by Joe Louis
Contributing Writer

I know that my body screams in agony, but the synthetic adrenaline injections keep it going regardless of how much it hurts. I hear the walls teeming with creatures and until my visor throws up a digitally enhanced view of the room around me, all that I can do is react to the sound. The temporal space between the door closes behind me and the systems on my suit gather information about my surroundings. Although this occurs in less than a rabbit’s heartbeat, it seems like an eternity because of my heightened biochemical levels that are spiraling out of control.

I raise my gun, which has been attached to my arm for so long that it is literally an extension of my body. I knew that I’d be giving my right hand

to be one of the greatest bounty hunters in the universe, but when I signed up and saw the blueprints for my body armor, I simply had to laugh at the irony. My visor flashes and the visible spectrum is amplified. I was wrong. It wasn’t teeming with creatures. Instead, there was only one huge, dragon-like creature flapping its wings, kicking up dust and debris all around me. It grabs me, crashing through the floor, dragging me down thousands of feet.

All I can do is shoot, and that’s what I’ve been designed for.

Nintendo Wii is the first great example of what an FPS on the system can be. The Wii Remote and Nunchuck lend themselves perfectly to intense action, creating a cross between classically styled controllers (movement), the PC (targeting) and a unique form of interaction that isn’t available on any other system. It is both fun and at times a little frustrating.

Graphically, the game is on the higher end of what you can expect on the Wii. The on-screen navigation through menus and switching between visual modes adds to an immersion effect that is mostly intuitive, but the inability to fully map the controls is detracting.

In an otherwise worthwhile game, it lacks in the same areas as all Wii games do, which is the lack of multiplayer mode over a network that even Metroid Prime on the Nintendo DS was capable of.

Shortcomings aside, the game is fun and worth playing. The first couple hours are great, but then it falls into predictable patterns. The game picks up again about two-thirds of the way through. I give the game an eight out of ten.