Its one that could pass you buy. Don't let it...
For you see, no matter what, your job will not be as stressful as the day that "Rob" has just had.
It starts off with a volcano, you're Rob, a 30-something age man working within the rescue service. you're trying to rescue some stranded hikers (presumably) who just happen to need your help when a Volcano decides to erupt. This acts as the tutorial, and after its taught you the basics, plonk! your best friend dies.... Yes, yes, very sad and all, but he's asked you to look after his sister for him...
The next scene is a year later, Robs still not over his friend dying, and apparently never met his Sister. Instead, he's now going to have a reeeeeaaaaallllllyyy bad day.
It starts off with an Earthquake, and soon enough you'll have all kinds of other disasters on your checklist. Because of your past experience in the rescue service, you have to act as the saviour. And thats where i didn't really seem interested.
Y'see, i didn't really think Disaster: DoC was going to be all that great, the main idea is to help civilians and generally find out why all the disasters are happening (no spoilers, sorry). But surprisingly, helping people has been done really well and Monolith Soft has created a game that is easy to understate.
First off, we have the controls. It's a wii game, and DDoC is yet another game that uses the motion sensing powers of the wii console. But its not a gimick. That is something you'll notice all throughout the game; the motion controls truly are brilliant. Instead of hand waggling every five minutes, you only need to use the controls when saving or shooting someone.
Driving uses the motion tilting thingie, y'know, the one they used on Sonic and the secret rings. Most games can't really do that properly, they either make it too unresponsive or out of control. DDoC makes great use of the steering system, it's just right and you don't get frustrated when you die; because its actually fun.
Saving people is surprisingly nice too, you can call out for people with the "Z" button, and when you get to people, you'll have to do all sorts of different things; from lifting rubble off of people, washing and curing wounds and even resuscitating people to mention a few. You find yourself inside a mini-game every few minutes, and you can even learn afterwards thanks to tutorials using accurate terms and extra files unlocked every level.
You'll also need a gun. Because the storyline involves some baddies who are after you for no obvious reason. Shooting sections turn up every now and again, and they aren't harmful to the flow of the game. They're fun too. you get a whole section to upgrade your guns and equipement, and you can earn points in shootouts to spend on upgrades later.
Speaking of points; the game has a very clever way of making you want to continue playing by giving you BP and SP. BP is for guns, as shown above, While SP can be earned by saving people and breaking items like bins... O.o
SP is useful because you need it to upgrade Rob. And thats what makes helping people more fun, you get something for it. You're rewarded, and it gets you excited to find people.
People in the game are very real too. Even the miscallaneous characters give a little emotion too, and of course the bad guys make you want to kill them from their silly dialogue.
However, while playing this, i was reminded quite a bit of Alone in the dark 4, a game i'd rather not remember... But in a way it was a good thing, because although the graphics seemed the same, and the controls were similar on paper; its much better than AitD4. Its like DDoC was made to show that Alone in the dark 4 CAN be done right, if the right people make it that is....
Overall, it really is a great game. The controls are probably the best use of the wii controls seen so far, and although the graphics aren't the best ever seen, voice acting and realism more than make up for it. I thought that it would be another game that wasn't worth getting excited about. But of course, i'm pleasantly surprised...