After a meteorite crash-landed on Earth, scientists told us all was well. But science was wrong. Four mushroom tribes were brought to life and civil war was exploded beneath our feet. Play as Pax, a mushroom misfit unlike any other. Fight your way through every day human environments, all from a 3-inch high perspective. Along your incredible adventure you'll encounter the likes of crazy kung-fu Shiitakes, evil poisonous Lepiotas, angry moles, mad rabbits and viciously cruel cacti...

Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is a 3D platform game that attempts to breathe new life into the tried and trusted genre. While the end result is fun there's very little in the way of originality here and it's only really going to appeal to those who love platform games.

The game play is fairly straightforward. You must run around the levels attacking enemies and collecting useful items - some of which can be used to build bigger and better weapons. You can also use your Sporekinesis powers to move objects to reach new areas, or throw objects at your enemies.

This game would probably have faired better on Xbox 360 / PS3. The control system on the Wii, as with most games, is a bit of a nightmare. Using the Wii controller and Nunchuk is a pain and really detracts from the gaming experience. The Wii is only really any good for games that are specifically designed for the Wii's rather cumbersome control limitations like Wii Sports, Wii Fit and and Mario Kart. For playing games like Mushroom Men it makes the entire process a bit of a chore.

To be fair the developers have tried to push the limited control system, but there's only so much you can do with it. I didn't really find it that much fun to simply move the controller sharply in order to hit an enemy, and using the camera controls was also a bit of pain, as it uses the Wii controllers cursor buttons.

The old problem of poor camera angles raises its ugly head once again. There's nothing quite like not being able to see what your supposed to be doing, or becoming confused about which direction you're supposed to be heading in - although a handy line of signposts are dotted along your path to show you which way to go.

The graphics are large, bright and colourful and the sound and music are above average.

All in all Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is not a bad game - but those who are hardcore fans of the genre will be hard pushed to find anything they've not already seen elsewhere.

7

Nick Smithson