Price: 1000 Nintendo Points
ESRB: Teen
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Creator: HUDSON Entertainment


There are good WiiWare games, then there are great WiiWare games. Onslaught, created by the wonderful team at Hudson Entertainment (who also made Water Warfare, check my review for 3DSPaint, DSiPaint, and WiiOperaSDK), falls along the lines of the latter, albeit with a few majorly nagging flaws.

Let's start off with the storyline. If you are looking for a game with a touching and compelling story, look elsewhere. This game has a storyline that has been abused by so many Sci-Fi movie writers, it's amazing. To pretty much summarize the story, you are sent to a distant planet after you hear some distress calls on Earth, only to find the place widely inhabited by huge alien-like insects, which you promptly shoot after they try to throw up acid on you. Along the way, you encounter a couple of people dressed in the same absurdly-generic and ridiculously stupid-looking armor as you, albeit with varied colors, who help you throughout the game. Unlike many other games, these folks actually have some smarts in them and really help you, instead of just standing there and looking pretty like many other AI allies from other top games.
Gameplay, on the other hand, is completely different story. Onslaught is an amazing First-Person shooter, especially for a WiiWare game (the WiiWare size limit is only around 40MB, just so you know). You run around gorgeous-looking environments (we'll talk about that later), using your four basic weapons (Machine Gun, Assault Rifle, Shotgun, and Rocket Launcher, but all of them can be upgraded as you progress) to kill a variety of enemies (such as grasshopper-inspired insects and colossal wasps, for instance) and, occasionally, a boss. If you get too close to an insect and kill it, it's green-as-grass blood will splatter on your helmet, which, if not wiped off by shaking the Nunchuck, will start to damage you. The levels vary nicely, but it can get a little repetitive after a while as there are a limited variety of bugs to kill. Undoubtedly, this game should be played in short bursts to keep the gameplay fresh. My only gripe about the gameplay (other than it being occasionally repetitive, of course) is that it's WAY too generic. The weapons are all super-futuristic, with glowing lights running through them and unrealistic gun-shapes, and the environments are all dry and desert-inspired, aside from the levels that take place inside caves and things of the like.
Audio-wise, this game has been slaughtered. I would just leave it at that, but seeing as I need to finish this review with as many details as possible, I can't. The background music is good, I'll say,  but the game's main character constantly yells surprisingly stupid and weird things at the bugs after, say, getting a kill streak.  The most abused of all of the callings is easily when he yells "That's why you're still a kid" in his crappily-acted voice towards the bugs after a kill streak, or, stupidly enough, an individual kill. It makes no sense at all, but it can luckily be disabled in the options if you desire.
As for graphics, this game is top-notch. The environments, enemies, guns, and just about everything else is beautifully made; this game is certainly no slacker in that department. Onslaught is certainly one of the better looking WiiWare titles.
Online play is limited to co-op missions. After one or more players have joined you in the lobby, you choose a mission from the story mode and complete it with the other players by your side. This is a hell of a lot more fun than playing solo, as the players can split up and you can beat a lot of missions a lot faster. You can choose wether you want to be ranked or not, so if you'd rather not have a bad rank if you stink at shooting bugs, no worries. I just wish Hudson could put some time into a Player-versus-player mode, but what's here is still fun regardless.
Overall, Onslaught is a very good WiiWare title, but I was pretty disappointed with the audio and generic overall theme of the game. If you want a fairly decent FPS on the Wii, check this one out. It was hard rating it, but I think it deserves an 8.5, just like it's sister title "Water Warfare."

Thanks for reading. Constructive feedback is appreciated for future reviews!

- StuffMan