It's dark, it's dangerous, it's Deadly Creatures.

Heard of the phrase 'spiders are more scared of you than you are of them'? I guess Mum never played Deadly Creatures then, because we're definitely more scared of these little beasties than they are of us.

It's all down to the sound effects, an area the Rainbow Studios developed game excels in. From the bone crunching snap of insect limbs to the squelch of fangs entering abdomen on flesh, Deadly Creatures is guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine and will probably give arachnophobics a nervous breakdown.

The game's first level acts as a tutorial for the tarantula, one of two playable deadly creatures in, er, Deadly Creatures, the other being the scorpion (see our hands on preview from THQ's Gamers Day here). The game begins with a short cut scene showing two humans walking and talking overground. They appear as if giants, their every footstep shaking the undergrowth violently. One of Deadly Creatures' primary goals is to make you feel like you're really in an insect world, an alien world where the tiniest, most insignificant thing to a human being, be it a log in a back garden a patch of grass on a patio or an abandoned truck, becomes the be all and end all. Enemy insects and other, bigger animals, are everywhere, and they're very, very hungry.

As the tarantula, the game guides the player through the basics of movement and the control scheme. The tarantula's movement is controlled with the Nunchuck thumb stick, with targeting and attacking controlled with a combination of button presses and short, sharp strikes with the Wii Remote. After familiarising yourself with these basic controls (ie, killing what seems like an endless stream of wolf spiders and eating dead bugs to replenish health with sickening green blood spewing everywhere) more advanced techniques are made available. The tarantula can run if the Wii Remote is pointed downwards while moving, can quickly dodge by moving the Nunchuck left or right, can perform a spin attack by waving the Wii Remote, shoot web and a powerful jump attack by jumping and striking down.

*Shivers*

These advanced techniques are essential for the game's first boss battle - against a rattle snake. Here the snake positions itself on a raised platform, hissing and generally looking very menacing. The idea is to dodge its snake head attack with shakes of the Nunchuck while striking at the exposed dangling rattle bit. After a few hits the snake inadvertently crushes some cactus that had trapped you in, allowing you to escape. At this early stage of the game the tarantula is too weak to defeat the snake, but as you progress through the game and unlock new, more powerful attacks, you'll eventually get the chance to have a go at round two.

The level ends with a confrontation with the scorpion, the second playable character. It ends as a bit of a stand off - both deadly creatures agreeing to disagree. In the game the missions will alternate between featuring the tarantula and the spider, the idea being that they're individual stories intertwine when all is said and done - bitter rivals brought together by fate.

While the combat feels solid the game currently suffers from some technical issues. The camera needs a lot of work - in our play test of the game it found itself stuck on more than one occasion under the floor and trapping the tarantula in between parts of the environment. For a game like this (third-person action) the camera is massively important.

If the camera is a concern, the graphics are a reassurance. The tarantula looks detailed with solid animations. The environments are dark and dank but fit with the tone of the game and do much to envelop you into the alien insect world. But we don't want Rainbow Studios to relax here. We know Deadly Creatures is a Wii exclusive game, but as we've seen from other titles on the system, it can pump out impressive visuals when developers put their minds to it. Fingers crossed developer Rainbow Studios gets the time to polish as much as possible before the game's release.

No betting allowed

We get a sense that Rainbow Studios is trying to create a very dark, imposing and claustrophobic game world, and despite current technical issues we're feeling it. As a tarantula, the floor isn't always the floor and the ceiling isn't always the ceiling. You are able to move about the thorny surfaces and stick to them, effortlessly switching perspectives. It's a very dark, disturbing and, frankly, creepy game. That it finds itself on the family-friendly Wii is even more of a curiosity. Is it aimed at Wii-owning hardcore gamers or more casual players? We're not sure yet.

There's something inherently disturbing about spiders. They're spindly legs, creepy eyes, hairy abdomens... and from what we've seen Rainbow Studios has done an admirable job of recreating that horrible feeling you get when you watch that scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where the love interest puts her hand through the tiny crack in the wall full of disgusting moving things to save Indy from being crushed by spears. The question now is will the game's current technical failings prevent Deadly Creatures from being the compelling video game it has the potential to be?

Deadly Creatures is due out for Nintendo Wii later this year.

http://www.videogamer.com/wii/deadly_creatures/preview-1049.html