Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Deadly Creatures is a game about tarantulas and scorpions and just about any other small creature that will scare the living crap out of a normal human. You take the role of these small terrors that is intertwined with a bigger story in both the literal and figurative sense.



What's Hot
You would think that a game about common deadly creatures wouldn't have much to it. Surprisingly, Deadly Creatures is a thoroughly engaging game that spins a web full of intrigue and amazement by the scale of the game. You start off as a tarantula, and you'll immediately be impressed by the world that is created around the creature. There will be "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" moments where you realize how small you are.

If the camera was zoomed just one power out, you'd be seeing an entirely different game. It's a cool effect when you are winding and twisting your way through bramble patches and sun bleached bones and you get a glimpse of humans walking overheard. The large sense of a smaller scale is remarkable how it is handled in Deadly Creatures as a design choice that works versus a gimmick that is a talking point on the back of a box.

Animations form the very beginning will impress. The way the spider twitches and moves around is eerily life like. You'll get the heebeejeebees watching the deadly creatures use their natural weapons against other insects, because they look as if they could jump off the screen and into your room. You get the sense the you are in a vicious world that is truly dog eat dog. There are no teams or alliances; it boils down to survival. To put you at the edge of your seat, the atmospheric music fills the room and tingles the nerves. Once you hear Billy Bob doing some voice work, you'll be hooked into the story.

What's Not
All is not delightfully suspenseful with Deadly Creatures. The level design twists and winds around leaving you confused and tapping the "2" button to figure out what direction to head. Enemy encounters aren't frequent and you'll trek on foot for extended periods of time without many obstacles. This doesn't make the pacing of the game consistent. There are moments that are adenine-inducing where the game peaks, and there are dull, boring moments where the game hits some valleys. Smoothing out the ups and downs to a more balanced gameplay experience would have made the overall package nearly perfect.



When you start collecting more moves and powers, you'll be granted more access to the level. The tarantula gets a move called the web jump that is finicky with the controls. Getting too close to the web made the move impossible. It took some wandering around before it worked. Getting caught on corners of edges and some unsmooth camera work are all issues that appear, which reveal unpolished corners more than anything.

Final Word
It is easy to write off the Wii as a non-hardcore system, that is until a game like Deadly Creatures shows up and brakes the cycle of ported PS2 games and mini-game compilations. While all the attention is on the PS3 and 360 for serious games for serious gamers, Deadly Creatures shows that the Wii still has plenty of venom left. The level of suspense and fear that builds is very real and comes across crystal clear. If you are a Wii gamer, don't miss Deadly Creatures.