Impressions of Treasure's starry sequel from a shooter neophyte. http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=23021 My history with more complex shooters begins and ends with Goldeneye, mainly because I missed the dual-stick first-person shooter revolution. However, I have an intense fascination with shooting games that likely spawned in the same place it did for almost everyone: Duck Hunt. The simple shooting and the fact that the controller wasn't suffocating with buttons were extreme benefits that were magnified by the fact that the controller was shaped like a gun.
Nintendo definitely beckons memories of the NES Zapper with arcade-style shooters that require the Wii Remote to be pointed straight at the TV. True, it doesn't look like the Zapper, even when placed in the Wii Zapper, and its mechanics are different, but there's a certain nostalgia that Nintendo uses to remind players that it's all good and nostalgic. Sin and Punishment: Star Successor uses the Wii Remote attached to the Nunchuk in a similar fashion; The Wii Remote is used for aiming and shooting at enemies, while the joystick on the Nunchuk is used for moving your character around on screen. The progression through the level is on-rails, so there's no need for another control mechanism to distract a player from the point of the game: shooting as many enemies as possible and racking up a large multiplier. This style of game is most compared to, for me, House of the Dead: Overkill, where the game moves for you. However, Sin and Punishment: Star Successor also allows the player to dictate where the character moves to on screen.
While I didn't play as player one, I was able to watch the game being demonstrated and I have to say that it seemed to flow very organically and allowed the player time to take in what was happening on screen. Then, (Contributing Editor Neal Ronaghan) and I played the game, he as player one and I as player two. In this role, I was given just a Wii Remote – just the way I like it. I simply supplied another line of fire into the game and was able to help Neal in keeping up his multiplier even when he was under heavy attack. It's similar to the concept of co-op in Super Mario Galaxy, where the second player uses the Wii Remote to gather star bits, except instead of collecting bright colored stars, the player shoots enemies.
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is due out on June 27.
Topic: IMPRESSIONS: Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (Read 1330 times)
