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April 25, 2006 | 9:49 PM PST
by: Justin Walcott
Hello, boys and girls, today I’d like to introduce you to a new video game hero. I give you Wik, the unconventional love child of Frogger and Shawn Sinclaire (GC Advanced). Wik is the type of character who would be perfect for a movie that needs a cute character during the day time, but at night becomes a nasty creature that lives under your bed.
Fable of Souls features 7 modes of play, story, challenge, loopnastics, fire pit, and 3 multiplayer modes.
The story mode starts off by teaching you the basics. This can take some getting used to because Wik revolves around precise swings, jumps, and other movements. I found myself progressing very slowly at first but as I became intrigued with the game’s uniqueness, I quickly found myself pulling off fancy maneuvers with my tongue. By moving the left thumb stick left and right you can jump with the A button. Smaller jumps are made by slightly aiming upwards. The B button is used for sticking your tongue to the environment to swing, and it must be held down to hang on. The Y button is used to suck in things. You can suck in nuts (used to shoot at enemies), flying insects (which also can be used to shoot enemies), or Grubs which are the main baddies in the game. For the bad guys, they really don’t do much. The main objective of most levels is to put them in the path of the Slotham. The Slotham is a funky looking creature that eats the cute little Grubs. Just remember, the Grubs are the bad guys. There is more to the game though than just swinging and collecting Grubs. The flying insects I mentioned earlier will carry the Grubs off the screen if you’re not careful, and some levels will fail you if you lose too many Grubs. In addition to the platforming, many levels feature enemies that will kill Wik on the touch, or tips that Wik must leap or swing around. At first the game seems slow, but as you process you may find your self franticly swinging to one end of the map to grab a Grub, but then notice a bug carrying them off on the other side. A special amulet is given to Wik not too long into the game and it holds crystals that Wik finds in each level. Three crystals will appear in each level and once you find them all Wiks’ family will be set free.
Challenge mode consists of levels reserved for the insane (according to the game). Loopnastics challenges you to perform multiple loops at once, but to also move from place to place, as it gives you more points for this. Fire Pit is my personal favorite mode. It has Wik trying to stay out of the fire by jumping up the falling rocks.
The three Multiplayer modes are Fire Pit, Tag, and Plague. Fire Pit is the multiplayer version of the single player game. Tag has one player start by being “it” and he must tag the other players with a very heavy rock in order to not be it. Your score decreases slowly while you are “it”, but increases while you are not “it”. The first player to reach a chosen point total wins. In Plague, everyone takes a turn having the plague, and the other players must avoid having acid spewed on them by the player with the plague. Multiple players also catch the plague if they get hit by acid too often.
Some of you may be asking, what about the achievements? Well, you get 10 just for playing the prologue/trial. The rest of the achievements are as follows:
Acrobatic Apprentice (15 points)
Get Latch-Suck-Spit-Latch in order.
Acrobatic Master (20 points)
Get Loop-Release-Loop-Release-Loop in order.
Challenge Apprentice (10 points)
Complete over 30% in Challenge mode.
Challenge Master (20 points)
Complete Challenge mode.
Ghost Master Hero (15 points)
Beat any Challenge mode's ghost time.
Liberator of Caged Souls (25 points)
Collect all story gems and complete the game.
Loop Master (15 points)
Get 60 points in Loopnastics.
Mouth Full of Bugs (15 points)
Put a total of 500 Bugs in Wik's mouth (Challenge and Story modes count as one point).
Perfect Grub Hero (15 points)
Get all Grubs on ten Story mode levels.
Story Apprentice (10 points)
Complete the Story mode prologue levels.
Story Master (20 points)
Complete Story mode.
String Looper (20 points)
Loop Wik three times on the same swing.
One of the best things about Wik: Fable of Souls is that they are so many things to do. If you tire of the story, you can try to beat a challenge you were having problems with earlier. Or you could try to claim the top spot on the online leaderboards in loopnastics. If you have friends over and get bored of playing alone, then multiplayer games provide the perfect opportunity to have a blast.
