Swords Impressions

While many weapons-based combat games look for a strict setting--medieval Europe or feudal Japan being common--Swords is taking a different approach: Everything and everything. Developed by Panic Button, known for its wacky party game Go Play Lumberjack, Swords is a fighting game published by Majesco.

The story takes place outside time and space as you take control of a young hero. Enemy opposition includes Viking warriors, royal knights, cursed samurai, modern-day punk rockers, and robotic aliens. Similar to the Punch-Out series, the game is played from a behind perspective--the player character transparent to easily meet the enemies’ various attacks. The Wii Remote is used alone to simulate horizontal and vertical slashes. Additionally, while parrying is a good technique for guarding against enemy swings, the foes can also launch projectiles, such as throwing axes or fireballs. In these cases, the remote is instead pointed at the screen and used to zap the missile weapons into nothingness.

Although there is a large array of challenging adversaries, none of these additional characters are playable. Even in two-player split-screen versus mode, both players are given generic heroes to duel with. This is a tad disconcerting, because several of the enemies would have been interesting to control. However, you can further customize your settings by purchasing and equipping various blades. Some of these weapons have added traits, such as bonus defense or poison strike.

There aren’t just one-on-one duels. Swords will include additional combat modes, such as surviving waves of zombie hordes, destroying items for bonus points, and practice sparring with allies.

We’ll take a closer look at Swords when it's released in September for the Wii.