Mushroom Men and Legendary

Mushroom Men

Yep, it's yet another Gamecock game with a cartoony art style. In fact Mushroom Men, the first title from yet another new Austin game developer, Red Fly Studio, is in fact two separate games. Mushroom Men: Rise of the Fungi will be released first for the Nintendo DS and sets up the game world; Earth has gone through the tail of a comet which has caused the fungi and plants of the planet to turn sentient.

The DS game is a 3D side scroller where you can control a, well, mushroom man, through the vast world underneath our feet. Later this fall will come Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, a full-fledged action platformer for the Wii that continues the storyline that began in Rise of the Fungi.


At EIEIO last week we got to see the Wii version of the game in action as the demo handler controlled the mushroom man through a series of obstacles. Because the playable character is only a few inches tall the levels were of seemingly giant bottles, chairs, tables and more, as the main character moved up and down and battled spiders and giant rabbits with special moves and abilities such as being able to drop items from above on unsuspecting foes and a grappler that will allow the player to swing and transport himself in the miniature world. In addition your character will be able to use normal everyday human items he finds along the way as special weapons.

The Wii version looks terrific and has more than a hint of the games in the late and lamented Oddworld series. While the game does have a cartoon-like art style there's also definitely a dark side to the game's look; things in the game sometimes look like they have a desolate and ruined look to them. Make no mistake; while it may at first glance look like a kids title, Mushroom Men can definitely appeal to the adult as well.


Red Fly Studio's first entries in the game world look very promising and for once, a third-party Wii game doesn't look like its going to be the typical "shovelware" that other Wii games tend to be. Look for Mushroom Men: Rise of the Fungi to be released on the DS this summer and the Wii game, Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, to be released this fall.

Legendary

While developer Spark Unlimited got mediocre reviews for their first 2008 game, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (published by Codemasters), their second 2008 game looks like it has a lot more promise. Legendary (previously known as Legendary: The Box) takes the Pandora's Box myth and puts it into the modern day setting as an unsuspecting man (your player character in fact) opens up the box and causes mythological creatures to come out and ravage New York City. We got to see live demos of the game at last year's EIEIO event and again at last January's CES but at EIEIO 2008 we got to actually get hands-on with the game itself.

The level we got to play was basically the same version we saw at CES; we controlled the player character as we fought off werewolves that were attacking and climbing over buildings to get to us. Most of the time we attacked with our trusty machine gun, but the werewolves in this game are extremely tough and take a while to bring down using that method. They will charge at you with only a moment's notice and try to rip you to shreds. Once they are down we extracted their lifeforce from them (a side effect of opening up Pandora's Box at the beginning of the game) to regain our health.


As in the CES demo, the end of the Legendary demo had us facing the Minotaur, a huge creature from myth that doesn't like you at all; in fact it will run right through stone walls in the boss level to get to you so hiding behind one just doesn't work. The trick is to get behind him to attack his back side where he is vulnerable; a full frontal assault is out. It's easily one of the more interesting boss battles we have seen in a first person shooter in some time.


Legendary is looking like it will be a solid first person shooter, and its unique take on blending mythological creatures into the modern world will make it stand out from the crowd. We hope to have more info on the game before its release this fall for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.