Bugs. Why does it have to be bugs? Eidos is about to unleash the killer insects on Nintendo Wii owners in Escape From Bug Island, the North American version of the Japanese Wii launch title Necro-Nesia. There have been many trashy games released for all kinds of consoles over the years, but Bug Island has the distinction of wanting to be good trash. This survival horror game attempts to take a page from the B-movie playbook, following in the schlocky footsteps of bad sci-fi filmmakers such as Bert I. Gordon and Roger Corman. When the main character's buddy and girlfriend go missing on a creepy island packed with bugs, the stage is set for an explorative mission across the land in which players will encounter (what else?) all sizes of bugs.

Taking hold of the Wii remote and nunchuk, players move the main character around the island in search of his missing companions while avoiding and engaging the insects. Attacking a giant bug with a whacking stick is as easy as whipping the remote, while giving the nunchuk a jiggle allows the character to roll safely away from danger. Sometimes smaller bugs will swarm, and all it takes to knock them away are vigorous shakes of the remote and nunchuk. Various combinations of control stick movement timed with proper attacks allows for a range of various effects, plus it's possible to zoom into a first person perspective in which the remote's pointer abilities act as a camera control. Along the way players will find clues that lead to new locations and point the way to specific places, but all of that supposedly takes a backseat to killing bugs. Early reports would have us believe that this game is all about the squashing.

Escape From Bug Island faired fairly poorly in its original Japanese incarnation, but during the North American localization process the developers have returned to the game to beef up its content somewhat, adding additional goals and improving the Wii remote's responsiveness. The brief amount of character voiceovers featured in the game's opening segment have also been touched up, albeit with purposefully bad acting that would be at home in movies such as Attack Of The Eye Creatures or The Incredible Melting Man.

The giant bugs attack later this month. AMN will be there with whacking sticks at the ready to see if the game has really been improved from its previous Necro-Nesia incarnation.