Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure is a hero, because it breathed life into the lungs of a dying video game genre: the point and click adventure game. Given its complexity and use of the Wii's motion controls, it's not exactly like the old-school adventure games from the days of yore (like the classic "Monkey Island" series from LucasArts), but it's still a kind of title that is rarely seen these days. It's refreshing, it's well executed, and it shows that adventure and puzzle games still have a place in gaming.

You play as Zack, the pirate adventurer who is accompanied on all his missions by his flying monkey friend, Wiki. As the title suggests, you are on a quest to procure all of Captain Barbaros' treasure (which, oddly enough, are his body parts) so that you may reassemble him. Barbaros' body parts/treasure have been scattered over many different lands and environments, including jungles, volcanoes, and snow-covered ice worlds. Each level consists of a series of puzzles that must be solved to eventually make your way to the stage's final treasure chest, which contains one of Barbaros' body parts. As you complete each of the stage's puzzles, you are awarded points based on how you chose to solve it and how many tries it took you to complete it. The game is also done in a colorful, cartoonish style that is clearly targeted at a younger audience, but it's still an incredibly fun experience for all ages.

Don't be fooled, though. Just because "Zack and Wiki" is a kid-friendly puzzle game doesn't mean that it's easy. The game's challenges are mind-bending and if you want to have any chance at succeeding, you need to think creatively and outside of the box. In one level, Zack is falling to his doom after a monster drags him and Wiki off of a cliff. He can grab a nearby umbrella, but opening it seemed to be an issue. Upon further inspection, I saw that there was a small number "2" written near the handle of the umbrella. Holding the Wii remote straight up in the air and pressing the 2 button on the controller, I opened the umbrella and successfully allowed Zack to safely float his way to the ground.

The game's use of the Wii remote and gestures is incredibly well executed, especially considering the fact that the developers opted to integrate more than just the use of simple waggle motions. As the game states, your grip on the Wii remote is key in many situations. To turn a crank, for example, you have to hold the remote sideways (as if gripping a handlebar) and move it in circular motions. If you don't grip the controller the right way and make the correct motions, the crank won't turn. If you're holding an object and want to flip it over or reorient it before doing anything with it, just flip the controller over (or twist or turn it in whatever manner is necessary) and the object on screen will do the same. It was refreshing to not only see developers get a little more daring with the motion controls, but to see them succeed, as well.

The best part about this sort of creativity is that many of the puzzles have multiple solutions, which really encourages players to consider all possibilities when stumped. Some solutions offer more points than others, however. In one level, the final treasure chest was encased in a giant block of ice and I could tell that I was supposed to make the giant icicle hanging above it fall and smash it free. Unfortunately, I could not figure out how to do this, so I simply took a hammer and bashed the giant block of ice with it for nearly 10 minutes, slowly depleting its "health" gauge before finally breaking it open. It was a blunt and obvious way to solve the puzzle, so the game punished me severely by giving me a mere 100 points out of a possible 60,000. Ouch.

That being said, as nice as it is to have such a challenging experience, the game is a little too hardcore at times. Given that this is an adventure/puzzle game...and a creative one, at that..."Zack and Wiki" should really encourage exploring and experimenting. Sadly, this is not the case. The biggest issue is that you can die in most of the levels, and often that is the punishment that you'll receive for exploring. In a game like this, which calls for a ton of experimenting to succeed, it doesn't make sense to me that you can end up dying in so many situations. It just seems unnecessarily harsh on the player. Likewise, if you try to solve a puzzle one way, fail, and then succeed with your next attempt, the point penalties you suffer are massive, receiving only 50 percent (sometimes less) of the possible points for the challenge due to a single error. Ultimately, the player often ends up playing in fear of making a costly mistake or even dying, rather than experimenting and embracing the creative nature of the game.

Given the difficulty of the puzzles, the multiple solutions, the scoring system, and the fact that you can revisit a previously completed stage at any point (in an attempt to get a higher score on it), "Zack and Wiki" can last you a while. It takes about 10 to 12 hours to complete the story, depending on how you play it, and for an action-adventure puzzler, that's not bad at all. Again, add on the fact that you can replay the levels for better scores...which is tempting at times, considering all of the different possibilities and the harsh penalties you score will often suffer...and you've got a solid 15-hour experience in this title.

Just because "Zack and Wiki" is made for kids doesn't mean that older audiences shouldn't give it a chance. The puzzles are still incredibly fun, challenging, and quite satisfying upon completion. Given its difficulty, this game will also last you for quite a while and even incites a fair amount of replays on some of the stages. Though it is sometimes difficult to appreciate due to harsh penalties for failure, this is a title that is truly creative in every sense of the word.

Score: 8.8/10