by iPocalypse
An assemblage of marbles and race cars rolled together into one gaming title, Vertigo promises “high rolling adrenalin-fueled combination of puzzle solving, precision control, and futuristic racing”. Reading that on the back of the box sounds like quite the promise. Vertigo, however, is no different than that of the multitude of products with the same premise that are released to the market in that, most of them fail to deliver on the promises they make.
Graphics. It’s a Wii title, so it in no way can compete with anything on the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3 visually, based on hardware alone. However, keeping that in mind the developers didn’t seem to want to even try to impress based on the hardware at their disposal. Things seem incredibly bland, last generation, and often just put together. Everything is very jagged and uninspired, and background images displaying the world around the track are stretched as far as the eye can see. This leaves well rendered backgrounds something to be desired but nowhere to be found, and neither are the well rendered foregrounds or anything for that matter. There were so many different avenues to go and take to make this game very nice to look at but the enthusiasm to make this a Wii game to watch out for graphically, doesn’t seem to have been there.
Control. The idea of the game and its control scheme is to control the movement of your marble through a track. One uses the Wii remote to tilt forward and back and twist left and right to go in those directions and for the most part, that’s all well and fine. However, it is a marble that can be controlled only on flat surfaces. Trying to get your marble to slow down or stop all together on a hill or any other surfaces that is in any way shape or form straight or flat is impossible. Almost all control is out of your hands on other surfaces and is solely momentum based. Now granted, I understand that it is in fact a marble I am in control of (I say control as loosely as possible) but in a “Racing” game, friction and traction are a must with tracks that are designed for sharp turns and narrow low walled spaces that a marble will easily go over and fall off of. This leads to a lot of planning after all the frustrating falls, and forces the player to rethink the twists and turns they made when they try again to plot the momentum they’ll have to make for every twist and turn on the track. Ultimately, this makes it incredibly hard to have any fun at all while “racing”. Wii balance board compatibility is nice, and shifting your body weight to keep the marble on track feels natural but ultimately is less fun then when you’ve got the controller in hand. Seeing as how the balance board control is no fun at all, don’t bother. Stick to the controller if you find that you have to play this game.
Sound. Much like the visuals, the sound is nothing spectacular. It has a very generic techno/dance soundtrack that will loop in your head despite how bad and annoying it is. Which is probably why it’s as annoying as it is. Sound effects are very flat and have no real oomph behind them, including the sound that your marble makes as its exploding yet again after yet another unsuccessful go at an unforgivable track. Besides the bad soundtrack, your marble exploding is probably the sound you’ll hear most often unfortunately.
Gameplay. The controls push the player to take it slow and careful, but the game promotes speed. In order to complete the tracks, you’ll want to go with the former means of play but here’s the catch, the tracks are timed inappropriately. Now, not only do you have to navigate the tracks built for you to fall, but you’ve got to do it quickly. Which means that precision and careful tactics go right out the window when trying to finish the course before the timer runs out. But then you fail because the tracks are built for you to be careful with sharp turns and narrow spaces with no walls to guide your marble, and you’ve got to navigate haphazardly now in order to beat the clock (or try to). Now it’s not all bad, at least the game is lenient enough to provide check points throughout the tracks. After a check point, if you fall you start from that check point and not at the beginning of the track. But with that one saving grace comes yet another catch. Racing games usually have short cuts. This helps you get from point A to B faster because you used a short cut to improve the time it would have taken you to finish the course.
But with this there are no short cuts, because the check points aren’t there as a mere choice or as a helping hand to the player. They are mandatory. You have to go through the check points because if you do not, despite the time left on the timer, you will fail. Even though you could use the game’s physics to your advantage and bypass many of the hazards on the track, the greatest hazard to finishing the track is not going through the hazards, missing a check point, and failing because of it. Allowing the player to navigate freely from point A to point B, using the games physics to navigate a hazardous track, find short cuts, and beat the time and improve their score is not something the game adheres to. Frustrating the player by forcing annoying mandates and timed trials in a game designed for careful planning and precise movements is more their style. All the while the game is rushing you to the finish, which by the way isn’t the finish line, but rather, a swift death by means of a great fall after yet another failed attempt at finishing the course on time. That would appear to be the design philosophy of the game.
Overall. The game isn’t impossible to get through, but it’s simply asking too much of players to be the equivalent of a Jedi master to accomplish the uber precise goals the game lays out before them. Multiplayer was a big mess of frustrating racing and didn’t need too much explaining here. For a casual game that’s a little too hardcore, I’d have to say pass on this one if you are looking for a new Wii game to play, it’s unfortunately not fun at all, and that does not warrant a buy.
