US, April 16, 2007 - When Eidos announced that it would be bringing Necro-Nesia, a not-quite stellar Japanese release to the US as Escape from Bug Island, the company hammered the point home that the original game would be tweaked and improved upon for our territory.We threw a few questions to the product manager at Eidos, Sam Tehrani, to find how the games would be different.IGN: The original Necronesia wasn't exactly well received when it hit the Japanese market. Why bring this game to the US?Sam Tehrani: Eidos is continuously looking to expand and diversify its portfolio of games as well as establishing strong global relationships with other publishers and developers. Additionally, the fear of Bugs is unique and very common in the US (and probably everywhere else). Personally, I hate bugs and I do everything I can to smash themIGN: What are some of the most noteworthy changes you've made to the original game design for the US version?Tehrani: The Control system has been changed. Kaneva login.

Jul 25, 2007  For Escape from Bug Island on the Wii, GameFAQs has 2 FAQs (game guides and walkthroughs), 1 cheat, 7 reviews, 15 critic reviews, and 1 save game. Escape from Bug Island is a 2006 Wiititle whose back of the box description hails it as 'the creepiest survival horror game for the Wii'. A quick glance at the box art confirms this to be a vacuous truth as it also was the only game in its genre on the console at the time of its release.

Walking, aiming, throwing items and interacting with the environments have all been re-tuned, which boosts the overall gaming experience. We added fine tuning to the FPS aiming mechanism, where you can now fine tune your aiming by the use of the analog stick on the Nunchuk. This was not possible before; gamers had to use the remote, making the shooting and throwing experience frustrating. The Quick Weapon selection is new, which allows players to select different weaponry and items on the fly. Before, gamers would have had to stop the action, get in the item or weapon menu, select the item then get back into the game.

It was too frustrating and lengthy a process. Secondary objectives have been added. Which rewards the player with secret items for killing bugs. For example, collecting X number of purple gems in the game will award unlimited ammo for the gun. The game has far tighter control than the original Japanese release.IGN: What do you think is the game's biggest 'hook' to grab gamers' attention when it hits the US shelves?Tehrani: Killing bugs using the Wii controls.

Those bugs will get under your skin.IGN: What sort of visual changes (if any) have been made to the original Necronesia design?Tehrani: We fixed some graphical bugs found in the original version, bugs such as glitches in the textures and the like.IGN: Has the storyline changed in the move from Necronesia to Escape from Bug Island?Tehrani: We emphasized the 'escape' portion of the story, simply because that is what you'll have to do in the game.IGN: How long will it take to blow through the game? Any extras that extend the experience?Tehrani: Overall, the first time around it will take about 10 to 12 hours. The game does offers an alternate ending once the player has finished the game the first time around.IGN: Will the game support widescreen as well as progressive scan modes of the Wii system?Tehrani: Yes.IGN: Are Eidos and Spike working together on future product for the Wii?Tehrani: I'd have to kill you if I tell you.Escape from Bug Island ships this summer. IGN: What sort of visual changes (if any) have been made to the original Necronesia design?Tehrani: We fixed some graphical bugs found in the bugs, bugs such as glitches in the textures of the bugs and the like.IGN: Has the storyline changed in the move from Necronesia to Escape from Bug Island?Tehrani: We emphasized the 'escaping from bugs' portion of the story, simply because that is what you'll have to do in the game. Escape from bugs on an island.IGN: How long will it take to blow through the game? Any extras that extend the experience?Tehrani: Overall, the first time around it will take about 10 to 12 hours of killing bugs. The game does offers an alternate ending once the player has finished killing the bugs the first time around.IGN: Will the game support widescreen as well as progressive scan modes of the Wii system?Tehrani: Bugs.IGN: Are Eidos and Spike working together on future product for the Wii?Tehrani: I'd have to kill you (like a bug) if I tell you.

