It would seem that the world is always in need of saving and never more was this true than in Disaster: Day of Crisis. The storyline is your typical B-grade cheesy movie type stuff, but actually suits the plot rather well. The United States is having an all around bad day, in addition to a wave of natural disasters (volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and hurricanes) sweeping across the land, a rogue special forces unit known as SURGE has seized a nuclear weapon amidst the chaos. Enter Ray, a former member of an elite International Rescue Team, who steps forward to stop the spreading bedlam and save the day.

Stepping into the shoes of our rather unassuming hero Ray, players must now work to stop the disasters and save as many people as they can. Without wanting to give away too much of the intriguing plot, the game begins with Ray and his partner Steve trying to escape from an erupting volcano after a rescue mission goes horribly wrong. Unfortunately Steve doesn’t make it, for which Ray blames himself and ends up leaving the rescue team to take up a desk job. However, when Ray’s younger sister Lisa, who Ray promised Steve he would look out for, gets kidnapped by SURGE, he steps up to help fight the impending doomsday.

It is during these beginning stages of the game that you will learn how to control Ray. You play the game using both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk. While it’s simple enough to learn the first one or two controls, it quickly becomes a bit complicated to take in all the actions that you will be required to perform. For example, use the analogue stick on the Nunchuk to walk or run and the B button on the Wii Remote to sprint or fire. However, you will need to remember that the A button will either jump, talk, examine or rescue (depending on your current circumstances), while you will need to use the Z button on the Nunchuk to take a deep breath (to clear your lungs after you have inhaled smoke), hide or call out to people who need to be rescued. The D-pad on the Wii Remote will move the camera or change weapons while the number 1 and 2 buttons will be used when you are driving.

Although the use of the Wii Remote in the game really pushes the control scheme of the Wii to the max, I couldn’t help but to wonder if perhaps it had been pushed too far. Every movement that you make in the game requires you to move the Wii Remote in a particular way, and while this does work well to emulate the actions that you would be performing in real life, it becomes downright tiring too. For example, every time that you want to reload your pistol you will have to shake the Nunchuk. With your pistol packing just six shots at the beginning of the game, this can become not only very repetitive but tiring as well. Fortunately you can remap the controls to more sensible options once you tire of shaking the Nunchuk every few seconds.

In order to progress in the game you will need to defeat a seemingly never ending wave of enemies, survive the unbelievable disasters and rescue the unfortunate inhabitants caught up in the chaos. The gameplay resembles arcade style action and whether that translates well into the Wii will ultimately be up to you. The shooting sequences are on rails with you being “freed” from having to run around and just having to concentrate on ducking or shooting at the right time. You move from stage to stage, going through the motions of shooting the enemies then rescuing some citizens and then repeating this over and over again. Sure the scenery changes along the way as you move through the disasters (earthquake, tsunami, firestorm etc…) but the repetitive mechanic does get tiresome.

There are a number of “money shots” in Disaster: Day of Crisis and none as laden with potential as the Tsunami event early into the action. I was filled with excitement at the opportunity to use my skills to escape the Tsunami. Sadly my skills were sidelined with the horrific implementation of this sequence. You see innovation once again win out over sensibility in the design room. You get to look head on at the vehicle you are escaping in and the gigantic Tsunami closing in on it. Dramatic yes, but unfortunately as you are forced to watch the Tsunami and not the road you don’t get to see all of the hidden obstacles that are blocking your escape route off screen. Never fear, there are some visual arrows that flash at opportune times to alert you to the obstructions you cannot see and after a couple of restarts you get to learn where all the obstacles are and eventually put this mission behind you. You don’t spend much of the game in a vehicle, however, it’s pretty cool (bar the Tsunami sequence) with the handling being responsive as you turn the Wii Remote on its side and tilt to steer. I also enjoyed doing some handbrake turns whilst chasing down the baddies through a city sequence.

During the “intermission” between missions you get to take a breather and tweak your skills or upgrade weapons. You will be tempted to buy the incredibly powerful two shot pistol…don’t unless you change from the default Nunchuk reload shaking controls. The weapons are nothing fantastic and felt too similar to me. Likewise the missions offered no real incentive to upgrade since you can get by provided you duck to cover to regain health and pick-up ammo whilst you can.

The soundtrack understandably goes for a dramatic approach to set the right mood given all the chaos plaguing the city. It did the job competently and never got annoying, yet at the same time it didn’t reach any highs despite the ample opportunities to deliver some tear jerking moments given the number of near death post traumatic scenes you experience. In all fairness though the music can only compensate so far for the cheesy dialogue and did well to support the exaggerated plot.

Disaster: Day of Crisis aimed high but didn’t make it in the end. The ingredients were all there and yet having trudged through the missions, I was left feeling frustrated with the control system and bored by the repetitive nature of the missions. The game has plenty of content to keep you occupied for some time with some fun moments interspersed to keep you hoping it will improve. All in all not a shocker but it could have been so much more.

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