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Fossils + Pokemon + the Wii = great fun.

What do you get when you add Pokemon, fossils and the Wii together? As it turns out, a pretty great game! Spectrobes: Origins for the Wii has a lot in common with Pokemon. The creature collecting, the battling and creature evolution all are reminiscent of Pokemon. Not that that is a bad thing, being a fan of the Pokemon series, I think it is a really good thing. With a decent story, intuitive gameplay, great graphics and sound (considering it's on the Wii) and addictive collecting, Spectrobes: Origins is a definite must have and a fantastic addition to the genre.

The story is pretty enjoyable and is told in small segments as the game progresses. You play as a pair of police partners who enforce the law using Spectrobes. The Spectrobes are animals that you train and evolve to help fight along side you. You are sent to the far reaches of space to investigate a disturbance, when you are unexpectedly sucked into a black hole of sorts. Once on the other side of the anomaly, you find an earth like planet to land on and investigate. After landing, you find you are unable to summon your Spectrobes any longer. Never fear though, as the locals tell you of a Spectrobe master that used to live close by. Upon further investigation you find an innovative way to get more Spectrobes to battle with. As the story progresses, you learn that there is an evil presence on the horizon. Using a powerful ancient Spectrobe, you may be able to defeat the evil forces if you can awaken an ancient, supremely powerful, Spectrobe in time.

As I alluded to previously, you must now discover a new way to find and use new Spectrobes as the Spectrobes you acquired on your home planet are no longer usable in this new galaxy. It is this new way to find and use Spectrobes that really sets this game apart. First a little background on Spectrobes. There are three levels, or forms, of Spectrobes: youth, adult and fully evolved. You use a youth Spectrobe to search for important things in the ground like fossils, minerals and other items. When a youth Spectrobe reaches above level five you use an evolution stone to evolve it into an adult. After the Spectrobe becomes an adult, it is now able to fight. Once the adult reaches level thirty it takes on its greatest and most destructive fully evolved form. However, before you can start all this into motion, you have to first find fossils, as fossils are where the Spectrobes come from.

Fossil finding, and finding anything else in the ground, is pretty simple. Look for a little wisp of white smoke near the ground and shake the Wii remote vertically. This sends your currently equipped Spectrobe out to uncover anything within a large radius buried in the ground. Once you have a fossil (it is just a rock) you have to extract the Spectrobe from it using the Wii remote to guide excavation tools. You have a bomb, hammer and a laser for large stock removal and a drill and blower for removing the smaller stuff. To make sure you are able to see what you are doing, you are also equipped with an x-ray machine that will show you what is inside the rock you are excavating. Again this is pretty simple and straight forward. That is until the "health" of the fossilized Spectrobe and a timer are thrown into the mix, both of which are used to determine the starting level of the new Spectrobe once you are finished extracting it. If you hit the fossilized Spectrobe too much its health decreases. If you take too long extracting the Spectrobe, its health decreases. Once the extraction is complete you are given an alphabetic grade and told what level the new Spectrobe will be. If the beginning level is low don't worry because you will find quite a lot of duplicate Spectrobes on your journey.

Once you have evolved a few adult Spectrobes you are ready to fight. In battle you wave the Wii remote vertically to send the current Spectrobe out to attack whatever it is that you have targeted. Wave the remote horizontally to have the Spectrobe come back. Intuitive and not an overuse of the Wii remote's motion sensing abilities. If there is one thing I cannot stand it is a game that tries to use every little nuance of the motion capabilities of the Wii remote even though the game doesn't warrant it. I am very pleased to report that this didn't happen with this game. Targeting of enemies is accomplished in one of two ways. You can target an enemy, or part of an enemy if it is a boss, by simply pointing your character in the proper direction. This works in a pinch on the boss battles but it is more for fighting the general battles. For the boss battles the game features a better targeting system. You can target a boss, or part there of, by pressing the Z button on the nunchuck, pointing the Wii remote at a part of the boss and pressing the A button. Once you have a part of the boss targeted you can run around in relative safety while sending your Spectrobe in and out of the battle. It is a nifty fighting mechanic and a very fun part of the game.

The graphics of this game are pretty phenomenal considering the game is being displayed by the Wii. Just so you know, I have the component cables for my Wii and I am playing on an HD television, so that may have helped out. Even still, I think Spectrobes: Origins has some of the best graphics that I have seen on the Wii, definitely better than most of the other games for the Wii. This same sentiment goes for the music and sound effects. I never had to lower the volume because the music was getting on my nerves. On the contrary, the music accompanied the levels nicely and added that little extra something to my enjoyment.

There is something to be said about this type of game and the collecting. I am the type of player that will go out of my way to make sure that I get every stupid sticker and collectable in the game. Sometimes this can become annoying because some game designers make things extremely difficult to find or will put so many collectibles into the game that it makes it feel like colleting crap is the sole purpose of the game. However, Spectrobes: Origins does not over do it. There does happen to be a lot of creatures to collect and evolve but collecting and evolving them IS the whole point of the game. Finding more of them will only aid you in your quest so why not do it?

While I enjoyed most everything about this game there were a couple of things that I did not care too much for. The first is after extraction of the Spectrobe. Once extracted the Spectrobe must be awakened. This is accomplished by playing some musical notes. The game shows some notes on the screen and have you play them by either shaking the nunchuck or the remote depending on the note's color. This really isn't that bad, that is unless there is another adult friend in the same room to ridicule you. The other thing that I didn't care for is that once an adult Spectrobe is above level ten it learns a powerful charge attack. To execute the power attack the game has you pose with the remote and nunchuck to charge the Spectrobe's attack. Once the charge is complete the attack is executed by extending the nunchuck and remote straight forward in a "GO"-like position. Again, this isn't that bad unless someone is in the same room watching you play the game and pose in these ridiculous positions.

For those of you that have a friend that would like to play with you, there is a co-op mode. The friend plays by directing the Spectrobe's actions. The second player takes over and controls the adult Spectrobe during fights and uses a pointer to direct the youth Spectrobe in finding buried items. Unfortunately, there is a huge drawback to have a friend play co-op and that is the loss of the ability to send and recall your battling Spectrobes. That and the fact that the second player only gets to play every so often when a battle comes up makes this feature kind of pointless.

If you are like me and really enjoy the Pokemon series, then I can't recommend this title enough to you. For the rest of you, I would at least suggest renting this game as it is very entertaining and is enjoyable to play.