Disaster Day of Crisis Nintendo Wii Review

Introduction
Disaster: Day of Crisis was announced for the Wii back in 2006 and was set to be released in 2007, but for some reason this game vanished off the radar, because of this gamers started asking weather or not this game would every get a release, then in September 2008 out of nowhere came the news that Disaster was to be released in October 2008.
So after two years in development was this worth the wait or was it a complete disaster?

Gameplay
Chances are you have never played a game like this, it is a mix of genres. I think that this game was made with the sole purpose of showing people what the wiimote could do, just like most early developed wii games like Wii Sports, Wii play and WarioWare Smooth Moves.
On to the game now, you play as Raymond Bryce a former Marine, he is the games main character.
The whole idea of Disaster is to save the lives of people and survive the biggest natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami, tornado's, flood's and volcanic eruption's. The disasters are not the only thing in your way though, you also have to deal with a terrorist group known as SURGE as they plan to set off nuclear devices all over America.
The game is a third person action adventure you spend most of your time running around exploring and looking for survivors. The control method is simple, you use the control stick to move, A to jump and B to run. The game lets you control the camera by using the D-Pad on the wiimote. The Z button can be used to call out to people.
In this game you have a health bar that goes down when you take damage, the health bar can be restored by using first aid kits and plasters. If you rescue enough people the health bar will increase.
The other bar is the stamina bar, stamina keeps you going, run out of it and you will die, the stamina bar goes down over time, to regain stamina you need food.

During the game Ray has the ability to break objects to see if there is anything inside them, for example food and first aid. To break the objects you shake the wiimote.
Every now and then you will come to the point where you have save someone or escape an disaster, when this happens an action sequence will start, in action sequences you have to do actions depending on the situation, for example if you are lifting a heavy object you have to press A rapidly and then do a wiimote action that represents lifting, an other example is when running away from something you have to shake the wiimote and nunchuk up and down rapidly to escape. This game is full of these sequences some may think that this is a bad thing but it does give the game a cinematic feel.
The game also has driving sections, in these sections are in first person and normally consist of you being chased by something or you chasing something, these sections aren't bad the control is alright it isn't like Need For Speed where the car has really bad turning.

The last thing I want to go over is the shooting sections, yes this game has violence in it. The shooting sections are done in a Time Crisis style of play, you shoot with the B button and take cover using the Z button. To reload your weapons you shake the nunchuk. If you want to kill your enemies quicker you can focus your vision and zoom in by pressing the C button. As the game goes on you receive different weapons, to switch weapons while in combat press the D-Pad the in the direction which you have set the weapon on (Just like Zelda). These sections show up quite a lot in Disaster so get used to them.
In disaster there are items made to help you survive, to view these items you press the - button on the wiimote. These items are:
Plasters: Used for minor injury, heals 25% of your health.
First aid kit: Used for more serious injuries, heals 50% of your health.
Crackers: These are good for you and they will restore your stamina.
Stanima30: This new product stops all loss of stamina for a short period of time. Good for when there is no food nearby.


Disaster also has a level up system, this can help improve certain abilities such as strength and focus, to level up you will need SP points, you can gain SP points either by finding them or doing actions such as saving people who need help. There is also a point system for guns, this is used so you can buy new weapons for later stages.
Disaster is full of content, the amount of extras and features in this game amazed me and they defiantly add to the games lifespan.
Disaster should takes about 7 hours to complete on the first play through, the game does have replay value thanks to the hard mode and hidden extras.
The games only big problem is the enemy A.I its bit rubbish.
Also the story is a bit cliche.

Graphics and Sound
The graphics are not that special, they're not bad but they're not that good either.
The sound is great though it helps build the game up and it gives it that cinematic feel I mentioned before. The games voice acing is pretty good too.

Conclusion
It's a year late but that doesn't make it any worse. It is anything but a disaster.

+ Good soundtrack
+ Good voice acting
+ Full of content
+ Some nice ideas...

- ...but some are poorly done
- Doesn't look that great
- Cliche story.

8/10