Water Warfare: An honest look

[Sk8teland85]

I picked up this WiiWare game a few days back out of curiosity more than anything else. While I may not be a big FPS fan this one just seemed interesting to me. I mean, this is the first time I have ever seen a family friendly FPS. For those who don't know Water Warfare is the latest WiiWare title from Hudson, it is basically a FPS but instead of using actual guns you are using water guns. Water Warfare is not anything complex really just a simple fun little game much like the last WiiWare FPS Onslaught which also came from Hudson. So anyway here are my thoughts on this game.

FPS games on the Wii have been hit or miss in many areas, one of these being controls. Something always seem to not work in many of the Wii FPS games I have played, either it be the aim not staying steady or the developer tacked on a bunch of annoying motion controls that just get in the way something always seems to mess up with game controls. Therefore, I am happy to say the controls on this game a for the most part very good and work well,  everything is pretty simple really just use the Wii Remote pointer to aim on the screen and move your character with the analog stick on the Nunchuk. The button layout is fully customizable, which is also nice but that is all that is customizable control wise. There is one odd bit and that is swapping weapons with a new one, to do this you need to get close to the weapon you want to switch too and press the fire trigger. It does not take much getting used to but it was still rather odd when compared to other shooters I have played. Also, this game fully supports the Wii Zapper as well as the Classic Controller.

The only real complaint I have with the controls is that to me at least they seem a little tight and unresponsive at times. Now I did not find this to be a major issue but still something that was annoying, I guess I am just used to faster turning speeds in shooters. Overall though, I think the controls work very well.

As for modes well there is not much in the ways of modes but what Water Warfare has is pretty nice. First off, there is a 40 stage single player mission mode to play though, but to be honest that is really just a bunch of training stages. Where the real meat of this game is located is the multiplayer, which is rather solid. Now the multiplayer may not be ground breaking but it still a good bit of fun. There are a good number of online and offline modes, most of the stand by's of the genre are hear like Deathmatch, Capture the Flag (Treasure Chest in this game), King of the Hill and so on as well as a sort of racing mode where you race to try and get though all the check points first. There is Nintendo WiFi support naturally and I have to say it is pretty solid. There is support for up to 8 players online and for the most part it runs smooth although I have ran into some lag on occasion. Other than that the other only real complaint I have is that there is no balancing system. Not having a balancing system does make for some unfair match scenarios, while this may not be much of an issue to experienced gamers, I can see this being an issue to less experienced casual players who play the game.

Your basic multiplayer team match, nothing special but still a fair amount of fun

Well as you can see this game does not really look all too great, I would say Water Warfare is about on par with first generation Sega Dreamcast titles in visuals and the animation is not much better. As for the design on the levels, well overall I will say they are designed well. Each level except the tutorial level comes in a large and small format.

Overall I have to say this game is a nice little surprise, yes it may look like a silly little kid?s game on the surface but at its core is a fun well made FPS. While yes it does not have as much to it as other shooters out there it still controls well and has a nice multiplayer mode that is really fun. Not to mention the game is only 8 dollars which is a real good deal for such a fun little game. So as a whole Water Warfare is definitely a title that I would recommend or at least look into.

[Macawmoses]

Heh, it is a fantastic buy Patrick. I mean, I got it gifted to me, and I'm really glad it came. It does have issues...and aspects are assuredly stale, but when Hudson is the only company with a WiiWare FPS out there, you have to say it gets the job done. Kiddy, yes. Online, fun.