The Gameshelf

I remembered Mushroom Men since its first teaser trailer released in February 2007. They never really released any information other than the fact that it's a third-person action/adventure, it will be for the Wii and DS and it involves mushrooms.

The basic plot is that a green comet flew above Earth, raining green radioactive dust. While the radiation was rendered harmless to humans, nobody noticed the mushrooms and other plants gaining sentience and starting an all-out war! What caught my attention to this game was the first trailer. It didn't show any type of gameplay or cinematics. It was a high-resolution video with a kickass heavy metal riff in the background, showing very high-quality colorful artwork of backgrounds, houses, and the toughest mutant mushrooms I have ever seen in my life. The trailer proved that this game is in fact, an IP game: Intellectual Property. Red Fly Studio came up with this concept by themselves, it is original and not a rip-off of a franchise on TV or movies.

After a few months, they released another trailer, explaining the storyline a bit more, and showed some in-development gameplay videos. A nice feature is the ability to collect objects such as toothpicks, bolts, dental floss, razor blades and even corncob holders which can be combined together to create weapons to fight against enemies. For the DS version, they revealed that it would be a 2.5D sidescroller that will be a prequel to the Wii version.

What made me think about this game was the talk about Super Smash Bros. Melee being released next month. I thought about other good Wii games that are worth buying and I realized that I completely forgot about Mushroom Men. It's been so long since I've heard about anything else, because their website didn't reveal anything new. No videos, articles, or any information about the different types of mushrooms. I thought about Battalion Wars 2 for a moment, yet I like the idea of Mushroom Men better because it doesn't seem to have those thick over-exaggerated voices that Battalion Wars 2 has. Unfortunately, Mushroom Men doesn't seem like a game that will have any online play of any kind. I really wish that more games would make more use of Nintendo WiFi Connection, I still play Picross online and its always fun. There hasn't been any new puzzles released yet for Professor Layton either. I also suck at Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass online, so it's just an offline adventure for me.

I like Intellectual Property games. It's hard to describe what makes a game an IP title. When a developer creates a game, the publishers own the rights to the name, characters and plot; there are game publishers out there who will allow the developers to keep the rights to the game that they have made, meaning that they have full control over what they can do with their game, and if they work with another publisher, they still keep the rights to that game, and can basically do whatever they want with their title. The people who will publish Mushroom Men, Gamecock Media Group, have also published Dementium: The Ward for the DS, a scary game with lots of dark shadows and annoying regenerating monsters. It was described as "Doom meets Silent Hill".

Mushroom Men is scheduled to be released some time in 2008. The Wii really needs some good games that are original, and not based on any movie licenses or mini-games. The idea of combining small household items to build weapons, the deep storyline behind the botanical war, colorful visuals and different characters will make this game stand out, and looks like a war worth taking part in. There's a lot of stuff behind this game that haven't been revealed yet, with a lot of potential of becoming a fast-paced and extremely fun game. With the freedom that Gamecock Media Group has been known for, what Mushroom Men becomes is completely up to the developers, Red Fly Studio.