Hands-on preview / Mushroom Men (Wii, DS)

Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars (Wii)
While the version of Mushroom Men shown to That VideoGame Blog during our Gamecock visit was a very early build, and it understandably had many bugs, texture problems and frame rate problems, it was still very impressive, specially given the amount of time still left in the development process.
While Gamecock couldn’t disclose many details, the storyline revolves around a comet that passes close to Earth and leaves a rain of green dust that makes plants and animals gain consciousness, thus creating humanoid mushroom who have to fight for their lives against attacks from evil rabbits and other animals.
The levels are enormous and players are free to roam through them. Given the minuscule size of the main character, just climbing a chair or a table could prove quite a challenge. Luckily, the hero has a sticky hand, which is one of the characters major tools, and it allows him to reach far places.
Besides the sticky hand, players will be able to create a large amount of weapons by using several objects such as toothpicks, safety pins, an exacto knife and even a DS stylus. The weapon creation plays a major role in the game and seems to be quite addicting to scavenger for new weapon materials.


And while there is plenty of combact, puzzles are a big part of the game, which in many ways is very reminiscent of GameCube’s Chibi-Robo!, except for the graphics. Mushroom Men‘s art direction is spectacular, and it’s obvious developer Red Fly Studio has spent a good amount of time perfecting it. The color palette, at least for the level shown has very dark tones, and the graphics are truly impressive for a Wii game.
The game’s development seems to be on the right track, and hopefully Gamecock will be able to give the press some hands-on time with the game before its forth quarter release window.