Fun, great musical score and still enjoyable today, but is this victory short lived?
To begin, let me give you a basic overview of the story. Wild 9 is a bog standard platforming game with a little on the side. You control Wex, and it is Wex's job to go from each planet (level) to save his friends (the aptly named Wild 9) from the evil clutches of intergalactic baddie, Karn. And seriously, that is all I can tell you. The instruction manual gives you a brief bit of information on each of the characters you encounter, but this game is not really story driven whatsoever.
Wex's main weapon is a type of plasma lasso thing called the "Rig", that players use to grab onto enemies, and either slam them on the ground enough times until they die, or to throw them into traps such as grinders, giant propellers that decapitate them, water so they drown, things that squish them and so on. When an enemy is killed in the former manner, they release energy. Collecting energy serves the purpose of increasing the duration the Rig can be sustained for, and if you collect enough it powers up the Rig, meaning it will change colour from blue to red, and make a different noise when you active it. And that's it. It is completely possible to complete each level and even the game without powering up the Rig once, and considering the only bonus is an extended time period at which you can hold enemies whilst you decide how you are going to kill them, I would not recommend going out of your way.
Other weapons include grenades and missiles, which both can kill a standard enemy in one hit, so such methods may become more preferable to the Neanderthal-like bashing that the Rig offers. Enemies mainly consist of alien robot type beings that shoot their head at you. Each level differs in their model and exactly HOW their head shoots at you, but it remains pretty much the same. They all use the same sound effects for screaming, moaning, burning and the noise it makes when you throw them onto a surface. The game features a handful of boss battles, which are pretty easy and require little effort to figure out and defeat.
The In game HUD is, sadly, very vague. During the course of most levels, you have the chance to collect 'gears', to which there are 99 in each level. The gears have no other purpose in game than to award you with a continue at the end of the level, IF you managed to collect all 99. This is easy in the first few levels, but believe me, if you miss one and cant get it back, then just give up. The latter levels expand a bit and can become quite big, making gears harder to find, but since the games overall difficulty is quite low, I do not think you will be dying for extra continues (get it?). One feature which I have never profited from is also found at the end of each level. The 'Torture meter' is the games way of calculating exactly how merciless you were when dealing with your foes, and ONLY if you score 100% are you awarded, with what I must assume is, another continue. Seriously, I have no idea how this is calculated and not once have I ever made it! The instruction book makes no mention of it at all, so I am left feeling this is just a half-arsed attempt from the developing team to try and make audiences feel that killing and torturing is only worth rewarding if it is comparable to that of a psychopath. Moving on...
Tommy Tallarico Studios did an excellent job on the audio for Wild 9. I popped the game disc into my PC and ripped the songs because they are so good (oddly enough, I am listening to it right now as I do this review). The music sets the scene brilliantly for each level and setting; Gulag (level 2) is a grungy metal score set in an industrialised planet. Drench (level 7) is a soft ambient score that suits perfectly to the soft and deadly tone of a toxic, yet almost peaceful, plant-jungle type setting. The same applies to all of the other levels, so musically this gets a big tick from me. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the sound effects, as I briefly mentioned above. The voice acting, though reasonably clear in clarity, is repetitive, over used and the general SFX is generic. Every time Wex finds a grenade or missile, he joyfully proclaims "Wexcellent", "That's cool" or "Oh I'll take that". Though charming at first, the constant over use of the same catchphrases does run dry, and since using these types of weapons is a must in order to remove tedious minutes of banging your enemies, you will find them repetitive and annoying.
Even though there is a huge focus on killing your enemies in gruesome ways, you never really feel like you are doing anything wrong. The cartoony and light-hearted humour of the game, coupled with clunky pixelated graphics, removes any real moral connection you may feel towards the enemies, so throwing them into a grinder and watching them turn into a fog of green blood does not provoke any sub-concious serial killer instinct within the player. Wex, on the other hand, being the most human character in the game, does not die in any gruesome way. Perhaps game developers did not want to risk having a higher age rating on the game by having its hero die as graphically as the countless enemies he slays. Comically, if you stand under one of the machines which randomly generates enemies, upon your release you will find Wex trapped in what looks like a tin of beans (actually labelled "Can of Wex", with his face just below). Though it counts as losing as life, I found this very funny the first time, especially to hear him banging whilst trapped, saying "Let me out of here!". Clearly this is a game that does not take itself so seriously, and that's why in many respects I love playing it.
Gameplay wise, Wild 9 is not perfect. The controls seem a bit heavy at times, and jumping can be a gamble. Being a platform game, there should be no excuse why jumping is a main fault. I'm sorry to say that one word that did creep into my head a lot whilst playing this game was 'inconsistent'. Some jumps can be made first time, others it will take multiple tries, sometimes jumping on an enemy as a stepping stone is safe, other times you may find yourself fall just short of the mark, and get hurt. This does not make the game more difficult, just annoying. The game feels rushed at times in this respect, and I feel that more could have been done to just tidy it up.
You may be curious as to why I have given Wild 9 a 7.5, I have done a lot of complaining and not really summed up what is good about the game. Well, you see, that's because for all its faults, its still a damn good game to play. Though very short, and can probably be completed in a few hours, its still an experience to behold and have fun with. Its the type of game that you play one rainy afternoon, complete, put back on the shelf, and then a year later bring it back out for an annual fix. It has zero replay value once you have completed it the first time, but there is just something so charming about it that could easily see you back into it after you've been apart. Its a game that you can pick up and play, laugh at, and have fun with, without getting bogged down with too much detail and speculation. Wild 9 is most certainly a guilty pleasure, and whilst not perfect, its definitely worth a try out. If you see this game going cheap, then I highly recommend you buy it, because these are a few hours you wont find yourself wishing you had back.
Trodler