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Having never played or even seen much video footage of the original Sin & Punishment on the N64, I went into the Wii sequel completely fresh and not knowing what to expect. Little did I know what awaited me was a very intense, addictive and challenging shooter that I wouldn’t stop playing for hours upon hours.

The Basics:

For those of you who are like myself and don’t know much about the game it’s basically an on rails shooter where you aim and fire at tons of enemies that all want you dead. The twist however is that you actually do have control of an on screen character from a third person perspective. This makes the game so much more enjoyable and engaging than your typical on rails Wii outing. Explosions, lasers, robots and mutated bosses are just a few examples of the constant flow of craziness this game is always tossing in the player’s face. A main concept behind Sin & Punishment 2 is that you should continue to replay levels over and over again to beat your high scores. Building up combos and destroying everything in sight is a must! In fact you can even see how your skills rank around the world by connecting to the Nintendo WiFi connection leader boards.

As we’re playing through the Japanese import copy of the game I can’t really say for sure what is going on with the stories progression. The basics however are that you play as Isa Jo the son of Saki and Airan from the first game. You’re mission is to destroy Kachi, who actually also acts as an ally to you when both character’s team up to defeat a common menace. You can decide yourself which of the 2 characters you wish to play as, both actually do feature special unique abilities. There are several cut scenes which use the in game visuals. What I can make out from the story is that it’s crazy, futuristic, Japanese styled randomness. I won’t give any details or spoilers away but let’s just say when a character falls into hot magma I would assume they are dead, however apparently magma actually turns people into deformed powerful beasts… who knew?

The Controls:

The game features a wide variety of ways to play. The most fitting would be the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. You can also use the Wii Zapper which works well. Gamecube controller as well as the Classic controller are also supported but not preferred. Why anybody would be stubborn enough to play a game about pointing and shooting with an analog stick when you have IR functionality is beyond me. This game is a perfect match for the IR technology and it allows the game to be way faster and more challenging.

Another nice feature in terms of controls is that you can customize which buttons you want to fire, attack, charge up and dodge with. Personally I found the default setup to work just fine. Of course the analog is used for moving your character around and pointing the Wii Remote is used for aiming. Tap the B Trigger to slice your weapon, Press and hold the B Trigger to shoot your gun. Press and hold the A button to lock on to targets, Z on the Nunchuck + moving the analog stick will dodge and the C button is used for jumping when your character is on the ground (which is rarely).

The Visuals:

As for the game’s visuals they’re certainly some of the best you’ll see on Wii to date. The texture resolution and character detail may not be extremely high quality, but when the camera is panned out and you’re soaring through the stages it’s definitely a great looking game. The only visual problem is when the camera pans in to the characters and levels for cut scenes. It’s then that you see some things are decently low polygon and some textures are pretty basic. What I found most impressive are the special effects. In a game like this it seems the explosions, lasers and so on need to look top notch and luckily they are. One instance in particular that impressed me is a dark spooky forest stage where your cursor acts as a flash light. Seeing it beam through the trees and cast shadows on everything makes playing that much more spooky. The whole game runs smoothly and I’ve only noticed a few instances where frame rate dipped. This was for the most part during very explosive intense boss battles.

Additional Information / Closing:

There is a 2 Player ‘Tag’ mode, however it’s kind of a wash. It’s only allows the second player to grab a Wii Remote and point at the screen to fire at objects. They’re more or less helping the main player and not appearing as a character on screen. To make it even less interesting the second player can only fire a constant onslaught of bullets by pressing any button at all on their Wii Remote. This means no using the charge up, no fighting with a weapon or even taking advantage of the other character’s special ability. It’s the type of boring co-op we see far too much in Wii games where the additional player just points and shoots, not actually feeling that they are playing the game. It’s OK for what it is, but why not allow Player 2 to be the other character and do all the things Player 1 is allowed to? Let’s hope this tacked on style of Co-Op one day disappears from Wii games.

I assume it’s safe to say most people who pick this game up will be those who played the original. As I said earlier I haven’t tried the N64 version but after studying video footage it’s very clear that Sin & Punishment 2 is much faster, more difficult and obviously boasts more impressive visuals. At least double the amount of enemies will be attacking you in the Wii version. Your character is also going to be hovering in the air much more than in the original game which for the most part had you walking on the ground all the time. Overall the game is very solid on all ends and I’m sure fans of the series will love playing through it. Stay tuned to the site we’ll have plenty more coverage on Sin & Punishment 2 in the near future.