamers will appreciate for its arcade likeness and quality and is worth coming back to. It definitely can get repetitive though and as the difficulty increases you might experience a few Wii remote dummy spits.

The Final Verdict

Spyborgs is a solid beat ‘em up game for the Wii. The graphics are excellent and have a nice polished feel to them and the overall atmosphere of the game is good. The gameplay is based on the classic arcade beat ‘em up and works very well in two player co-op mode. Although many would also argue that this style of gameplay is a little too old school and lacking in depth and innovation. The story is average, the gameplay does get repetitive and sometimes the difficulty is frustrating. However, the arcade styled graphics, sound and gameplay will definitely appeal to older fans who spent all their pocket money on titles such as Final Fight, Golden Axe or Double Dragon.

Gameplay

7.5/10

Classic no-nonsense beat ‘em up gameplay. Can get a little repetitive and becomes quite difficult.

Graphics

8.0/10

Excellent character models, environments and presentation. Great visual effects. Some minor frame rate issues.

Sound

7.5/10

Solid sound effects and voice acting. Very nice music.

Value

6.5/10

Easy to pick up and play. Contains some replay value with co-op multiplayer mode and unlockables.

Overall

7.4/10