Twenty-three of the most powerful creatures on this or any world battling over control of massive alien crystals can bestow great and terrible power. Merely a flimsy excuse to tear whole cities apart in Godzilla: Unleashed, the latest Godzilla game from developer Pipeworks and publisher Atari, coming to a Wii near you this holiday season. I got a chance to go one on one with a rep at the Atari showing of the game, seeing how the big ugly monsters handle when they're at the mercy of the Wiimote.

From what I understood of the basic storyline behind the game, giant alien crystals have crashed into the earth, luring out the monstrous gladiators of the Godzilla universe with the promise of great destructive power to be had. You get to choose whether you destroy the crystals, gaining the powers within, or protect the human cities from harm, eventually gaining human allies to help in your fight to keep the power out of the wrong hands.

The demo I got to play only had four of the twenty-three monsters playable. Godzilla, of course, along with Megalon, King Gidorah, and Gigan. My opponent went the obvious route and chose Godzilla himself, while I chose the sleek silver spikiness of Gigan. The relatively generic city setting we found ourselves in was about to get hurt in a big way.

The controls were relatively simple and easy to get used to. The nunchuck stick moves your character about, while the A and B on the Wiimote kick and punch. Hitting them together causes a tail attack, which I am sure pisses off Gamera to no end. Each section of the creatures' bodies animates separately, which means if you jump and tail swipe it will look like a jump and a tail swipe, not just the swipe animation hovering in midair. Special moves can be performed by motioning with the Wiimote while you attack - Gigan performed a rather nasty spinning attack when I gave the controller a little twirl.

Each creature also has a ranged attack, which can be charged up and unleashed upon your unsuspecting foe, preferably when he is trying to explain game mechanics to you at an industry trade show. At the moment the controls for this are awkwardly mapped to the Wiimote's directional pad, but I was told that it would most likely change to the C button for ease of use. At one point we both unleashed a beam at the same time, causing the streams to meet and start a sort of tug of war between energies. I lose that one, but thanks to my crafty 'continuing to play while he was talking" tactic I ultimately emerged triumphant.

Several little touches make Godzilla stand out from standard fighting fare. At one point I noticed missiles converging on my opponent from the street, for instance. Apparently the more damage your creature does to the city, the more damage it will take from human forces. Note that if you slam your opponent into the building yourself, the military will act as if your opponent did it, adding a bit of tactics to an otherwise cut and dry brawler.

This is a Wii game, of course, so don't expect anything spectacular in the graphics department, but what you do get (see gallery below) does a good job of conveying the sense of scale and destruction caused by these rampaging behemoths.

I'm not sure how well the single-player experience will shape up, but Godzilla: Unleashed's multiplayer battles were quite entertaining, especially with two people flailing about with the Wii controllers in their hands. Get the max four players duking it out and you might just have a party on your hands once the game hits later this year.

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