Stop Stress: A Day of Fury Wii Review
| Game: | Stop Stress: A Day of Fury |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Abylight Studios |
| Developer: |
If everyone became like the lead character of Stop Stress: A Day of Fury when they were feeling stressed out, we’d have a world where crazy people beat others up and smashed property in order to normalise their stress levels. Wait, on second thoughts isn’t the modern day world already like this?
The story of the game is told with no dialogue, although it’s still rather entertaining in a zany sense, and each of these sequences are comic book like in their appearance. Jack, the lead of the game, has got to be the most stressed out individual that I have ever encountered, and in the opening sequence we may see him sleeping peacefully (dreaming of a relaxing holiday), although this is followed by dripping water from a tap, the piercing screams of a baby, the repetitive click of running high heels and then the dreaded wakeup call of his alarm clock. It’s all too much for the poor guy to take, hence the reason for his crazy state of mind.
The game is of the first person variety with decent cartoon-like visuals, and each of the levels has you smashing things up or finding objects, whilst you are faced with all manner of crazy moments, and have the clock to contend with, as well. It’s an interesting idea and one that has been executed to a satisfying degree.
On the first level you’ll be seeking out alarm clocks and then smashing them up, using a slipper (of all things) and then moving on to the more satisfying baseball bat. It’s not as simple as finding the clocks and then taking your rage out on them, though, as bugs, toilet tongues and bread-lobbing toasters need dealt with before you can move on. It’s instantly clear that this guy has some serious issues.
It’s bad enough taking a baseball bat (or slipper) to your own home, although our lead character will also smash the windows of cars because of road congestion and will also be getting on the wrong side of the law. It’s actually interesting to see what situations he gets himself into and as to how you get him out of them.
The controls are serviceable enough, although at times they felt a little more awkward than I would have liked them to. The d-pad of the remote is used for movement, whilst the nunchuck stick controls the direction, and you’ll be swinging the remote like an actual crazy guy in order to carry out your anti-social behaviour of smashing things up. The swinging gesture can become tiresome for the arm, although it does make for some rather good stress relief.
But the controls aren’t Stop Stress: A Day of Fury’s biggest problem, no, that title goes to the length of the game. There are only four levels (home, highway, office and airport) in the game, and these can be completed in the disappointing space of an hour, making the game feel overpriced at 800 Nintendo Points. There’s difficulty levels perhaps, but, at this price, the lack of leaderboards and a few extra levels are rather sore points.
Whilst it lasts, Stop Stress: A Day of Fury is good maniacal fun, though sadly the game doesn’t really have enough content to justify its price and also suffers from a few control issues, though if you can get past these flaws, you may find a rather nice source of crazy stress relief.
