Wow, been a while since we’ve seen this one and my how things have changed. What was once hailed as a humorous, action filled “Saturday morning cartoon” experience–complete with cliff-hanger commercial mini-games–has turned into more of a Friday night special. Compared to the original trailer its like watching the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and then watching the new TMNT CGI movie. Not necessarily a bad thing, just surprising that’s all. I mean hey, who can complain that Clandestine has new implants. That’s right! We just mixed cartoons and breasticles people!

If the trailer represents the whole Spyborg team then this new look has cost them a few players. The “world’s greatest cybernetic assault team” has cut both of the hip young characters Kinetic and Voxel, so no hover boarding or working the turn tables with mad skills. Originally the team dynamic was expanded and players would alternate between which two characters were being used. This would fit in with the cartoon theme of telling the story through multiple viewpoints or smaller adventures that happen at the same time. Stages were also going to be built with certain characters/skill-sets in mind, which now doesn’t seem as likely.

Obviously we can’t draw any concrete conclusions from the trailer and the new factsheet we were delivered, but everything points to a more action-packed and perhaps a little less humor filled title. With how many people complained last year we understand the move, but a game that was supposed to feel like playing a Saturday morning cartoon made Spyborgs really stand out. We hope the new direction doesn’t completely turn away from that (actually we just want to play that banjo playing/fish singing in a sewer commercial mini-game). However, word was that they were working with the Wii MotionPlus, so lets cross our collective cartoon loving fingers that this new direction still includes some promising gameplay–in the end, that’s what really matters anyway, right?