Nintendo fans: support these kinds of games!
Story of Deadly Creatures is interesting, yet very simple. George Struggs and Wade are looking for a location in the Sonoran desert in the US where they believe a large amount of gold from the American Civil War has been buried. What's different here is that the story is told through in-game cutscenes from the point of view of both the tarantula and the scorpion. Game consists of 10 different chapters and 5 of them are played as a tarantula and those other 5 as a scorpion. Unfortunately there doesn't seem that much in common between these chapters except that they both lead to that same lone gas station in the middle of a Sonoran desert.
CONTROLLING THE BUGS
Controls work just fine most of the time. Analog stick in the Nunchuck is used to move the bug and those main attacks and defence moves are wisely placed to the buttons. Motion controls and the Wii pointer functionalities are reserved to special attacks and brutal finishing moves. Tarantula is faster and can jump around, but it can't block. Scorpion is more like a tank, who is very good in fighting, but it can't jump and is not as agile as tarantula. My favourite is the tarantula, because navigating through the environments is easier with it. Camera works most of the time, but sometimes it can be a little too hard to tell where you are going.
Graphics are heavily brown oriented and the environments lack detail. On the other hand levels are cleverly designed and the modelling of bugs is very good. Every now and then there are loading times in weird places and the actual loading screens are just as long for them to start irritate you.
Music creates a western mood mixed in classic horror movies, because let's face it: tarantulas and scorpions are creepy. Only downside is that there should be more songs, since the melodies are starting to loop around fifth chapter of the game. Sound effects are over the top and at times the sound of a lizard is like a bear or an angry lion. On the other hand it creates a certain amount of weight to battles and I would assume that a tarantula would experience a lizard in a different way when compared to a human.
THIRD PERSON ACTION GAME WITH RPG ELEMENTS
As I already stated Deadly Creatures is a third person, quite linear, action game divided into 10 chapters. Major part is navigating through the environments, solving light puzzles and fighting: lots of fighting. Up to a certain degree combat can be managed via button mashing, but most of the time you will need to think and adopt a certain amount of strategy.
There are also some light RPG elements involved, because both the tarantula and the scorpion gain more health, more powerful attacks and new moves as they progress. This evolution happens by eating larva and plant-lice. New moves come in a regular pace, which is just frequent enough for you to learn the previous move, but not enough time to get a feeling of repetition.
BACKTRACKING
Save system uses certain locations, where you can save as often as you like. There are too few of them, so especially towards the end of the game it's wise to backtrack every now and then just to save your progress.
It takes around 8 to 10 hours to play through the game and there's not much reason to go back to it. There's also no multiplayer what so ever. Still Deadly Creatures is a fine example of a third party game that Nintendo fans should be supporting. Go buy it now.