I didn't have any expectations for Spyborgs going in, because aside from being aware of its existance, I wasn't familiar with the game at all. I was surprised to find that Spyborgs is a fun, involving brawler for the Wii that dredges up memories of old side scrolling beat 'em ups like Double Dragon and Battletoads in Battlemaniacs. The sequences I played through featured some awesome game mechanics. Spyborgs was built with two-player co-op in mind, and you and your partner can activate powerful team attacks by alternately hitting motion control prompts. I was worried these motion controls would not be refined, but they were well integrated and worked great.

Pointing at the screen with the pointer often reveals hidden crates which you can activate by swinging the Wii Remote. Health and red orbs (like God of War) are often stores within. Fighting is simple--you can jump and use either a light attack or heavy attack (or team attack). Blocking is mapped to the Z button. I told the producer who was showing us the game that there needs to be a double jump, and he said there IS a double jump in the code, but it isn't activated. He said he'd take my comment back to the team, so maybe it'll get in!

While fairly simplistic, the fighting is involving and exciting. Character design is imaginative and remind me of the droids from Ratchet & Clank, not surprising, I discovered, since the game was developed by ex-Insomniac employees, most of whom worked on one or more Ratchet & Clank games!

The boss battle we fought was awesome, featuring a giant droid who shot us with missiles and lasers, and tried to smash us with his huge hands. As we did damage to the droid, his outer armor fell away revealing a mechanized skeleton, kind of like the Minotaur boss in the first God of War. The battle was epic and very fun, culminating in our characters climbing the robot's carcass to tear out his giant mechanic brain.

Like every other Capcom game these days, players are graded based on performance at the end of the level. Red orbs are spent on upgrading abilities and unlocking new ones. Interestingly, there will be a Smash Bros.-esque achievement system where certain actions will unlock bonus content.

Spyborgs looks and plays fantastic, and I can't wait for it to come out.