Features & News

Hands on: Medieval Games

October 28, 2009, Author: Andy Corrigan

Bethesda have a pretty strong presence here at the Eurogamer Expo, and one of their titles hidden away in a corner was ‘Medieval Games’ on the Nintendo Wii. Having never heard of it before and engaging the representative in a few questions about the game, she doth challenged me to a duel over a couple of the titles themed mini-games.

The first game that we played was a sword fighting affair, where the object is to get your opponent off of a platform. High attacks are controlled by a downward motion, low attacks are done by a stabbing forward motion, and high and low blocks are control two of the face buttons. The first thing that struck me was there there seemed to be a fair bit of delay between my physical actions and the avatar’s actions. This was especially true of the low attacks which at times just did not work. I lost eventually, to a girl, but to be fair she had been playing it all day… right?!

Medieval Games

En Guarde!

The second game we played was axe throwing. This worked kinda like the reverse of Wii Bowling. You use the D-pad to aim left or right at your chosen target, then to throw the axe you hold the A button, make a downward swinging motion and releasing the button at the right time. This system was smooth but proven in older in Wii titles. There are three targets to aim at, including one massive swinging target. My superior aiming skill proved much for my opponent. 1-1. The comeback was on.

The third and final game featured both of us in our own castles, with catapults and crystal towers to aim at. It was at this point I was told this particular demo had a slight bug where the graphics of the enemy castle flicker when aiming. Not a massive deal in a pre-release build, however it was enough to tell me that the title still needs a lot of work. This game worked almost identically to the previous game, but required use of the trigger rather than A, and more of a swinging effect. In this game the PR representative absolutely and literally demolished me, finishing me off by landing a cow on me (seriously!). Once all my towers were done the game was over. 2-1. The damsel had beaten me. The shame! Not only did I lose badly, but I lost in comedy way ripped straight out of an Earthworm Jim game.

As a party game it functions pretty well in all honesty, but it’s hard to get excited about, especially considering the issues I had in the sword-fighting game. Could it be considered to be Bethesda helping to further flood the Wii with even more party-based Shovelware? I’m not sure. To be fair it’s an early build and I didn’t sample everything it had to offer, one for Wii owners to keep an eye on.