Godzilla Unleashed

Rating Everyone Genre action Publisher Atari External Links Official Godzilla Unleashed Website

If you’re anything like me, you’ll pick up the case for Godzilla: Unleashed and think: “Sweet! Another game like Rampage!” And hopefully if you’re smart, you’ll head to Blockbuster or get on Gamefly and rent it instead of buy it, because as soon as you stick the disc in your Wii and give it a whirl you’ll be sorely disappointed. Atari has kicked out a few different Godzilla games over the years, and this has to be one of the most disappointing of them all. With the power of the Wii, and the endless possibilities of intuitive control using the Wiimote, Atari and Pipeworks could have done so much more.

Here is your play-by-play breakdown:

Giant crystals land on earth (conveniently on Monster Island) and start driving the monsters crazy. As an Earth-defending monster, you’ll travel around the globe to battle giant baddies and destroy crystals. Oh, and stop a random army guy from killing you. This took me about four hours, all of which I could have back. As you go you are given store points, which you can use to unlock new monsters. Ideally, the more times you play through the campaign the more you can get. But that’s really the only motivating factor, seeing as the campaigns are bland.

Push and hold a button, then swing the Wiimote around. You’ll need a nunchuck for each Wiimote used. You can use powered-up breath attacks, but the aim is practically non-existent. However, you can continually recharge by button mashing, giving you about 20 or 30 seconds of attack. You can smash the environment, but there really isn’t all that much you can do aside from that. Some rocks, little objects, and of course those random crystals. I have to admit, though, that picking up stuff and throwing it around is amusing.

The game looks nice, and does a decent job of utilizing the Wii’s power. The fiery breath attacks, rockets, and rays are bright and have great color. Cityscapes look realistic, at least when the camera zooms out. The sound, however, is horrendous. The voice-overs are terrible. Even the Japanese voice-acting is bad, which is what I opted for. The sad thing is that I could tell it was bad and I don’t know Japanese at all! The music is bland and repetitious. The monster sounds are all there from what I can tell, and at least those seemed true to form.

Monster Island is your first venue, where you take the role of Godzilla, freeing the other Earth Defending monsters and fight baddies that have been juiced up by the crystals. You smash stuff, break crystals, and beat up baddies. Next level: same story, new location. The camera is out of your control, the monsters your release are CPU controlled and terribly inconsistent. You can actually get away with doing nothing, so long as the CPU-controlled monsters beat the baddie. Even if you die you can advance to the next level. No one can kill Godzilla!

So after the long of it, here is the short of it: save your $49.99 MSRP for something else, like a second controller for Guitar Hero III or the new Metroid. If you’re just dying to be Godzilla, it would be a decent rental.