Mushroom Men

[Spire]

Developer: Red Fly Studio
Publisher: Gamecock Media Group
Platforms: Wii, Nintendo DS
Release Date: October 28, 2008
Genre: Action Adventure/Platform
Website: http://www.mushroommen.com/

Mushroom Men is a dual-title series spanning over the Wii and the Nintendo DS. The Spore Wars will be featured on the Wii, while the Rise of the Fungi will be available for the DS. In the games, you will play as Bolete and Morel mushroom folk, taking on the world and ridding it of the evil, poisonous Amanitas and Lepiota mushrooms, amongst many other baddies.

The story - according to the website - will involve a comet from the planet Claypool passing by Earth, raining down a strange green dust in its wake. While scientists realized it had no effects on humans, it adversely transformed fungi, cacti, and other plant-like beings into anthropomorphic beings, gaining sentience. In order to survive, the newly-conscious plant-like peoples formed tribes, and war soon followed.

TRIBES:

• Bolete - The Bolete are the innocent aboriginal tribe of the mushroom universe, a shamanistic society with heavy emphasis on creative production and the well-being of their general populace. They are good melee fighters and they would prefer to live at peace with the land and their fellow mushroom men.
• Morel - The mysterious Morel brotherhood delves more into science and advancing their spore powers than any other mushroom species. Their weapons, built primarily for defense, are technically advanced, though they are not war-like at all.
• Amanitas - Of all the poisonous mushrooms, Amanitas are the most lethal. The Amanitas are extremely pale, very thin, and creepy looking. They ride spider mounts and use small spiders as attack beasts.
• Lepiota - The evil Lepiota use poisonous spore powers as well as dark magic to enforce their aggressive religious beliefs. They build shrines in antique human hardware like old juke boxes and mid-century automobiles.

WEAPONS:
You will be able to construct weapons from junk found around the stages. You can also use your Spore Powers to move objects through telekinesis for leverage to hard-to-reach areas, or to throw as weapons. You can also use your Spore Powers to bring to life plants and other fungi to fight with you.

So, wondering why the planet that the comet originated from is named Claypool? Les Claypool (of Primus, Frog Brigade, Holy Mackerel, Sausage, and many other collaborative fame including the theme song for Robot Chicken and South Park) will be scoring the game and possibly voicing the characters. If you're as much a fan of Claypool and the world of mushrooms as I am, you've probably **** your pants.

Rejoice!

 

[Darkslash]

This game looks promising. Especially the part where you can build your own weapons.

 

[Autydragoon]

That'll awesome to put together your own weapon. Hopefully they followed through in this game.

 

[Moy]

Looks good. One of the games I'll watch out for, since it doesn't sound like a casual game at all. Won't be needing casual games.

 

[AllGoodNamesAreTaken]

I will be looking forward for it's release... I can't wait for this!

 

[Spire]

So, Mushroom Men will be released on December 2nd, less than a month away. I have my copy on order, so I'm getting pretty anxious. Can't wait to play along to an original Claypool score.

Anyone else excited for this?

 

[Spire]

I managed to pick up a copy of this game, and unfortunately, it was far overhyped (both by myself and all things promoting it). While the concept is great, I feel that [so far] it has failed to deliver what I expected. Graphically, the character models look great compared to other Wii games, but the world looks terrible - as if it was a port from the N64 to the PS2. Being an artist, I appreciate graphics and attention to detail, and while concept usually means so much more to me, the game is utterly unappealing at times as it feels very dated.

On the other hand, the soundtrack is awesome, as expected. Claypool did a great job writing minimal, bass-oriented tracks that just drip with the savory mushroom flavor that it was written for. However, music should definitely work hand-in-hand with the visuals it represents, and the visuals fail to captivate the metronome-based music program that was implemented into the game (GL33K). I understand that this game was made on a fairly low budget, and especially after jumping from a 360 title to a Wii title, that is extremely evident. It sadly feels like a really long WiiWare title in some regards.

My idea of "Mushroom Men" was to explore a world in which this species reigned, traversing large, open areas, interacting with other types of mushroom men, and just simply living in a world that felt truly unlike anything else - small, dark, and despite being based on Earth, 'otherworldly'. I feel that if Red Fly Studios had focused on the simple concept of "Mushroom Men" and all it may connotate and bring, then they would have made a far more successful game, but revolving the entire game around weapon-customization (which is extremely linear, in that it's almost impossible to NOT find the parts required to assemble your weapons) certainly did harm to the game, as it comes off immediately as a "we really want to make a platformer, but we're forced to base it around a certain system, one that appeals to the many weapon-based gamers today" type of game, and that really hurts it.

A game must be based around a solid concept, and you must design visuals, sounds, music, and all other elements to support this concept. I see the initial concept of the game (as it actually was) to be simply about "Mushroom Men", which is a very unique, whimsical, and powerful idea, as you can do many, many things with that (think Pikmin meets Zelda), however, it's blatantly obvious that at some point in development, they had to [unfortunately] shift gears to a weapons-based game, which I doubt they were entirely fond of. However, this day and age of gaming almost requires a weapons-based system (often customizable), whether its in the form of guns, vehicles (BK:N&B), or sticks and thimbles, and sadly, classic platforming, structured around very concrete concepts (plumber goes through pipes to different worlds to battle a beastly turtle to save his girl) is a dying genre.

After all of this, I commend Red Fly Studios for their valiant effort to try (with the funds they had) to make a great platforming game, but like previously stated, I would have preferred the concept of the game to stick entirely to Mushroom Men, and not Mushroom Men with a weapons customization mode, as we all know that THAT will be the only hook that draws people in to the game.

(5/10)

 

[Corpse]

I just recently played it, it wasn't what I thought it would be .

 

[DMan1000]

the games sounds amazing still need to buy it though