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 Post subject: Wii - Eledees (aka Elebits)
PostPosted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:12 pm 
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Joined: Sat May 10, 2008 11:51 pm
Posts: 18622
Location: Bradford, UK
XBL Gamertag: Blokeh
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Wii system code: 2445-8086-3386-0718
Eledees (aka: Elebits in US/CA)
Nintendo Wii
1-4 players
Ages 3+

So I took Mero’s advice and paid a visit to Argos in town. 2 Wii games for £20, quite a peachy deal. I ended up grabbing a copy of Dewy’s Adventure (review to come) and Eledees (known elsewhere as Elebits). A twin pack of Konami goodness for the same price as most single games? Nice. I’d been after Eledees for a while, but never got around to buying it. After a day’s worth of playing it, I can honestly say that while I got a sweet deal, I’m glad I didn’t pay full price for it.

So what is it about? Well, the story leaves a lot to be desired: you play Kai, a young boy whose scientist parents are so fascinated by these creatures called “Eledees” that he is somewhat jealous of the attention they receive. The Eledees are small creatures that power the towns’ TVs, fridges, aircon systems, everything. One night, the power in the town goes out, and, Kai is left alone while his parents investigate. Picking up his father’s trust Capture Gun, he sets off to capture the Eledees and restore the power so he can watch his favourite TV show. And that’s that really.

From the first time you see the menu, it’s obvious that Konami have aimed this game at the younger audience. Bright colours, bouncy music, it’s all there. When you start the game, I highly recommend doing the tutorials first. Sure, it’ll take up about 30 minutes of gametime, but it’ll explain A LOT. Once complete, you jump into the game fully and start capturing Eledees. And this is where it gets weird….

This game seems to be set in the MySims world, take the control method from Metroid Prime 3 Corruption, and throw in the Gravity Gun from Half Life 2. Seriously. That is the only way I can describe it. You move from room to room capturing these Eledees and using them to restore power to your house. You have a set amount of watts to reach in each level, and to make matters worse, you have to do this with a time limit.

You start off in your darkened bedroom and you can see a couple of these little Eledees snoozing around the place. Zap them with your Capture Gun and they get sucked up and begin to power up the house. Once you reach a certain level of wattage, the lights come on. The more you power up the house, the more electrical items in the house become available, such as TVs and PCs and toy robots. Activate these, and they throw out “Super Eledees”. These add to your wattage but also power up your Capture Gun. Level it up and its power increases. At first you can only use the Capture Gun to move light items, but level it up enough and you can use it to lift up beds, throw wardrobes around the house and more. Moving these items means you can capture the Eledees underneath. Before you know it, your bedroom resembles a bombsite, which can be a hindrance in some levels. For instance, once the microwave becomes active, you have to place food in it to start it going. However, by this time, the kitchen resembles downtown Baghdad, and you have no idea what’s meant to go in there. Time to restart the level. But once you reach the required watts, you move on to the next level.

And that’s essentially it. For the entire game. Oh sure, there are secrets to unlock, but these are nothing more than new ways to play the level you just cleared. You can unlock time trials, eternity mode (where you can play the level without a time limit) and edit mode which is self explanatory. As you delve deeper into the game, new “objectives” are introduced. In the kitchen, you have to be as quiet as possible, failure occuring when your decibel meter reaches the top. In the hallway/landing, you must complete the level with no more than 8 broken items. Considering that you’ll have so much fun throwing pots and pans around the place, this can sometimes be a pain. Boss battles require you to wear down your opponent by either throwing stuff at them, or literally picking them up and bouncing them off the walls. Another nice feature is the ability to take photos mid-game and send them to people on your Wii Address Book. You can also do this with levels you have created yourself, and no friend codes needed!

Multiplayer mode pits you and up to 3 friends in a race to gather as much wattage as you can. While it is a nice diversion from the single player game, all it is is a glorified multiplayer version of Duck Hunt, but not as fun.

The condition of the Eledee also dictates how much wattage they supply. If they’re snoozing, you get more wattage than normal, if they’re just wandering about, you’ll get normal wattage, and if they’re running around scared, you get less than normal wattage. You can tell their state just by looking at them, and when you zap them the colour of their bubble will also show their state.

Graphically, Eledees is something you would expect to see on a PS2 or regular Xbox – good, but not next-gen quality. There are a few nice touches and effects scattered thoughout, as well as a funky physics engine constantly at work, but very occasionally when you’re throwing stuff left right and centre and you uncover a whole horde of Eledees, you get a spot of slowdown, but nothing too drastic. Once the lights come on you get hit with an array of bright colours which might have you reaching for the contrast control on your TV, but luckily this isn’t every level.

The sound effects in the game are a bit hit and miss. Throw a cardboard box at a wall and it makes the noise you would expect. However, throwing a TV at the wall just makes a small “thud” noise. The music is also so-so. The menu tunes are bouncy and, well, kiddy, but in-game, you will barely notice them.

So is Eledees worth buying? Well, yes and no. If you can pick it up cheap enough, or as part of a well-priced bundle, then I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun with it for a few hours. There’s just not enough gameplay or replayability to warrant paying full price.


Ratings
Graphics: B
Sounds: B
Gameplay: B
Replayability: C

Overall score: B-

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