Hudson Entertainment was showing something of a trend at last week's Gamers' Day event. Of all the games on display, nearly all of them were for the Wii, and as our discussion with Hudson's Mike Pepe demonstrated, the "casual" and "family-friendly" flags were flying high. When the Wii intersects with casual, signs frequently point to WiiWare, Nintendo's own digital download service for the console's more bite-sized, casually accessible offerings. Hudson is no stranger to WiiWare, having already published several titles, including Alien Crush Returns and Bomberman Blast. As such, I was not terribly surprised to see the company showing off Pit Crew Panic, an upcoming WiiWare title -- but on the other hand, nothing really prepares you to watch a bunch of ladies fixing a wedding cake with a power drill and hammer.
Pit Crew Panic is a game that takes an extremely sensible premise and applies it in very strange ways. Upon reflection, its overall gameplay seems very well-suited to the Wii, and for quick, casual, pick-up-and-play execution: The player must manage an all-female pit crew (with unusually large heads), quickly and effectively, in order to perform several maintenance tasks simultaneously, deploying crew members to different locations and prioritizing harder tasks, so that his pit-stop keeps moving at a rapid clip.
Mechanically, this is handled like a frantic mix between RTS unit management, and frantic motion-based mini-games. The player is given four crew members, and when a new arrival reaches the pit, several things will be immediately wrong with it, and in need of repair. Using the Wiimote, a player can drag and drop his crew onto the various broken "hotspots," at which point they will hurry over and get to work, whipping out their screwdrivers, wrenches, saws, hammers, and so forth. The ultimate goal of the game, though, is to complete all repairs in record time, and a few strategic elements are put into play: Certain flaws will take longer to fix than others, some flaws are not as easy to locate and must be hunted for, larger repairs can be sped up by assigning multiple crew to them, and so on.
Further adding to the player's speed is the ability to manually assist crew members with their work. At any time, once a crew member has gotten to work, the player can select them a second time, and then use the Wiimote to lend a hand; depending on the tool in use, a player may have to mimic the swing of a hammer, the twist of a screwdriver, and more. While the pit crew are quite capable of working on their own, the player's personal involvement will dramatically speed up any repairs, which forces him to further strategize over his time and resources. This strategizing may not make much difference on easy repairs, where an entire sequence can be completed in 20 seconds or so, but later in the game, Pit Crew Panic will challenge the player with larger items in need of more drastic maintenance.
We say "items," mind you, and not "cars," because Hudson seems to have created Pit Crew Panic in the hopes that onlookers will see it, wonder what the hell is going on, and become transfixed. Sure, you may start off fixing a car, but when it comes time to pop the hood, the vehicle is being powered by a cake. Next, a giant planter box comes into the pit, and one of the flowers has a dented stem and some rusting leaves. No problem -- get out the hammers and drills. By the time your pit crew are working feverishly to repair a toilet the size of a bus, all reason and logic have clearly been abandoned, but the amusing charm left in their place is a nice touch.
My hands-on time with Pit Crew Panic left me curious for more. Some of the gameplay looked like it might give rise to frustration: Dragging and dropping crew members relies on the imprecise point-and-click Wiimote controls we've lamented before -- while that may be mildly annoying in some circumstances, it can grow quite maddening when you're racing the clock. The motion-controlled repairs were easy to handle, though, and the availability of multiplayer certainly added the usual touch of social mayhem that a decent party game should have. Pit Crew Panic offers 4-player offline or online play, with every possible combination of cooperative or competitive set-ups. I'm not sure I quite understood the scoring for competitive play, but the co-op was certainly frantic enough, with each remote able to direct and assist the girls in their own way.
Pit Crew Panic has not been given an estimated release yet, but Hudson is hoping to charge between 800 and 1000 Wii Points for the title.
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