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Unleash the disappointment.

Japan may have recently retired the everlasting Godzilla movies until 2013 but that doesn't mean we've seen the last of the King of the Monsters in videogame form. Introducing Godzilla: Unleashed (insert Godzilla roar here), a game which marks many milestones. It's the third Godzilla game in Atari and Pipeworks' Godzilla fighting franchise, it's the first Godzilla game for the new console generation and it's the first Godzilla title for the Wii. Given all of these facts you'd expect there to be some degree of improvement between Godzilla: Unleashed and its Xbox predecessor Godzilla: Save the Earth. Sadly, even hardcore kaiju fans will immediately notice that the opposite is true.

As one who's sat through all 29 Godzilla films for better or for worse, I can appreciate the effort Pipeworks took to include as many monsters from the more than half-century year-old franchise as they could. While hardcore Godzilla fans who always wanted to play as King Caesar or 70s Mecha Godzilla may initially jump for joy, the rest of Godzilla: Unleashed feels oddly half-assed. A bizarre, lame story mode and major control issues are this game's two biggest detractors.

The plot of Godzilla: Unleashed (if you can call it that) is a semi-self-parody of a frequent Godzilla setup involving ridiculously-costumed aliens trying to take over the Earth and giant monsters and humans working together to foil their evil plans. This time massive crystals have appeared throughout the world which are causing innumerable natural disasters and making the planet's monsters rampage out of control. After choosing your kaiju, you'll stomp your way around the Earth making stops at famous cities and tasked with objectives usually involving fighting other monsters. It's not uncommon for the player to take on multiple monsters within a single stage, one or more of which may be juiced up by the power of a crystal. Increasing the power of your monster by smashing crystals is a prominent new feature in Godzilla: Unleashed, by the way.

In an effort to add non-linearity to its Godzilla series Pipeworks has now placed every monster under one of four factions, each faction having a different motivation for being on Earth. Whether you choose to protect the planet, destroy it, or a little of both is meant to alter the path of the story and affect who your allies and enemies are. Horribly voice-acted still-frames that we're supposed to pass as cut scenes occur in-between the action but still do relatively little to explain what's going on. After three or four hours the story mode ends and a rinse-and-repeat cycle of beating story mode to unlock more monsters begins. At the end of the day all four factions' paths are virtually identical other than getting a few different terribly-voiced still-frames, which makes playing through the campaign over and over to unlock extras all the more tedious and annoying.