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Release Date: June 16, 2009
Genre: Racing
Rating: E for Everyone
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Publisher: Play Logic
Developer: Icon
Vertigo is a budget game for the Nintendo Wii that first intrigued me because it can be controlled by the Wii-Fit balance board. This game’s concept is very similar to Super Monkey Ball or Marble Madness.
The graphics are beautiful. All of the different locations look great rendered on the Wii. Your ball is very shiny and reflects everything around it, a nice little addition that has been creeping its way into racing games lately. The sounds are fair. Bouncing your ball off of steel boxes makes a nice “twang” sound but the background music will make you scramble for the mute button until you get a chance to lower it in the options menu. I found it best to listen to Alice in Chains while I played.
Earlier I mentioned that I wanted to try this game because of its ability to use the Wii-Fit board as the controller. I now regret this choice because the balance board is very unresponsive. If you’ve ever played a balance type minigame from any other game using the Wii-Mote you know how quickly you have to whip the ‘mote around to sometimes regain balance. Trying to do this on the balance board will cause you to lose balance and possibly sprain your ankle(s). There should be an option to adjust the sensitivity of the board, this way the slightest shift would make the ball move, rather then having to readjust your entire body’s weight to make the thing change direction. The balance board also doesn’t allow you to hit the breaks when close to an edge, something you can do by pressing a button on the Wii-Mote. Long story short, the Wii-Mote is far superior for playing this game, unless you are trying to make YouTube videos that show how stupid you and your friends look.
The “career” mode is very shallow and unrewarding. I use quotation marks because I don’t really think this is a substantial career mode. There is very little dialog or storyline just a solar system type setup with multiple planets all located around a star with 6 boards on each planet. I’m no writer, but I could have come up with a half-assed background story, just something to get people more interested in playing. Even if it didn’t make any sense, it would still be there for comic relief. During “career” mode you earn medals depending on how fast you travel from beginning to end. These metals give you skill points you can use to upgrade your ball. None of the skill point increases really seem to affect how the ball moves though. Either that or it just isn’t enough for me to care that it is affected.
There is also a multiplayer game mode, where you can race, split-screen style, against a friend if neither one of you has anything better to play.
Vertigo is only available for the Nintendo Wii. With its unrewarding gameplay, nice graphics and dicey control options, Vertigo is a must avoid game. Even at its low $20 price, there are other games of the same genre, Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz, Mercury Meltdown Revolution, that do a much better job, they may be more childish but they have better production values and you’ll definitely find yourself playing them a lot longer then Vertigo.
Overall Rating:  
The Gaming Savant, Ryan Smith-MuzikReviews.com Video Game Review Staff Team Leader
July 1, 2009
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