Godzilla: Unleashed for the Wii is perhaps the most misunderstood and underrated game in the Wii's entire library.
This game looks fantastic, and is easily one of the best looking games on the Wii. The monsters and environments look fantastic, and the added "disaster" looks to the cities help the overall look, which is very pleasing to the eye. My only complaint is that some of the bigger collapsed buildings leave very little rubble on the ground. Other than that, the details are amazing, and even the smallest ones help to pull off an overall awesome presentation.
Controls:
The controls for GU are hard to get a hold of. This has been said before, many times, and it bares repeating: this is NOT a pick-up-and-play game. You will literally be playing for days until you truly "get" the controls. But, that aside, this game is great with motion controls. Executing layered attacks feels great, and the aiming, while a bit odd, works well. All of this control over your monster may seem overwhelming at first, but once you master the controls, it becomes second nature.
Story mode:
Ok, first off, yes, the actual story is pretty meh, and the voice acting isn't top-notch. However, the story mode itself is very fun. Each stage gives you a few options to choose from, such as defeating your enemies, destroying power crystals, etc. Normally, you'd think "boy this is lame." But, every action you make has a reaction, which can vary greatly. For example, if you're an Earth defender and suddenly choose to backstab your allies by gaining power surges and going Critical Mass, they won't have any problems about teaming up and taking out the traitor, YOU. Another would be if you're and Alien and choose to take down the Mothership. The Aliens and their monsters will come at you with an unrivaled fury. Depending on you're actions, you'll team up with varying monsters, as well as change the outcome of the story. Whatever you decide to do, you can do it. Just be wary of the consequences.
Audio:
The audio in GU is really something. The music, created by Heavy Melody, really does the game justice, and furthers it's darker feel. Each monster has it's own theme to go with it, and HM did a nice job at creating themes that really fit the monsters. Each faction even has it's own style of music. For example, the GDF mechs each have a varied guitar theme, for that "heavy metal" feel. The ED's have more mystical, but epic themes. And, as far as monster roars go, Atari/pipeworks did a great job. The monsters (for the most part) have their signiture roars, and varying versions of them for whatever mood their in. My only complaints are 1) that the sound effects for attacks are mostly recycled from STE, and can get a bit old. And, 2) some monsters are missing their signiture roars/rarely use them. Mechagodzilla and Destoroyah being the prime examples. MG is missing his screech roar, and yet Kiryu uses it in his victory stance. Des, on the other hand, never uses the roar he used in GvsD, and instead, is stuck with one, constantly repeating, roar.
Computor AI:
The AI in this game is a real disappointment. I'm not kidding. If you've mastered the controls, you're essentially unbeatable, even on Hard mode. The AI is a step-down from STE; instead of coming at you with a mind to kill, they merely just circle around you while Bracing. They only seem to attack when they get behind you, and they will ALWAYS simply rush into you. They don't even seem to know about the power-ups. They never try going CM either, and if they do, its on accident. One time, I was fighting Gigan in Brawl mode. After nearly 50 seconds of circling me, he just lost interest and starting attacking a building. WTF? Oh, and thats not all. Why is it whenever I do a swing attack (wiimote swing + button), they ALWAYS dodge by jumping backwards? That gets annoying FAST. But, this situation is rare. They AI will usually fight you if you fight them, but this little quirk is annoying.
Overall:
Godzilla: Unleashed is a good game, simply put. The controls are great once you get them down, the graphics are above and beyond the previous games, the story mode is very fun, the audio is great (especially the music), and it all adds up to one very enjoyable game. But, I'm not going to lie, they're quite a few bugs, glitches, and faults in this game. The bugs/glitches, while not effecting gameplay much, are still present and should have been fixed. Many of these are minimal, but honestly, they shouldn't be in there at all. Probably the biggest glitches are Kiryu's Absolute Zero Cannon (the aiming is directed at the ground), Mechagodzilla 1 being unable to use Power surges in story mode (this is just inexcusable), the aiming of Megalon's beam (say what you want, but this thing will NOT hit the target unless you're fighting Biollante. The aiming won't work manually for him either) and, of course, when the game locks up and restarts; this usually involves certain events (the Tyrant mission) and monsters (Mothra and Megaguirus). Although, in my 40 hours of gameplay, this has only happened twice. Still, these should have been caught and fixed, and there is no reason to have missed them. They bring down the overall experiance, in a nutshell.
The biggest issue is probably one that we're all too familiar with: the lack of online play. Ok, don't get me wrong, this is a very fun game. But, without online play, the game's replayability is crippled. It's much more fun playing with friends online then it is playing with the computor, honestly. Voice chat, in my opinion, is nothing more than added luxuray for online games. An extra bonus, if you will. We don't NEED voice chat. Besides, they're only so many times you can play story mode until you say "Ok, this is getting old."
So, in conclusion, this is a great game, and easily the best Godzilla game yet. I just feel that it didn't reach it's potential. It's good, but it could've been better. So, again, my overall score is 8/10.
Thanks for reading.