Deadly Creatures: An Exercise in Point of View

Look long and hard, little scorpion... They're HUMANS. Credit: 411Mania.com

Deadly Creatures for Wii is a stunningly original title that puts players in the alternating roles of a tarantula and a scorpion. The former is an adept assassin specialized for agility and long-distance strikes, whereas the latter is a straightforward brawler skilled at powerful attacks and brutal finishing moves. The two of them each go their own way through the desert, hunting for food and killing off rival predators.

Intertwined with their individual stories, however, is the quest of two men searching for gold (played exceptionally well by Dennis Hopper and Billy Bob Thornton). The arachnids have a truly unique perspective on this tale for two reasons.

Firstly, their tiny size allows them to see what the humans can't - an especially cool sequence has the player crawling through the bones of a dead prospector, even as the ground shudders from the men's shovels hitting the soil above.

I"m too busy dodging horned lizard claws to care about the parallel human storyline! Credit: Destructoid

Secondly, they are totally disinterested in what's happening. Tiny arachnid brains care little for human affairs; even as the two men come closer to their goal, the tarantula remains fixed on settling a score with a certain rattlesnake, and the scorpion continues to look for a way to the surface. It's an interesting deviation from the typical first- or third-person narration techniques, in which the narrator (or player) has some clear connection to the story at hand, or is at least interested enough to document it.

However, like all good stories with parallel plotlines, the characters' tales eventually intersect, leading to an epic conclusion. Why it's epic, however, is completely different for the humans and arachnids - and while the humans may dwell on these events for the rest of their lives, the arachnids dismiss them as momentary complications, and simply return to their savage, deadly world.