Colorz

Warning: The following review may be disturbing to those who fear color.

Colorz is a WiiWare game developed by Exkee that seats you in a flying saucer sent to save the universe by destroying attacking enemies. In order to exterminate your foes and rid the cosmos of evil, you must run into the ones that match the color of your ship.

The game starts you off controlling a single ship (and thus a single color). Along the way, you'll be able to run into color changers changing the color of your ship thus allowing you to destroy more foes. As the levels progress, the difficulty ramps up significantly. By the third stage you'll be controlling 2 ships simultaneously using both the IR pointer and the analog stick.

This creates some seriously tough and slightly annoying gameplay. If you controlled both ships using the same control mechanic (ie, both analog, or both IR pointer) I can see it being much more enjoyable. But since you are trying to remember that your Green ship is your IR and your Red ship is your analog stick all the while changing colors as the level requires, you'll find yourself getting completely mixed around and the old "rub your belly, pat your head" mantra comes into play.

Oh, but wait - you think they stopped there? A few stages later they introduce a third ship controlled by none other than the all but forgotten d-pad. Yup. Three ships, three control mechanics racing through increasingly fast and insane levels. Have fun with that.

Now in all fairness - the game was designed with multiplayer in mind, and does a really good job of it. The frustration I felt making a failing attempt to control my three ships all by my lonesome turned into a ton of fun once we got into the multiplayer.

Instead of using the d-pad and analog to control your ships, you each use your own IR pointer to absorb away foes of matching color. Switching colors, and racing after baddies to gather up a collective score feels both rewarding and fresh. Colorz also employs a neat mechanic where you can combine two or more ships to create a new color, opening up an even more cooperative multiplayer (and a more frustrating single player) mode.

Once combined in multiplayer, both players have to point in the same direction, or your ship won't know which way to go. It creates some rather frantic planning as the levels race by. The multiplayer definitely makes up for a somewhat frustrating, albeit challenging single player experience.

I really hope you're not color blind...

The game has a fresh, colorful appeal with a solid musical score. After several hours of playing the game, I still didn't want to turn the music off as I have in so many other games in the past.

I can't help but compare the visual style to that of De Blob. While it may not have the polish of a full fledged disc game, it's a welcome addition to the ever-growing library of solid WiiWare offerings. While I found the single player just way too challenging for my lack of level of dexterity, you may welcome the insane challenge of controlling more ships than you have eyes, or for that matter, hands.

Commence single player remote throw in 3...2...1...

Lookin' good! The fresh visual style is appealing to the eyes.

Fresh and fun. The gameplay is fun and addicting.

Easy to learn, hard to master. The learning curve is easy for newcomers to pick up and play.

If you build it... This game is built for multi player; Exkee created a great cooperative experience.

Frustration in single player. Colorz crosses the "it's just difficult" line.

Use the light, Luke, not the pigments. Colors are based on light mixtures, not pigments. (May be different than you've learned. ie. Red+Green=Yellow).

No online leaderboards. It would have been nice to compare your scores with players around the world.

At the end of the day it comes down to a comment made by one of the non-gamers I dragged into playing with me after we turned the game off: "Can we play some more later?"

The game has a very simple concept, but a very difficult one to master. It allows a traditional gamer to go all "hardcore" trying to collect as many points as humanly possible all while a non-gamer just has fun trying to stay alive. That alone makes the game rank quite high in my eyes, almost enough for me to forgive that famous single player death-trap "experience." Colorz sports a reasonable 700 Wii Point price tag, so if you're looking for a solid multi player experience that you can share with your friends, be sure to check this one out.

I want to take this opportunity to ask our readers a question about game difficulty in general. At what point does a game cross that "It's just difficult" line and become too frustrating to play? Is it the difficulty in the controls, or puzzles you just don't understand? Add your comment below.