I am actually suprised by the score, Nintendo Power only gave it 70. However it is not accurate because it is not Nintendo's product like Okami.
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| Pros | Cons |
| Perfectly executed control scheme; beautiful high-res textures; surprisingly funny story. | Childish themes and puerile humor could be a turn-off; considerably more difficult than it looks. |
Our last couple of previews for Death Jr.: Root of Evil have been decidedly positive, so it was delightful to see the finished product incorporate all of our favorite things from the preview version, particularly the tight Wii controls. Backbone Entertainment has done a fantastic job of creating responsive Wii Remote and Nunchuck controls that don't rely too heavily on motion-sensing, but also provide accurate shooting mechanics. Throw in the kooky plot and characters, and you've got a classic formula for a nice mix of platforming and shooting action... and even split-screen co-op to get other members of your family on the Wii.
Stay on Target
There are two basic modules to Death Jr.: Root of Evil: platforming and shooting. Whether hopping from tree root to grave stone or swinging between grapple points, the Wii Nunchuck does most of the grunt work, guiding either Death Jr. or his playable sidekick Pandora through a wide variety of environments with the thumb stick. Pressing the C button will center the camera behind your character, but the real juice is in the Z button, which will bring up a targeting reticule. While in this aiming mode, the Nunchuck thumb stick still moves your character, but now the camera is focused by the Wii Remote, which you can point at the screen similar to a light gun. There's no tricky auto-aim to muck things up by not working properly, just larger-than-average character models to making aiming relatively easy in the first place.
What makes this aiming system so intuitive is that moving to the edges of the screen will pan the camera in that direction, enabling you to turn the perspective from within the aiming mechanic. Even better, the detection seems to be somewhat analog in that moving the aiming reticule just a little off-center will imperceptibly pan the camera but moving the reticule to the edge of the screen will pan the camera much faster. It's a small thing, but accuracy and intuitiveness like this can make all the difference in an aiming system and Death Jr.: Root of Evil proves this fantastically.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Another major selling point of Death Jr. is the tremendous amount of variation in the environments. From bogs and swamps to high-tech genetic engineering facilities, DJ and his playable sidekick Pandora must jump, swing and blast their way through some awesomely textured locales. The roughly thirteen episodes take place in nearly as many environments, with minimal repetition in maps. When you do occasionally revisit a past map, these have usually undergone some sort of change, either having been reduced to rubble by DJ's nemesis Fury or by DJ and Pandora themselves.
Particularly refreshing was Louie the Llama's theme restaurant, mapped similar to a Chuck E. Cheese's with disturbing accuracy. Of course, during the three or four levels that you spend pursuing Louie through his waffle house, you are under the influence of his psychotropic waffle syrup and therefore hallucinating, but that just makes the experience all the more visually staggering. Kaleidoscopic tunnels of undulating rainbow colors and bizarre visual filters that warp both the palette and the geometry of the environment provide a distinct and welcome departure from the standard hyper-realistic visuals of next-gen games.
Death Jr.: Root of Evil also boasts a surprisingly sci-fi-literate story full of slapstick gags and an overall kooky tone. Diligent fans of science-fiction cinema will notice countless quotes from "Dune," "Star Wars" and even "Contact," to name but a few. While a good portion of the writing slums it by going for obvious puns or base gross-out humor, DJ still manages to come up with a clever quip now and then that even the most stoic gamers will have to smirk at.
And really, the plot to Death Jr. is totally incidental, serving as nothing more than a little flavor to move you from one goofy environment to the next. This is particularly evident in the distinct lack of cut-scenes, which, even when they do appear are fairly short in length. In some ways, this is a shame due to the sweet graphical quality in the few cut-scenes that do appear, but it's also an indication of how concerned Death Jr. is with the plot in general, which is to say, not really at all. DJ and Pandora run around completing nonsensical objectives in a ludicrous world, and that's really all you need to worry about... the jokes are just gravy.
Gory Guns
The arsenal provided in Death Jr. is equally as unconventional as the plot and characters, offering such strange slug-throwers as Hamster Bombs (exploding hamster rolly-balls) and a Flaming Toilet-Paper Launcher (kind of like a grenade launcher except with burning rolls of toilet paper). Old standbys like an assault rifle and shotgun are present, but still tweaked a bit by the game's weapon upgrade system, which rewards you with new and more potent weapons for discovering weapon plans and parts scattered throughout the world.
This sort of hide-and-seek weapon upgrade system means that it is unlikely that you'll discover all of the weapon parts in a single playthrough, and promotes a degree of replayability. Indeed, you might find yourself going back through previously bested levels just to find a key part to a new weapon, but DJ makes this easy by calling out the level in which missing parts remain.
The temptation to play through Death Jr. repeatedly is also bolstered by the existence of split-screen co-op. The silly tone of Death Jr. makes it a good candidate for converting non-gamers because the barriers to entry are mitigated by the fact that the game never takes itself particularly seriously and features incredibly intuitive controls. In addition, on easier difficulty settings, DJ is very forgiving of ill-timed jumps or other errors and offers checkpoints with alarming frequency, making it the ideal incubator with which to train members of your family (or a significant other) that you pestered into buying you a Wii.
Quirky in the story department, beautiful in the graphics department and eminantly controllable in the controls department, Death Jr.: Root of Evil is a bit of a surprise. Though it could be viewed at first glance as a warmed-over port of a middling PSP title, DJ finds new life on the Wii through its tight control scheme and clever writing. After a few choice first-party successes amongst a fleet of lackluster third party sword-wielding games, Death Jr.: Root of Evil is a rare gem that hits all the angles pretty much flawlessly.
http://wii.gamespy.com/wii/death-jr-root-of-evil/876901p1.html
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