Wii Fanboy Review: Disaster: Day of Crisis

If Disaster: Day of Crisis were a movie, it would be one of those big, dumb, summer blockbusters, the kind of feature where it's best to leave your brain at the door.

Although that might sound like a criticism, it's not intended that way, because just like over-the-top, thought-free action flicks, Disaster can serve as a guilty pleasure. It's got a Seagal-esque hero who must be one of the most resistant, hardened one-man armies of all time, tons of implausible "escaping death" scenarios, and a script that's cheesier than an explosion in a Roquefort factory. Yet despite all of this, I enjoyed it. Mostly.

%Gallery-30942%

Disaster follows the deeply clichéd story of Raymond Bryce, a crisis specialist/professional rescuer left troubled by the death of a colleague, Steve, in a rescue mission. Just before plummeting face first into a river of lava, the soon-to-be-toast Steve makes Ray promise he'll watch over Lisa, Steve's sister. The game kicks off a year later, by which time a remorseful Ray has given up the rescuing, and has been unable to face Lisa through guilt. You can watch pretty much all of this here, incidentally, and marvel at the cheese for yourself.

The setting for all of this is Blue Ridge City, which is experiencing a rotten run of luck. Things start badly with a devastating earthquake, which in turn triggers a tsunami, a volcanic eruption, and a flood. Nukes and a rogue special forces unit who kidnap -- surprise! -- Lisa are also woven into the plot. Motivated by his desire to keep his promise to Steve, Ray grows up and sets about rescuing the distressed damsel.

Jokes about minigame compilations on the Wii are well-worn by now, but that's essentially what a lot of Disaster feels like: twelve hours of pointing, twisting, waving and pulling your Wiimote and nunchuk, occasionally broken up with third-person adventure bits or (impressive) cinematics. The good news is that most of the varied spots of gameplay work well, or at least competently. Crucially, they never outstay their welcome.

During combat, the on-screen furniture can really pile up.

The on-rails shooting sections are the most common of these gameplay chunks, featuring in around three-quarters of the 23 stages. The AI in these face-offs is woeful, and you'll rarely feel challenged -- even on Hard, it's simply a matter of taking cover and timing your bursts of fire. Enemies will regularly pause for seconds before firing, while serious questions must be raised about the ability of these former marines and war veterans to locate cover. Nevertheless, these parts end up being fun, partly because you're graded on your performance in each stage (a nice incentive to replay), and partly because there's a neat risk-reward mechanic built in, where zooming in can cause double damage to your enemies, but also to you.

Yet for me, Disaster's trump card is the driving sections. You steer through these with the Wii Remote held horizontally, as in Mario Kart Wii, and there's a pleasing sense of weight and inertia to your vehicle, as well as the most polished graphics in the entire game. Indeed, my fondest memory of Disaster came in one of the driving chapters, as I fled from a towering pyroclastic flow (the game likes its jargon) in a genuinely thrilling sequence.

Driving and shooting aside, you'll also find yourself rescuing victims, administering first aid, pulling people to safety, extinguishing fires with a fire engine, navigating your way past junk after being submerged in a tsunami, and, well, you get the idea. Every part of Disaster that could have been molded into a minigame has been molded into a minigame, and although that has been a recipe for many a poorly structured title in the past, these disparate styles flow together surprisingly coherently.

Monolith has even added a very light RPG element to Disaster, where Ray and his weapons can be upgraded between each stage. Ray's attributes (skill with firearms, item-carrying capacity, focus, metabolism, and strength) are enhanced using Survival Points, earned for rescuing hapless members of the public. Having completed the game, I'm not exactly sure how important it was for me to upgrade Ray -- I have a sneaking suspicion I could have made it through without pumping up his stats -- but still felt motivated enough to track down as many victims as I could find.

Battle Points are gained through defeating enemies, and can be used to improve your arsenal (by upping power, reload speed, magazine capacity, aiming, and accuracy). Dispatching baddies with some flair pays dividends, with head shots and "clever shots" (basically, blowing up conveniently placed explosive barrels next to your enemies) awarding more BPs. At the very least, the SP/BP set-up provides the game with an extra layer of depth, and some players may be motivated to replay the game just to grab everything on the weapons tree, or complete every shooting gallery. I wasn't bothered by this, but you might be.

On the subject of replay value, Disaster encourages second visits through its aforementioned grades system (getting an "S" ranking on every stage was well beyond my meager skills), but also through "titles," which work similarly to Achievements on the Xbox 360. There are 100 of these to earn, and they're rewarded for all manner of feats (covering 10,000 meters in the game, keeping your car in perfect condition, dying a certain number of times, dealing out x amount of damage).

The driving sections: consistently ace.

Overall, Disaster's failures are made more forgivable due to the fact that it's mostly entertaining from start to finish. That said, it's certainly a flawed creature. The visuals lack consistency, ranging from great (again, some of the driving bits are stunning) to ... pretty damn poor, actually (see: the blocky, Dreamcast-standard NPCs and the fire effects, both of which combine with unfortunate results on the fourth stage). It also sports dumb AI, not to mention a truly lunkheaded plot, featuring weak voice-acting and stock characters who are difficult to care about.

Here, however, I refer you back to my introduction: if viewed as a "guilty pleasure" slice of entertainment, and with your expectations of a thoughtful story lowered accordingly, Disaster is an enjoyable way to spend a dozen hours. It's arcadey, and a bit silly, but there's no getting away from the fact that a disaster zone is simply a really interesting place to set a game, and this is what kept me playing. Watching buildings crumble around you as you walk through Blue Ridge City's deserted streets, sprinting for your life from tsunamis, or fleeing surges of lava is, more often than not, a spectacle.

Final score: 7/10

Looking for a game? Be sure to swing by our retail review archive, where you can easily jump to conclusions based on score alone, or access our full reviews, if you're so inclined. There's even a page for WiiWare reviews!