Far from incredibly a-maze-ing

The Nintendo Wii gave birth to many genres not possible before of other platforms with the addition of motion controls.  A no-brainer was the development of tilt-controlled games, of which there has been many in the Wii’s young life span. The Incredible Maze is the latest, a budget priced WiiWare title from Digital Leisure.  And while the price point is appropriate (unlike many other games on the service), it is an experience that will leave most very disappointed in the end.

The Incredible Maze is essentially a video game version of the board game Labyrinth.  The goal is to get a marble from the beginning of a maze to the end, using the tilt functionality of the Wii remote (held NES-style) to shift the plane to guide your marble around holes and other obstacles.  Each of the games’ 30 levels has two main modes: a free play mode where the goal is simply to complete a maze, and a challenge mode where you add collecting scattered gems in addition to completing the maze as quickly as possible.  A time attack mode becomes available upon completion of all of the mazes.

Being as the game is entirely tilt-controlled, I expected the controls to be solid and responsive.  Sadly, the motion control is a little too responsive.  The Wii remote is quite sensitive to your movements, as even the slightest twist of your wrist will shift the maze board.  Given that it’s not easy to keep your hands completely still, it gives the game a very jerky feel.  Worse is the marble-jumping mechanic that lets you pop your marble in the air with a quick left-to-right or front-to-back flick of the remote.  You will find yourself often jumping your marble by accident when trying to avoid a hole, which will then often end up with your marble falling into a hole or off of the board anyway.  An option to adjust the sensitivity of the Wii Remote would have been welcome, as it might have done much to alleviate many of the control problems.

For those Wii owners who own Wii Fit, Maze can also be controlled with the Wii Balance Board, using the shifting of your weight to tilt the game board.  Ironically, the Balance Board has the opposite problem as the remote: it isn’t sensitive enough.  If you find yourself rolling towards a pitfall, it’s difficult to shift your weight fast enough to avoid it.  The saving grace with the Balance Board is the fact that you jump the marble with the “A” button on the remote, a much more reliable method.  And since it is harder to shift the board, the jerky feel of the remote is not present when using the Balance Board, which is why I felt the Balance Board was a better control method for the game.

The free play mode serves as an introduction for each maze, but the challenge mode is sure to be the main mode of play.  As stated above, in challenge mode the goal is not just to get from point A to point B, but also to collect a number of gems scattered throughout the level.  Upon finishing each maze, your completion time will be logged onto a leaderboard with your initials.  Unfortunately, the leaderboard is entirely local.  An online leaderboard might have given a little more incentive to replay the levels; without it, there’s really no point in playing each level more than once other than to top your own time.  Time Attack is thrown in after you complete all 30 boards, but offers no real incentive to going back and playing all of the levels again.

The Incredible Maze leaves a bit to be desired in the end.  Similar games like Mercury Meltdown Revolution provide a much more fulfilling experience on the Wii without breaking the bank.  Even at the very affordable price of 500 Wii Points, The Incredible Maze is a game that you can afford to miss.