Recently, AMN was invited to the Santa Monica branch of The Game Factory, publisher of the upcoming Wii exclusive Code Lyoko: Quest for Infinity to get hands-on impressions of the near-final build. Based on the Cartoon Network series by the same name, Code Lyoko, the game follows the events of the fourth season, in which a group of high school students continue their struggle against X.A.N.A., an evil organization bent on destroying the virtual-world construct of Lyoko.
The bulk of the game plays out as an action-adventure platformer, with a roughly non-linear campaign of over 40 levels. The player can switch between the four main characters in real time, each with their own specific set of abilities: everything from telekinesis to flight, as well as the ability to slow down time. Each level required the player to quickly shuffle between each of the four playable characters, each one mapped to a direction on the D-pad, and switching between them is a breeze. It doesn’t take long for each character’s strengths to become apparent, aided immensely by a subtle color-coding system; for example, the character Yumi’s portrait has a green background, and can telekinetically move green-colored objects that block the party’s path.
Fans of the show are likely to find quite a bit to satisfy their cravings. The game includes over 25 minutes of animated clips from the show, 15 of which were created specifically for the game. The title also features a rare form of fan service: the creators ran a “design-a-monster” contest for the game, and many of the finalists were included in a gallery in the final game, with the grand prize winner’s likeness drawn in the “Code Lyoko” art style.
The boss designs, created specifically for the game, are rendered in attractive cel-shading. One particular boss on display, a large, robotic spider, required the player to react quickly by dodging and jumping over its defensive lasers. Then use one character’s long-range attack to shoot at its eye with pretty responsive Wii-mote-pointer controls. This encounter, while not the most revolutionary of boss fights, was easily the highlight of the demo.
The game’s platforming stages are intermittently replaced in favor of space-shooter levels, which look like a cross between Starfox and Rez. While these initially sounded interesting, they were arguably the low point of the demonstration. Instead of being pitted against dozens of enemies at once, the player’s ship (navigated entirely by dragging the Wii-mote pointer across the screen) is attacked by slow-moving waves of four or five enemies, and rather than tapping the B button to fire at them, the player holds down the B button and “paints” the enemies with a lock-on attack, not unlike the boomerang controls in the most recent Zelda games. Every now and then, one of the squid-like enemies would latch onto the ship and drain its shields (in a nod to the “Sentinels” from the Matrix trilogy) forcing the player to shake the Wii-mote left and right to throw them off, a feat easier said than done.
The game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second at 480p, but stability aside, the graphics are unlikely to blow you away, and not simply because of the Wii itself. The levels are sparsely-populated, and the environments are rather bland, although in the developer’s defense, this might be a faithful representation of the show’s aesthetic. This is unfortunate, because while the boss characters are attractively cel-shaded, the rest of the game is designed with a more traditional 3D engine. This title would have easily looked better had the entire game been cel-shaded, but it was a deliberate design choice to more accurately reflect the look of the show.
Another, lesser concern lies with the camera controls, or lack thereof. Instead of giving the player direct control over the camera (possibly a blessing in disguise, given how many Wii titles have had terrible camera controls,) Code Lyoko adopts a God of War-style panoramic view of the action. Usually it worked fine, but this writer got lost several times looking for the next path, which was often a few feet off-camera, but not revealed until the character hugged the edges of the screen. This was another occasion where the bland art design didn’t help.
Code Lyoko was initially planned for an October release, but issues related to Nintendo certification have forced a delay to mid-November, pitting it directly against heavy-hitters like Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 and Super Mario Galaxy, which makes tough competition for even the best of games. That said, fans of the show might find enough added story content to scratch their Code Lyoko itch.
