Its worth the attention of most Wii owners. (DETAILED REVIEW)
1. The story starts with a kid named Kai who was about to go to sleep and his father reads him a story about these mysterious creatures called Elebits (aka; Eledees) which are the source of energy, somehow, he ends up having a beam gun and its his mission to collect all these little cute creatures who are spread all over the place using the gun, the story isn't especially engaging, its kinda there. In order to the move the story along, the game uses some stop animation clips, the drawings are just beautiful, and it'll make you want to watch more, unfortunately, there is only a handful of these clips, and they are accompanied by some mediocre voice acting that somewhat spoils the experience. Since this isn't an RPG, the story doesn't do much harm as you would think, and you will care less and less as you proceed, at least at the very end there is a nice twist, make sure you re-watch the intro clip again after finishing the game to understand the whole point, you can do so in the Extra mode, there is a really cool CG animation clip as well, and I wish if konami did more of these. Story-wise (6/10).
2. Visuals & Presentation: The game looked generally good and very fitting to the Wii, the graphics looked solid for a Wii launch title. As for the style, well, as mentioned it's cute, and I think Konami managed to successfully deliver that cuteness without abusing it. The frame rate is mostly solid considering the amount of chaos that occurs at any given time. However, things can go a bit rough from time to time, but thankfully its not the frequent to the point that will make the game unplayable. The presentation is solid, the user interface is nicely designed, it is user friendly to a great deal. As far as visuals go, I believe elebits doesn't disappoint. (8/10)
3. Gameplay: This is where its all about, if you are the type of person who loves in-game physics and tossing things around like a maniac (just like me), then you will love this game. The physics is very robust, and ties well into the game theme, you will be trying to find these little pesky elebits all over the place, and in order to do so, you'll need to move objects around, and collect a certain amount of them before time runs out, there are also a lot of cool power ups, my favorite has to be to the vacuum machine power up where you suck almost everything in sight, while your elebits meter fills up in no time. you will use the nunchuk for movement, and aim with wii remote, just like any standard Wii shooter.The controls are solid for the most part, however, you might need a steady hand, and a bit of knowledge in first person shooters, otherwise, the learning curve will rise sharply, almost to the point of frustration. There are also some quirky moments where the physics will be a bit weird, and in some rare occasions where the controls won't be as responsive. But because I know my FPS, I found this game very enjoyable. You also need to make sure that you are standing in a very suitable angle and your gaming place doesn't have any weird lighting setups because this game is entirely based on the pointer functionality, so if you're setup is not well prepared, this game might well be useless, consider fine tuning the wii's sensor bar settings in the Wii menu.
4. Audio: While the audio is not that sophisticated, I certainly enjoyed it, and it fits well into the tempo of the game. It is also worthy to note that almost if not all missions have their own sound track, which certainly makes things feel fresh, you can also choose which track to play before playing the stage, which is a neat feature especially if you are tired of a certain track after repeating the same level again and again. The sound effects are probably even better than the sound tracks, I especially liked the sound effect that involves silencing the background music when getting a certain power up. All in all, it delivers in audio as much as it delivers in video. (8.5/10)
5. Value & Lasting Appeal: This is where the game falls short, I've spent 17 hours playing the game, but only because I got stuck in 28th or so mission, which happens to be the toughest of all - I recommend to check the FAQs to finish it- , otherwise, if you are a skilled first person shooter player, you can finish all 30 missions or so in just over 5 hours, provided you don't repeat missions a lot, this is also because the game only gets challenging for experienced gamers at the very last missions only. However, there is still more to it, you have a well rounded edit mode, where you can make your own stages and play them and send them to friends (I still didn't figure out how you can send levels), and the more objects you discover the more objects will be available to use in the edit mode, and there is also loads of unlockables. Also, the ability to take screenshots when playing in levels is neat feature, especially when you want to capture crazy moments. The game also includes a multiplayer mode up to 4 players simultaneously, which is quite unique, from what I tried, one player will control the camera and movements, whereas the rest of player have to focus on collecting the elebits, the objective of all 4 to collect as many elebits in the given time. It can get a bit unbalanced, but I think it can provide some good multiplayer action. I believe only one player will need the nunchuk , which is cool for gamers who only own one nunchuk but more than wii remote. In terms of replay value, the game has a lot of things to collect and whatnot, and certain levels have doors to unlock, so there is certainly room for replaying the missions, so it does have a somewhat decent replay value to its short main story mode. All in all, (7/10).
(Final Verdict):
The game can be frustrating for those who never played a first person shooter before, but it comes with a tutorial mode which should help reduce the learning curve. Otherwise, this is certainly a game worthy of your attention as a Wii owner, as you probably have heard, the Wii is all about innovation, and this game certainly delivers upon that theme, especially since there weren't that many Wii games that successfully delivered in the Wii launch lineup . It might be short, but most likely you'll enjoy it while it lasts, at the very least, give it a rent, especially if you're a loner just like me, a rental will be more than enough to beat this game in two sittings or three. By the time you read this, there will be many good Wii games out such as Super Mario Galaxy, so this game in no way will take the priority of the other better titles, but if you are done playing them, and are looking for some Wii games you might've missed, Elebits is certianly for you.
(For those gamers who agree, please rate this review, thanks)