In the realm of video game journalism, Escape from Bug Island is a difficult game to have to review. On one hand, it is coming out on a system that is already home to one of the best survival horror games ever, Resident Evil 4. On the other hand though, you want to give every game you review a fair shake no matter its competition. Fortunately for me, even with a fair shake, Escape from Bug Island is just a bad game, making any and all comparisons to the brilliant Resident Evil 4 completely invalid and unnecessary.The first thing you will notice when you start playing Escape from Bug Island is just how dated the graphics look. The graphics in this game can best be compared to those found in a mediocre first-generation Dreamcast game.

The characters and enemies in the game visually range anywhere between cartoony at best to downright terrible at worst. Not to mention the fairly drab and uninspiring environments that the game has you playing through. Fortunately though, you won't be able to see a majority of the game's environments due to the excessive amount of fog that is constantly obscuring your vision.

Initially, I was annoyed by the overuse of fog in Escape from Bug Island but after playing for only a short period of time, it began to seem more like a gift from the developers. Ugly is best administered in very small doses. Foul play cast. Even if a game is graphically underwhelming, good gameplay can still make it worth playing through.

That being said, Escape from Bug Island doesn't play particularly well either. Throughout the game, you will encounter a very limited number of melee and ranged weapons. Melee weapons are mainly used by holding down the B trigger while swinging the Wii-mote up and down.

You are also given the option of holding down the A button for first-person aiming so that you can thrust your melee weapons at enemies. This is quite disorienting and is very rarely of any real use.

Players will also make use of this aiming perspective for their ranged weapons. For throwing weapons such as rocks, sandbags, and grenades, you will need to hold down the A button to aim, pull the B trigger to choose your target, and then swing the Wii-mote forward while releasing the B trigger to throw them. If this sounds overly complicated and difficult to you, that is because it is. Add to this the fact that your enemies are constantly moving and if you try to move your character to compensate, it throws your aiming completely off and you will most likely just end up ignoring your ranged weapons entirely.

Even when the game does finally give you guns to use (about halfway through the game), the aiming unfortunately works just as poorly for them as well. The only advantage of the guns comes from the fact that you won't need to swing the Wii-mote to fire.If a game is both ugly and doesn't play well, the storyline must be engaging to keep the player interested in playing through the title.

You will realize that this isn't the case in Escape from Bug Island the first time you hear any of this game's dialogue. The story revolves around three characters: Michelle, Ray, and Mike. Michelle loves studying bugs and is the reason that you all travel to Bug Island. Ray is the character that you will control throughout the game and has a secret crush on Michelle. Mike is Ray's friend who tags along on the trip to try to date Michelle before Ray has a chance. For a mature title, this game's dialogue sounds disturbingly similar to that of the content of notes that would be passed around while in grade school. Most of the dialogue in the game isn't voiced as well so you will need to read through almost all of the game's lackluster story.The three of you land on Bug Island with the intention of studying the unique insects that only reside there.

After a fairly mind-numbing discussion between the three characters, Michelle decides to wonder off from camp with Mike and Ray quickly following. The rest of the game has you trying to find and save both Michelle and Mike from the various dangers of the island and escape to freedom.

This may sound somewhat interesting at first, but the majority of this game breaks down into finding the yellow dot on the radar and reading the note that was left that gives you another yellow dot to find. About three fourths of the way into the game, there is an odd occurrence (spoiler free) that actually forces you to play through a decent portion of the game all over again. While it was at least a good attempt to make the story more interesting, having to slog back through the beginning of the game a second time is extremely annoying. Worst of all, Escape from Bug Island only takes about six hours to complete with at least one hour of the game being reused.Sound is also a particularly low point in this title. There is very little voice acting present in the game and the sound effects are all fairly cheesy sounding, especially when played through the Wii-mote's speaker. The minimal amount of voice acting is also poorly done and sounds ridiculous as well as fairly lifeless most of the time. You will also get the opportunity to hear Ray say 'Now all I need is a napkin' more times than you can count when picking up food based health items.With terrible graphics, boring game objectives, frustrating, at best, controls, and mind-numbing character interaction, Escape from Bug Island sets a new low point for Wii games and video games in general.

Perhaps the best way to escape from Bug Island is to completely avoid it. Those looking to vacation on Bug Island should definitely book other arrangements as soon as possible.

Even if the Wii had no other survival horror games, I still couldn't recommend this game to anyone.