I think this game may have slipped in under everyone's radar this past Wednesday when it was released on Live Arcade, since I haven't heard anybody mention it. I'm a bit of a demo whore, however, so I gave it a shot and then spent several days hemming and hawing over whether or not it was worth the ten bucks. I made the decision today and, now, I'm prepared to tell you if I made the right choice.

The premise of the game is that you're a mad scientist who specializes in weather control. When the evil corporate entity that once employed you to design machines that would prevent the wrath of mother nature steals your work and casts you out, you convert yourself into a being of pure energy and harness the power of the elements to get your revenge. So, basically, you're blowing a lot of stuff up.





The game's story mode follows this twisted tale of revenge, featuring seven levels of destructive mayhem and three boss fights. Each level consists of four goals, with three specific building types that you must destroy and a minimum amount of financial damage to be incurred. Using an isometric view, you appear as a crackling ball of light that flits quickly around the environment whenever you aren't using one of your three modes of attack: lightning, tornadoes and earthquakes.

Each elemental power has a variable power level that is maximized in different ways. Lightning has a timed button press along a sliding meter and crashes satisfyingly to the ground. Earthquakes require you to pound on the A button to fill its meter and then can have its range slightly boosted by pressing X while the ground shakes. Tornadoes, the most fun of all, get powered by rotating the left analog and then allow you to careen slowly around the map, wreaking havoc in your wake. All of the elemental powers require energy to use, which you'll slowly regenerate when not using your powers or can be replenished more quickly at energy stations positioned around the map.





Of course, the evil corporation isn't going to just let you wander about, destroying all their assets. Jets whiz past and drop mines that can be sucked into your funnel cloud and drain your energy upon detonation and there's an assortment of tanks and cannons to shoot you for similar effect. Other threats come from buildings, no doubt the cause of your inventions, that can nullify your elemental powers, causing the energy you put into them to just fizzle away. Oh, and robot apes with massive hammers for hands. Yes, this game has robot apes.

The campaign is rather short (I managed to complete it casually in a couple of hours), since every level has a time limit of about five minutes. Some of the challenges can be tricky to get but nothing is incredibly challenging about it, save for one boss fight that will annoy you because the only way to defeat it is by using a technique that hardly ever works the way you'd like it to. It is fun, for the most part, and I found myself cackling with glee right along with the mad scientist. There's also some replay value present in achieving a greater level of success in stages you've already completed, as there are three rankings for each and getting the highest rank can be a bitch in some stages. If you do go back and perform better, you'll be rewarded with points to spend on upgrading your powers. Finishing the story unlocks a survival mode for even greater challenge.





Multiplayer consists both of co-operative missions and destruction mode. Co-op is a bit disappointing, as it's identical to the single-player mode except now there's two of you blowing shit up. Any challenge the game has (except the previously mentioned annoying boss) is completely obliterated by having a second person participate. Destruction mode pits you against an opponent to see who can score the most in property damage within a five minute time limit. Either mode can be played over XBox Live or locally using split-screen (which is good, because I've only encountered one other person on Live playing this).

Elements of Destruction isn't deep or difficult. Thankfully, it seems well aware of this and just went for fun. Destroying the environments with three basic moves has the potential to feel really repetitive and dull, but they manage to spice it up with a dollop of humor and the time limit helps to keep things intense enough to maintain interest. I enjoyed playing through it and will probably be going back to perfect challenges. It's not for everyone and most people who play the demo will probably decide not to get it. Still, I've wasted $10 on far worse things and I have absolutely no regrets.

Did I mention it has robot apes?