Gravitronix Review

Medaverse Studios opened shop in 2002 as a site dedicated to fiction writing.  They soon moved over to dedicated gaming news and finally decided they wanted to try their hand at a bit of game development.  The first fruits of that endeavor are now available on WiiWare in the form of Gravitronix, an arcade style action battle game.

Gravitronix at its heart is pretty simple.  Capture one of four different types of projectiles and fire it at your opponents in an attempt to whittle down their shields before finally dealing the final blow.  To do this you tilt the Wii Remote, or the nunchuk left or right to move your gravity platform.  Pressing the A or C button will cause you to repel any objects that get close and a press of the B or Z button will capture the projectiles.  If you are holding one of them you will move slower but you'll be allowed to aim your shot.  There are four different projectiles that can be captured.  The sphere is the middle of the road shape that you will use most often.  The cube is heavier and slower, but is hard to deflect and will cause more damage.  The shard is a very light and very fast projectile that does not cause damage to opponents shields but can be used for a quick knockout once their shields are down.  The pyramid is unique in that rather than flying in a straight line after being captured it will fly towards the middle of the field and the turn 90 degrees.

There is a campaign mode that encompasses 21 levels that can be played either single player or cooperatively.  You may want to find a friend, because after the first few tutorial levels the game will get very hard and it will do it in a hurry.  The computer opponents tend to gang up on the human player and having a friend along for the ride might make things a bit easier.  If you can adjust to the difficulty it shouldn't take very long to finish the campaign, which you have to do in one sitting, there is no save feature.  That fits with the arcade nature of the game, but feels a bit out of place in today's gaming world.

The multi-player portion of the game is definitely Gravitronix' strong suit.  There are a large number of features that can be customized and you can have up to eight human players playing together.  During the review I was never able to get that many people together, but the game is a lot of fun if you're playing against another living being.  You can change the game to one of six different play modes, as well as the number of projectiles, what type of projectiles there are as well as adapting the A.I. level.  The options for multi-player are huge and there will be lots of opportunity to find the game type that is right for you.

Presentation wise the game is a bit sparse.  Gravitronix is presented in 4:3 mode with no support for wide-screen.  There are six different tracks that can be switched on the fly during game play with a quick press of the + button.  Each  of the game's eight characters have a couple of phrases they will spout after a match depending on whether you win or lose.  There is no difference between these characters in Gravitronix and they're just to give you an idea of which gravity platform belongs to whom.  The developers have said that these characters will feature prominently in future games so there is more chance to flesh them out in the future, but you have none of that in Gravitronix.

Overall the game is a solid first effort from Medaverse Studios and if you're into fast paced, arcade style action you'll find some enjoyment in this game.  The amount you'll get will vary depending on whether you're playing alone or with friends and how forgiving you are to tough A.I. opponents.  Gravitronix does have a very nice asking price, at only 500 Nintendo Points so it's definitely worth checking out.  There's nothing else like it on the service.

Final Score: 3/5 Average

Review copy of game provided by Medaverse Studios.