Getting my money’s worth: the $5 Viral Survival

I follow NIS America like a hawk. Why? As a publisher, the games they bring to us tend to be one (or both) of the following:

a) quirky
b) awesome

In the case of VIRAL SURVIVAL, a $5 WiiWare title developed by Peakvox, we get a lot of a, but only a bit of b.

Much to my surprise, this game actually does come from Japan (original title, “Escape Virus”). It feels like an indie game developed in a basement. That’s not meant to be a damning statement — plenty of great games have had such a humble origin. But it does feel… small, and unrefined.

If you play this game for more than 30 minutes straight, your eyes will hate you, and the color orange, for days to come.

What is Viral Survival? It’s a fast-paced action game that thrives on short busts of play and intentional limitations. You control a virus in a square-shaped petri dish. While swimming in a sea of orange goop, you can run into any of the following: other viruses, two or three varieties of bad guys (presumably anti-viral agents), and rockets. Grab a fellow virus, and he tags along. The more you grab, the longer your tail becomes. Hitting a rocket means rocket(s) go out and hit bad guys. If you, as the “head virus,” make contact with a baddy, you’re dead. Game over. If someone on your tail hits a bad guy, that segment of the tail and all segments after it go loose, like Sonic’s rings.

You’ve fought segmented bosses in games before right? Remember every boss in 3D WORLD RUNNER, or those giant serpents that appear in every fantasy action RPG (up to and including YS SEVEN)? Yeah, well you’re playing as one of those bosses. Except your form of regeneration is to find virus pals and grow longer, and you have no armor for your head.

And that’s about it. The game comes in five modes: Normal, Progressive (up = forward, left/right = turn), Horde (lots of bad guys), 128 Zoom (um…), and Shooter. 128 Zoom mode is very specific: the camera is force-zoomed very very close so you basically have no idea where anything is. You have to collect 128 viruses and then the round ends. Shooter mode is my favorite, because you’re equipped with missiles to shoot loads of bad guys and there are no viruses to collect. The drawback is that it’s not twin-stick like, say, SUPER SMASH TV. You must face the direction you’re shooting in. I think I could survive longer in shooter mode.

Horde mode = find power-ups, bowl through the enemies Pac-Man style (complete with inverted colors!).

The longer you play, the more you notice little quirks about the game. For example, your head virus has a little eye that will always look in the direction of the nearest “good thing” (either a rocket or a fellow virus). But I don’t recommend playing this game in long spans of time. It will hurt your eyes.

All told, I’m not sure I can recommend this game. A part of me says “look at the price point: $5 really isn’t that bad.” But then I think about what else I can get with $5. In the land of XBLA, particularly in the “Indie” section, I can get games of equal or greater quality for less money (anywhere from free to $3). It’s nice having an oldschool-style “run away!” arcade title on WiiWare, but then again, I’d just as soon play a free flash game on my PC.

If the game had more than one song, visuals that didn’t make me want to hurl, and perhaps some sort of story/level/campaign mode, I’d be willing to rate it higher. As it stands? Nah. Only get this if the Wii i’s the only console you got and most of your friends are too ADD to play anything that requires more than 45 seconds of concentration.

Played: 3 hours
Platform(s): Wii (WiiWare)
Price: $5.00