Wik: Fable of Souls features a nice art style, but there isn’t much going on in the backgrounds. The animations however, are done well and the dark forest colors create a nice setting and mood. The soundtrack also adds to the mood with music that reminds me of creatures you would expect to find in the world of Harry Potter or other fantasy universes. The controls in Wik are done very well, as the control layout is simple, responsive, and precise.
Fable of Souls features 7 modes of play, story, challenge, loopnastics, fire pit, and 3 multiplayer modes.
The story mode starts off by teaching you the basics. This can take some getting used to because Wik revolves around precise swings, jumps, and other movements. I found myself progressing very slowly at first but as I became intrigued with the game’s uniqueness, I quickly found myself pulling off fancy maneuvers with my tongue. By moving the left thumb stick left and right you can jump with the A button. Smaller jumps are made by slightly aiming upwards. The B button is used for sticking your tongue to the environment to swing, and it must be held down to hang on. The Y button is used to suck in things. You can suck in nuts (used to shoot at enemies), flying insects (which also can be used to shoot enemies), or Grubs which are the main baddies in the game. For the bad guys, they really don’t do much. The main objective of most levels is to put them in the path of the Slotham. The Slotham is a funky looking creature that eats the cute little Grubs. Just remember, the Grubs are the bad guys. There is more to the game though than just swinging and collecting Grubs. The flying insects I mentioned earlier will carry the Grubs off the screen if you’re not careful, and some levels will fail you if you lose too many Grubs. In addition to the platforming, many levels feature enemies that will kill Wik on the touch, or tips that Wik must leap or swing around. At first the game seems slow, but as you process you may find your self franticly swinging to one end of the map to grab a Grub, but then notice a bug carrying them off on the other side. A special amulet is given to Wik not too long into the game and it holds crystals that Wik finds in each level. Three crystals will appear in each level and once you find them all Wiks’ family will be set free.
Challenge mode consists of levels reserved for the insane (according to the game). Loopnastics challenges you to perform multiple loops at once, but to also move from place to place, as it gives you more points for this. Fire Pit is my personal favorite mode. It has Wik trying to stay out of the fire by jumping up the falling rocks.
The three Multiplayer modes are Fire Pit, Tag, and Plague. Fire Pit is the multiplayer version of the single player game. Tag has one player start by being “it” and he must tag the other players with a very heavy rock in order to not be it. Your score decreases slowly while you are “it”, but increases while you are not “it”. The first player to reach a chosen point total wins. In Plague, everyone takes a turn having the plague, and the other players must avoid having acid spewed on them by the player with the plague. Multiple players also catch the plague if they get hit by acid too often.
Some of you may be asking, what about the achievements? Well, you get 10 just for playing the prologue/trial. The rest of the achievements are as follows:
Get Latch-Suck-Spit-Latch in order.
Get Loop-Release-Loop-Release-Loop in order.
Complete over 30% in Challenge mode.
Complete Challenge mode.
Beat any Challenge mode's ghost time.
Collect all story gems and complete the game.
Get 60 points in Loopnastics.
Put a total of 500 Bugs in Wik's mouth (Challenge and Story modes count as one point).
Get all Grubs on ten Story mode levels.
Complete the Story mode prologue levels.
Complete Story mode.
Loop Wik three times on the same swing.
One of the best things about Wik: Fable of Souls is that they are so many things to do. If you tire of the story, you can try to beat a challenge you were having problems with earlier. Or you could try to claim the top spot on the online leaderboards in loopnastics. If you have friends over and get bored of playing alone, then multiplayer games provide the perfect opportunity to have a blast.
Wik: Fable of Souls features a nice art style, but there isn’t much going on in the backgrounds. The animations however, are done well and the dark forest colors create a nice setting and mood. The soundtrack also adds to the mood with music that reminds me of creatures you would expect to find in the world of Harry Potter or other fantasy universes. The controls in Wik are done very well, as the control layout is simple, responsive, and precise.
February 8, 2010
