Spectrobes
Ages: Everyone

This is a big, big game – Disney put a lot of work and care into it. The instruction book is almost as heavy as the DS itself. The game has even rated it's own Brady Strategy Guide. Think of it – a strategy guide for a DS game! In it's simplest form the game consists of excavations to find spectrobe fossils, mineral food and info cubes; awakening and training the spectrobes; and fighting off the universe destroying Krawl. The game is infinitely more complex in each of its stages.

You play as Rallen, a young space pilot investigating a downed spacecraft on the planet Daichi. He finds a survivor and a bracelet which he puts on. The sole survivor, Aldous, warns him of the Krawl and tells him of his discovery of spectrobes – the only creature that can successfully fight against the Krawl. Fortunately, the bracelet that Rallen now wears contains spectrobes – but only two. Many more must be picked up to fight the invading Krawl. However, these two are sufficient to fight off the Krawl while Rallen goes out searching for spectrobes.

The searching involves using a young spectrobe that can locate, within a limited radius, fossils, minerals and cubes. Now you get to play archeologist and unearth them with tools at hand – two sizes of drills and a blower. More will available as the game continues. If you are not "gentle" enough, the object is destroyed. I found that using the big drill first and the medium drill as you get close to the object and working fast rather than being slow and careful worked best.

You take your finds back to the lab in the spaceship and awaken your spectrobe. This involves screaming into the microphone in your DS for a period long enough to have the sound indicator on the screen reach the red mark. Since it is almost impossible to do this in absolute privacy it is best to give people in your vicinity a warning. It is a clever gimmick though, and you do feel relief when you finally succeed. Growing and training your baby spectrobe is done in your wrist Prizmod which, like Dr. Who's tardis, is bigger inside than outside. Eventually it will become an adult and be able to fight at your side.

Fighting mostly involves controlling the spectrobes at your side with the left and right shoulder buttons. The various spectrobes come with different accoutrements and different fighting skills and so of course, you might want to collect them all – all 256 of them. And along with collecting the spectrobes, you might want more to get excavating tools, to explore the other planets in the galaxy, and even get to use the Wi-Fi connection. As I said, it's a big, big game. All the activities are fun and clever enough to be amusing. The game comes with plastic cards with holes that you put over the touch screen and, used with your stylus, will get you goodies. Clever! The game is different each time you play it. There are plenty of saves in the game, but you can play only one game at a time. If you play this game as a "collection" game, it will take a long, long time and may get very tedious and tiring. One disappointment – the game suffers from being on a small screen. The adult spectrobes are quite magnificent – one shown on the box cover looks as ferocious as the traditional Chinese dancing dragon. The small screen just doesn't do them justice.

Fun Factor: Excavating was fun, shouting was fun, plastic cards ware new and interesting.
Female Factor: Token female Jeena stays in the ship while Rallen explores.
Player Friendly: Reading the instruction book is a must, but lots of saves will keep you alive until you do.

Reviewed by: Editor - 03/07