September 2, 2008 - This fall Tecmo will deliver an action platformer to the Wii that should be of interest to fans of Zelda-type adventures.SPRay stars a young prince who must use various liquids to solve puzzles and maneuver through a fantasy game world. We recently got our hands wet with the game here in the IGN office.

You may have noticed the odd capitalization used in the title SPRay. That's because the "SPR" stands for Spirited Prince Ray. Our prince has summoned two spirits representing both sides of his personality, much like an angel and devil sitting on either shoulder. The angelic spirit spits liquids like water and ice, while the demon barfs slime and vomit. There is an evil queen and her minions of anti-matter soldiers that are causing trouble in the prince's land. Similarities to a Zelda game abound, including the standard lava- and ice-themed levels. 

The various sprays let you manipulate the environment in all sorts of ways. Water can move objects that aren't bolted down. You may have to move a ball onto a pressure switch in order to open a locked door. During our time with the game, we used slime the most. It will slow both you and your enemies down to prevent you from sliding off a cliff or to decelerate advancing monsters. It grants you the ability to walk upside down on a ceiling and gain access to hard-to-reach areas. You can even shimmy up walls by spraying some of the sticky stuff on a vertical surface and jumping onto it. In one puzzle, a moving platform was passing back and forth from our current room to another we couldn't reach. But after spraying the platform with some slime, we could hop on and let it carry us to the other side. In another instance where the floor was dropping out from under us, we could spray some slime to keep from falling to our doom.

You'll begin the game with just water and vomit sprays, but more will be unlocked as you progress. Collecting crystals will grant you new powers and open up new levels. The liquids will interact with each other as well as the environment. You can use water to clean up vomit, for instance. Enemies burst forth from the anti-matter that dirties the game world, and water can take care of these spawn points, too.

The game has a very forgiving respawn system that drops you right back into the game when you die. Since a lot of SPRay consists of trial and error, the developers didn't want to penalize players for trying new things. Plus, they're aiming for the younger gaming demographic.

Catchy fantasy music will accompany you on your journey. After a short time playing, we found ourselves humming along with several tunes.

One thing that has us worried is that all attacks are waggle-controlled. Waving your arm around to perform maneuvers that could just as easily be triggered with a button press gets old really fast.

Multiplayer mini-games will be available for up to four players. Each game focuses on a different liquid. "Paint It!" is a race to cover the most area with vomit, and "Sticky Chewing Gum" requires players to use slime to race up a steep slope (you can spray your opponents with water to make them slip).

SPRay will land on Wii in October.

Source: http://wii.ign.com/articles/907/907082p1.html