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Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars Review

We rarely think twice about the life forms that we tread on during the course of our daily lives. However, thanks to Red Fly Studios' Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, Wii owners now have the chance to see what happens when the smallest among us (in this case mushrooms) are given the chance to walk, talk and use advanced weaponry to destroy anything that moves. In other words, be just like us. However, is this adventure one you'll want to bring in from the garden, or will you simply want to stomp it into mush?

Finish the Fungus

The story of Mushroom Men is one you've heard many times before. A meteor crashes to Earth, the resulting fragments bring plants to life and mutate animals, an evil band of mushrooms attempt to hoard pieces of the meteorite in order to take over the world, sparking a full-blown conflict known as the Spore Wars. You play as Pax, a bolete mushroom tasked with stopping the evil mushrooms and saving the world.

Ok, so the story isn't that typical, but the game wastes a lot of its concept and style points (just read that previous synopsis) by failing to capitalize on several opportunities to flesh out the story and create a really engaging and compelling narrative. Instead, what you get is a five-hour adventure that ironically never really gets more than a few inches off the ground, despite having plenty of chances to do so. The boss fights are uninspired and do nothing to advance the story. The two major character boss battles reveal a bit of back-story about the Spore Wars and some peripheral info, but there simply aren't enough pieces to create an interesting overall picture. Had there been a bit more substantial plot in the game that was then explained over a series of story-driven and meaningful boss fights, culminating in a thereby even more meaningful final boss showdown, the game would have been a fantastic ride. But the developers decided to keep things super simple and offer the promise of more explanations to come by obviously setting up for sequels.

The Fungi Stops Here

Once you get past the Psychonaut-y quirkiness of the game's presentation and design, the reality of the game's platforming mediocrity sets in, and it never really recovers. It makes sense that Pax should feel light given that he's a mushroom.  As a player, however, you still need that sense of grounding to make you feel comfortable while you're traversing perilous environments. While being able to float around by grabbing onto your capped head, again, seems logical, it makes for very imprecise landings, which means a lot of backtracking to get to high spots that aren't necessarily that easy to reach in the first place.

As a result, traversing the "massive" environments never feels as solid as it should, which is a real shame, because the environments themselves are quite impressive. One of the game's major strengths is that it transports you to places that are both familiar and alien, by letting you see them from a completely new perspective. Motorcycles become towering behemoths stretching several stories high, kitchens become expansive and elaborate landscapes filled with treacherous obstacles, soda bottles become full-fledged rocket ships, and so on. They might not always feel as organic as they should, but each of the levels offer unique challenges and create a convincing overall game world.

The size of the levels might sound intimidating, but thanks to Pax's trusty sticky rubber-hand, maneuvering around the massive spaces and reaching far away ledges, platforms and objects is a snap. The hand adds some welcomed variety to the stale platforming by expanding the game space, but even it suffers from the overall poor platforming design. For example, when you pull yourself to an object or ledge, you're usually stuck to the side of that object, which means you have to quickly hit the jump button in order to reach the desired platform overhead. Sometimes, the jump button simply doesn't respond, which means you'll likely fall all the way back to the ground and have to try again. If you do manage to jump, you won't always be able to see where you're landing, since you have to control the clumsy camera with the D-pad and maneuver Pax with the thumbstick. When you only have a split second to position yourself for a landing, the last thing you want is for the camera to get in the way, but that's exactly what it does on a consistent basis throughout the game.

The camera also turns the bland combat into bland and annoying combat by making fights with several enemies at once far more frustrating than it should be. Don't be surprised if you find yourself staring and the ceiling or the ground during a lot of the fights as you try to maintain a balanced perspective while frenziedly flailing the Wiimote. And prepare to flail a lot, since all of the combat is handled this way. Fortunately, most fights don't last that long, thanks to the numerous high-powered and handmade weapons at your disposal.

Mushrooms, McGyver. McGyver, Mushrooms.

All of the weapons in the game are made by combining various objects that you collect over the course of your adventure (tape, a thimble, a PDA pointer, a corn holder, bottle caps, etc.). Most of the items can be found without much exploring, but there are a few that you'll have to work to find, which adds a fair amount of incentive for the item-whores out there. The system works well and makes sense in the context of the narrative, but it isn't balanced very well. Because the weapons get incrementally more powerful, you'll pretty much only use the newest weapon you've built and never go back to the previous ones. Since the combat never really poses a challenge, getting your hands on even a semi-powerful weapon turns the combat into more of a chore than anything. The developers could easily have avoided these issues by tying specific weapons to specific puzzles throughout the game, which in turn would have added yet another much-needed layer to the platforming.

When you aren't bludgeoning enemies to death with your bottle cap mace, you'll be using Pax's telekinesis powers to solve a few puzzles and interact with environments. Hovering the Wiimote cursor over glowing objects lets you manipulate them by either sliding them from one point to another or simply picking them up. This might sound fun, but it ends up being more gimmicky than anything. The few instances where you use telekinesis to move switches or remove obstacles from your path are surprisingly uninspired, especially given the game's inventive premise, stylish presentation and overall willingness to be weird and creative.

Fellow Portobellos Unite!

The game's "multiplayer/co-op" mode is so lame and unnecessary that it really doesn't even deserve to be discussed, but for the sake of completeness, here you go. Rather than being able to jump in and battle alongside a fellow bolete buddy, all the second player can do is control a second on-screen Wiimote cursor and use telekinesis to activate platforms and interact with objects.  Even if you feel like delegating telekinesis control to a friend, the whole thing just turns into a frustrating mess for you and one of the most boring experiences imaginable for your friend. It's a complete waste of time, and like many of the game's semi-realized ideas, it either needed to be developed a lot more or simply removed from the game entirely.

'Shroom for Improvement

Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars is easily one of the most original games to come along in a while. It has tons of style, a unique vision and all the makings of a wildly entertaining little franchise. Sadly, its first effort on the Wii isn't disappointing thanks to sloppy platforming, poor camera controls, and lack of any real innovation in terms of gameplay. No one is a bigger proponent of inventive design, stylistic presentation and quirky narratives than I am, but at the end of the day, I have to want to play the game. Unfortunately, Mushroom Men needed just a bit more time to ripen before it was sent to market.

Article By: Jake Gaskill