So lately I've been playing Disaster: Day of Crisis on my Wii, and I'm thoroughly impressed.
It is not very often when a game feels this epic and gets my blood pumping in such a manner.
It's a vast mix of genres, and draws inspiration from Zelda, Resident Evil 4, Dead Rising, Mario Kart, Time Crisis, a splash of WarioWare, even some elements of Metal Gear thrown in amongst many others. The story seems to be a collective tribute to every natural disaster, police drama, action hero and adventure movie of the last three decades. You play as Ray, an ex-member of a rescue service team who quit his job when his best friend and team partner dies in one of the most dramatic cliches that predictability can spew out (in fact, it goes beyond predictable - the opening movie shows this scene before you get to the title screen and begin the first level, which incidentally is a flashback to this stage-setting event). Someone important to him is caught up in a terrorist attack when a scientist gets kidnapped, and Ray springs into action right as a series of freak natural disasters hit the town. It seems the terrorists wanted the Professor to predict a large scale earthquake so they could plan a nuclear attack amidst the chaos. But what they didn't count on was the mass aftermath that follows. Due to the earthquake, the coastal city is hit by a series of tsunamis, firestorms, flooding, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, the list goes on. You can even expect to see a fire tornado. Poor Ray is stuck right in the middle of it all as he pursues the evil gang to rescue the girl (what game is complete without a damsel in distress?) while taking out enemy agents, saving people and avoiding debris that falls, flies, floats, rolls and.. burns? towards him.
The graphics look somewhere between "Good N64" and "Bad Game Cube", while at times surprising the viewer with sudden realism or intricate detail. All the disasters look genuinely life-threatening and there are some extremely creative levels. One sees you driving down a winding mountain road as lava approaches from all sides. Flying rocks pelt the pavement all around you and roll across the road, demolish nearby buildings as you speed past the ensuing explosion and knock gigantic pitfall holes into a bridge as you cross it. The acting on the most part is quite good for a videogame, though the script is at times humorously bad, just like the action movies it pays homage to. There's something magical about seeing Ray scarf down a hamburger the size of his head in three quick bites, and then mutter "Mm, delicious!", especially when there are cars bursting into flames around him or he's up to his neck in floodwater. The music is exciting, emotional and extremely cool - check out the main theme at [link] and the sound effects do their job. As far as gameplay goes, the action is divided between genres quite nicely. One minute you're furiously pumping your arms up and down as you outrun an enormous tidal wave on foot, the next you're carefully pinpointing your headshot aiming against an army of foes in a collapsing building. The controls have their occasional quirks. Ray stumbles a little if you perform a quick 180 turn and expect to go bolting off in the other direction immediately, and in the shooting stages, taking cover while halfway through reloading your weapon will cancel the action - though it's probably better to do the reloading while hiding from your enemies anyway - and the jumping is occasionally a little clumsy, but most of the time things are responsive enough. I just got through my fourth main playthrough, as there are three difficulty settings and a bunch of bonus challenges and secret items to collect, and I've still got two titles (a list of rewards like in Smash Bros Melee, or achievements on 360 games) left to obtain before my file is complete.
Not my favourite game on the Wii, but I have to say it's some of the most fun I've had since Mario Galaxy - possibly ever. If you live in the USA, this is a game worth importing, or even getting a PAL console for. Everything is ludicrously over the top, dramatically epic, and it's purely wonderful to experience.