Sin and Punishment: Star Successor a Wii game that isn’t for wimps

Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (Nintendo; Wii; rated teen)

Those who played the original Sin and Punishment (released only in Asia for N64 in 2000, then in 2007 for Virtual Console) will have an idea of what to expect from Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (to be released on June 27)—but it was all-new to me. And I’m stoked that I found it.

It’s the type of shooter I want to spend an evening with, alongside one of my hard-core gamer friends, passing the controller back and forth while someone else cues up playlists on the iTunes, another dude in the corner exhibits fucked up stuff from YouTube, and everyone multitasks the pizza.

It’s a gamer’s game, but "beating it" isn’t as important as just having a good run when it’s your turn. And it’s also hard. Actually make that harrowing; the waves of enemies never let up, and the camera angle constantly changes and you’re never settled. But because it’s such a great game, you’re never disoriented or frustrated; you’re merely taxed to your limits.

It’s also the type of shooter that couldn’t really exist on a platform other than the Wii. That said, it’s unlike all other Wii shooters.

It’s a third-person on-rails shooter: you don’t control when or how you move from this area to the next, yet at almost all times you can—and must—move freely about the screen, to ninja your way through patches of bullet hell that would make a Gradius champion take notice.

Essentially you’re evading with one hand and shooting with the other, and each mechanic is totally independent. You exist on a single plane with everything coming towards you, but frequent pans and tilts and constant changes in scrolling speed create the illusion of you being whisked along on a chaotic journey, rather than inside a game engine.

Bosses (battles are often three, four, or five stages) will violate your health bar with seemingly unavoidable attacks, until you figure out their tricks. And there are lots of bosses, and lots of tricks to figure out.

Expect your best 2-D and 3-D attack and evasion techniques to be called upon, and your pattern recognition skills to come into play, and also keep your mind flexible; S&P looks, feels and plays differently from almost anything you’ve played recently, guaranteed, and you'll be constantly impressed by its nuances.

Made by the developer of the bullet hell shooter Ikaruga (somewhere in this screen full of bullets is a ship. Can you find it? Good show!), S&P: Star Successor is, well, there’s no nice way to say this: it isn’t for wimps. Even on medium difficulty, it’s tough. On hard, expect to get your ass handed to you, even if you’re good at video games.

If you’re in the subset of Wii owners who feel that as more serious gamers, you’ve been left stranded by Nintendo’s choices over the last few years, this game will bring you home. It’s games like this that make it okay to love the Wii.

Chris Vandergaag is a Vancouver-based freelancer. When he's not gaming, writing, or forwarding links of questionable moral repute, he's asleep.