Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii)

Do brain-straining puzzles and cartoons mix? Sort of.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure is a clever adventure game whose split personality virtually guarantees it will never find the audience it deserves. Many adults will be put off by the game's childish, cartoony look, while kids will be frustrated by the complexity of the puzzles just a few levels in. Those players who do stick with it will find a game that's equal parts amusing, aggravating, satisfying and punishing.

Young Zack, a member of a ragtag group who call themselves the Sea Rabbits, loves chocolate, pals around with a magical golden monkey named Wiki, and, like any good pirate, simply adores treasure. After a particularly disastrous run-in with rival pirates, Zack and Wiki are lucky enough to discover the golden skull of Captain Barbaros, a pirate rumored to have found an enormous treasure. Even luckier is the fact that, despite his demise, Captain Barbaros is feeling rather chatty, and is willing to share the location of his treasure with Zack and Wiki if they'd just be so kind as to find the missing pieces of his body.

Finding Barbaros' scattered bits is where the puzzle-solving of Zack & Wiki begins in earnest. Modeling itself after classic point-and-click adventure games, each level of the game requires the player to collect items and use them wisely in order to overcome a series of obstacles. Lava pits, snakes, wild tribesmen, and pirate-eating fish are just some of the troubles Zack will encounter on his quest to round up the pirate pieces, with plenty of switches, traps, and pitfalls thrown in for good measure. Fortunately, you won't have to worry much about learning the control scheme as you puzzle your way through levels; interacting with the environment is as easy as pointing your cursor at an object and hitting the A button.

As if Wiki weren't cool enough simply for being a talking, flying, magical golden monkey, he also has the unique ability to turn animals into useful objects. Shaking the Wii Remote turns Wiki into a ringing bell that transforms whatever creature is unlucky enough to be nearby. A quick ring-a-ding-ding turns a worm into a straw, a frog into a bomb, or a snake into a 'slither gripper' that helps you grab items and switches that are just out of reach. Figuring out if and when you should be transforming the surrounding wildlife adds a fresh wrinkle to the well-worn mechanics of finding keys, turning cranks, and pushing levers.

Shaking the Remote to ring Wiki's bell is just one of the motion-sensitive controls included in the game. The other controls -- for things like shaking trees and pulling levers -- are all very intuitive and simply require you to move the Remote the way you would if you were actually performing the action in question. It's simple enough, and I suppose theoretically it makes the gameplay more immersive, but it ends up feeling terribly forced and unnecessary. Shaking the Remote to ring Wiki's bell? Fine. Nearly ripping the tendons in my wrist trying to get the on-screen key to turn? Less fine.

Solving one of Zack & Wiki's puzzles makes you feel like the most clever person on the planet, but many players will throw their hands (and Remotes) up in frustration long before they arrive at the solution. Though the levels start off fairly small and straightforward, they become extremely long and hair-pullingly complex with surprising speed. Adding to the frustration is the fact that more often than not, your only hope of sussing the way forward is by death-induced trial and error. Once you've been eaten/squashed/skewered, you can either opt to start the level over from the beginning -- not so bad on smaller levels, but agonizing on the longer ones -- or you can use a Platinum Ticket to resurrect yourself and pick up where you left off. Be warned, however; not only does using a Ticket drastically reduce your overall score for a level, but sometimes you'll find yourself resurrected past the point of no return, with no possibility of repairing whatever went wrong in the first place.