"Spyborgs" was first announced at Captivate 2008, Capcom's own press event in Las Vegas. At the time, it showed off a game that seemed to be a shovelware title for a Cartoon Network show that never was. It had a schizophrenic sense of humor, bouncing between low-brow and more racy adult comedy. After a long hiatus, Bionic Games ditched the ill-fated debut and streamlined the title to a more straightforward narrative and look. This seemed like a good idea, as flash-based games of fish singing about poop seemed about as thrilling as digging through the archives of newgrounds.com. With the new graphical style came the use and overuse of the bloom lighting effect. Just about everything in this game radiates like a rainbow nuclear holocaust. Not just the levels themselves, which hide an otherwise basic and boxy level design, but the enemies, items and characters themselves all glow at least somewhere. I guess Bionic Games' vision of the future is where the rave party kids take over the world.

Musically the game features, what else, lots of techno and subsequent variants of the genre. It's not very pronounced, and it's never catchy. The voice acting is over dramatic and loud, again straight out of a failed CG cartoon. There is a real lack of sound effects for a game with so much destruction going on. This actually hurts the gameplay, as it dramatically reduces the impact of both hitting and receiving damage from enemies.

So how does the rest of the game fare? Extremely bland and lacking would be accurate descriptions. The levels just fly by one after the other and there is a considerable lack of cutscenes, regulating much of the story to hidden tapes. There are a good number of levels in the title, but this becomes more of a hindrance in the overall scheme. One of the genre's largest staples is the ability to pick up and use items. Even subpar games like "Fighting Force 64" at least let you pick up pipes, guns, and cars. In "Spyborgs," there is an ample amount of objects in the levels to break but there is nothing to pick up, regulating the player to the stock set of moves. "Light attack" is mapped to the B trigger, "hard attack" is on the C button, "block" is the Z trigger and "jump" is the A button. That's about all there is to the game. The camera is static throughout the game. You can point the Wii remote with the IR to uncover invisible boxes, switches and enemies, and you have the option of using waggle or button presses for special moves with your partner. When you are not playing co-op you can switch characters ala "Lego" games with the plus button. The game features a level system, which is likely done to add some semblance of depth to the title. You gain experience by collecting red energy, which is mostly found in invisible boxes and destroyed parts of the environment. Another way to get experience is to successfully pull off a team combo. Even with multiple ways of accumulating it, the amount required to level up quickly becomes annoying and is unbalanced. It doesn't help matters when all three of the characters require their own amount of experience to level up individually. This, added to little to no variation in the level design, very quickly makes the title a chore rather then a gleeful throwback to simpler, better times.

There seems to be a growing consensus that "Spyborgs" is difficult, but I feel that's a little to simple of a complaint. The game offers four difficulty levels, however most people will want to play it on normal. The problem is not that the game is hard, but that the indication of taking damage is almost completely broken. In a game that is all about beating the crap out of an opponent, you would expect there to be a lot of added impact to landing blows and taking them as well. "Spyborgs" somehow missed the boat entirely on this concept. When your character is struck, there is a faint, almost indistinct flinch. Getting hit happens so fast, that the vast majority of the time you won't even notice it at all. You will walk away from fights and suddenly realize you are a sneeze away from death. There is an attempt to warn you with a "Zelda"-like beep for low health, but it's not nearly as well pronounced. Worse still, if an enemy is in front of the camera and you begin mashing buttons, you will literally have no indication that you are taking damage other than watching your health meter drop. It is by far the Achilles heel of the entire game. Without any visual or audio impact of you hitting an enemy or taking damage yourself, you will find yourself vanishing into thin air many times. Since the game has no checkpoints,  you have to restart every stage at the beginning. Even death sequences lack any significance, as your character just ceases to exist in a red flash and the level starts over immediately. Naturally, the title is better with two players, but it doesn't save the game at all. Even challenging titles such as "Battletoads" offer a variety of gameplay variants, "Spyborgs" seems like a quickly done tie-in for a movie that doesn't exist. With the touted pedigree of the developer and promises of greatness on the levels of "Zack and Wiki" by Capcom, "Spyborgs" comes up way short. If you want a stellar beat-em-up started by a brand new developer with a respected background resume, then play "Mad World." The quality is night and day, even with a co-op campaign, "Spyborgs" is Sunday rental at best.