In a world where all electrical power comes from unnatural little critters known as Elebits, things are bound to go wrong. Very, very wrong — but in a disturbingly cute sort of way.
Elebits is Konami's initial foray into the world of the Wii. We've been seeing a lot of self-conscious wiggle added to the control schemes for Wii games from developers in all corners, but Elebits was one of the first wave of Wii titles to hit, and to achieve its ends, it uses everything, all the buttons, the pointing functionality, the motion control, even the oh-so-passй analog thumb stick. I'll even state right here that I think they did a fine job, though I'm feel they spent so much of their resources polishing the controls that the rest of the game suffered.
Like I said, the world of Elebits is not like our own. Sure, they use electricity for everything, but that's the point in which things start to stray from the norm. Their electricity is generated by — and perhaps actually consists of — a variety of cute little critters known collectively as Elebits. As the story (mode) opens, something has occurred that has sent our protagonist child's parents, who are researchers and authorities on Elebits, scurrying to their labs in hopes of discovering why the Elebits have gone all wonky, leaving the world dark.
Of course, our boy isn't much concerned about the world impact of the incident. Being a kid and all, he's mostly concerned about missing his favorite show on television. He only knows enough about Elebits to realize that he needs to get some into his TV to get it back on, and then all will be right with his world, or right enough to support his viewing habit. He also knows that he shouldn't touch them directly, so being left home alone, he sneaks out his father's Capture Gun, a ray-gun style device that allows you to grab things and Elebits with a curvy, lasertastic beam, at which point we're off to the tutorial.
Now, the tutorials don't only occur at the beginning of the story mode, but this initial segment is the lengthiest, giving you a bit of a lesson followed by a moment to practice what you've learned for each of several different concepts and techniques. Later in the game, the tutorials are meant for showing you something a bit more advanced that you are going to need for the next mission any time they decide to level up the complexity. These techniques generally are meant for dealing with new objects in your environment, such as doorknobs, breakable items or objects that make noise when moved.
During this first tutorial, you'll notice the game is not exactly aimed at quite as young of an audience as the presentation might imply. Like I mentioned, the game uses all of the basic controls of the typical Wii-mote and nunchuck control scheme. There's a lot of stuff to remember, like the fact that you can crouch down or get up on your tiptoes to change your perspective, or the fact that you have to move the Wii-mote pointer to the edge of the screen to turn your point of view that direction (and this includes up and down). That last I found the hardest to commit to muscle memory, constantly trying to turn my POV with the thumbstick, which just caused me to run around like crazy.
Once you've learned to navigate the game's interface, you're dumped into our protagonist's toy-strewn bedroom, with the door sinisterly locked. You'll start with your Capture Gun operating at minimal power, and none of the electrical appliances in the room are active. There will, however, be a few Elebits present that you can readily see and capture. Capturing an Elebit is just as simple as point and shoot, and when you zap one of the little critters, it'll be enveloped in a little energy sphere that will shortly wing back into your Capture Gun.
Each Elebit is worth a certain number of Watts, and each variety can be worth differing amounts based on its mood, i.e. being worth more when its strolling along happily oblivious, compared to being worth less when crying and running for cover. This mechanic (among others that will crop up later in the succession of missions) is present to reward "careful" play in which you very carefully move each object aside and then accurately catch each Elebit. It shows you the individual Watt values for each Elebit caught, and the differences were sometimes noticeable. But generally, once you've started making a mess of things, the number of Elebits present overwhelms the gains to be had by being careful or worrying about the Elebits' emotional well-being.
Now, inside of each mission are several electrical appliances, like some of the toys and the TV, etc. in the bedroom in which you start. They're each labeled with a Watt value that you need to reach (which is cumulative; you never use Watts to activate things) before you can shoot the activation switch with your Capture Gun. When active, appliances disgorge a horde of Power Elebits, which are worth Watts but, more importantly, increase the power of your Capture Gun. The gun will level up periodically, and the game will indicate to you the exact weight capacity (in kilograms) the Capture Beam is capable of moving. This moves you along in each mission as at first you can only move small things, such as empty boxes, or open cabinet doors and small drawers, so getting powered up gives you access to more Elebit hiding places. When fully powered up, the Capture Gun will allow you to fling beds and even pianos with abandon.
There are special items in the environment you can use to effect how you play — at least for 30 seconds at time — from things as mundane as Elebit lure, to the specialized noise reduction device that keeps certain types of Elebits from freaking out as you smash about like the proverbial bull (and yes, there is china to break; enjoy), to the very, very powerful device that gives you homing, multiple simultaneous target capture ability, which, at certain points in some missions, can take care of 20 percent of your goals just by laying about like a madman until the upgrade wears off.
Proceeding missions follow this pattern, moving about the house, punctuated by missions that contain boss-style confrontations with odd or unique Elebits. Each mission is given letter grades in the typical silly Japanese game style, based on Watts collected, time taken and various other goals, such as noise made or things broken. Mainly, as long as you pass, you get to progress, and that's the main thing. Each mission generally is more difficult — or at least more complicated — than the last, but very soon, the story comes to an end, and there is really very little to draw you back through this mode, other than a few little things you can collect; though, the challenge level of trying to accomplish some of these side tasks in-game can be a serious stretch of dexterity, planning and patience.
Clearing through the story mode opens the various areas in succession for use in the other game modes. You're allowed to edit the contents of the various areas and play them as you please. This is an interesting concept, but I found that it's really not very interesting. There's nothing like wasting a bit of precious gaming time setting up what is basically a new game level but not really having the time to do a professional job of it and having the play experience reflect that. I suppose there are some folk so enamored of the Elebits experience that they crave more enough to really craft some true alternate levels, but that was not me.
Two-player mode is interesting, too, not to mention quite manic as both players start with maxed-out Capture Guns, so almost immediately, major furniture starts flying and getting completely in the way, which really does make the game harder, not to mention more competitive since you can intentionally block what your opponent is doing. Of course, there is one HUGE catch here. Two-player mode is not splitscreen. Both players are playing within the same POV, and since the game cannot be played from a stationary POV (though they likely could have redesigned the levels to allow just that in two-player mode), only Player 1 is control of moving the POV about, so you're both fighting over the same batch of Elebits. And when you cut off your opponent from a goal, there's no way for you to maneuver about and snatch it from him. So, ultimately, while two-player mode can be really fun in a party game sort of way, it quickly becomes frustrating.
Graphics in Elebits are functional at best — fairly low polygon count, not much in the way of interesting textures or effects. They are pretty solid, though, and hang together as things from the same, slightly off world — though they don't come close to doing justice to the design in the paintings that backdrop the initial narrative of story mode. Sound consists almost entirely of the zap of the Capture Gun and a very small handful of clunking and clinking sounds that occur as you sift through and chuck the contents of the house. There is soundtrack music, which luckily is pretty anonymous, even though you do get a chance to select which track you want to listen to at the beginning of each mission. So, there's nothing outstanding as far as most of the traditional video game feature checklist points, except for control.
For an early Wii game, Elebits really makes good use of the new control system. Unfortunately, generic design hurts its long-term appeal, and the complexity of some of the controls and techniques for using them makes it less than ideal for very young gamers, though I have it on good advice from a 5-year-old that actually playing the game is less important than making a royal mess.
