mattstockton12
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Gah...40 hours? I've yet to find a game that I didn't get tired of after 25 to 30 hours.
The game looks pretty cool though.
The game looks pretty cool though.
Not since Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem on GameCube have we demanded that readers purchase a videogame, but the time has come (again) for us to take a stand. Capcom has a fantastic point-and-click puzzle-adventure on its hands. It's clever. It's difficult. It will make you think. It's also beautiful, perfectly capitalizing on Wii's strengths.
The E3 demo of Capcom's Zack & Wiki: Quest For Barbaros' Treasure was a much more fleshed-out affair than what was shown at Capcom's Spring Gamers Day. It also happened to be a much more awesome affair, with an expanded set of playable locations showing off the puzzle adventure game's more diverse, non-jungle environments. I played through to completion one of the game's lava filled levels, tasked with putting out a series of fires to reclaim the room's haunted treasure, a piece of Barbaros' golden armor. How awesome was it? So awesome.
There are some frustrations that one may come across, but Capcom has largely remedied that by making the game fun, the load times short, and the attempts to retrying to finish much more palatable. It took me three attempts to make my way through the level, as the game suffers from/features trial and error attempts to unravel each level's series of puzzles. Presented with a water bottle and flowing water, I hurried back to the empty fountain vessel. That was wrong, I later discovered, as a hard hat apparently holds much more liquid.
Fortunately, Capcom's dev team has decided to reward players with getting it right the first time, giving them bonus points for a job done well and done the first time. You'll probably want to play through it a second time, just to perfect your score. The trial and dying frustration from early builds has been addressed as mulligan tickets will give you an opportunity to revive the your character.
There's a kind of playful atmosphere and cartoony logic that makes Zack & Wiki so—and I'm using this not insincerely, not in some gag-worthy way—charming. I longed for the opportunity to play it again, with a group of backseat gamers to help me through the tasks. It's really quite good.
Oops. I meant awesome.
August 7, 2007 - Capcom doesn't want us to show you any screenshot or movie spoilers for its upcoming Wii adventure title, Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure. We can understand why - this is a game, after all, whose main challenge is simply to figure out the method to completing each of its many stages, all of them presenting unique hurdles. As much as we've maintained that it would be worth sacrificing a single level in order to demonstrate just how clever and rewarding the adventure is, the studio isn't having it. But it has at least let us pull back the curtain, even if just a little bit, to show you some direct-feed movies and screenshots taken directly from some of the puzzle-heavy environments that Z&W traverse in search of treasure.
Today, we've posted almost 20 new screenshots and four new movies, all in 480p, for your viewing pleasure. Obviously, none of the media contains spoilers, so if you're been airing on the side of caution in an attempt to avoid accidental revelations, you needn't worry. Nothing you will see today will illuminate any of the puzzles - these videos only take you into the levels for a look around.
All of the media showcases four different levels from the newest demo of Z&W, sent to IGN Wii earlier today. We've played these levels before, and we've written about them. In addition to an in-game tutorial, which is featured almost in full in our media section already, there are three stages set in the stylistic Jungle Ruins and one in Barbaros' Castle.
The only relatively new stage is called the Flute of the Growlin' Goblins, and it is also the only stage that we're unable to take any videos or screens from. In it, Z&W must figure out a means to attain a treasure chest which rests on top of a pillar in the middle of a circular arena. Below it, a group of fanged cannibalistic tribals - as pictured in our top story image - guard the platform, but periodically eat from a giant pot of stew. Without giving the order away, you must do everything from stun a snake to devise a sleeping potion, knock down some coconuts and turn a crank as you ride a vehicular platform, in order to finally make it through. As always, the visual presentation, filled with over-the-top characters and a host of stunning particle and lighting effects, is second to none.