Sin & Punishment: Star Successor can be described, as basically as possible, as an airplane shooter that uses pointer controls. The game takes its liberties to go in any direction it pleases, so you can't call it either a vertical shooter nor a horizontal shooter. The player can also take their liberties on which direction they want to shoot with the pointer controls, but there are some aspects that you cannot control. I will try to explain why the best way I can: There are enemies on the left and the right of the player's character, so you shoot at them on a 2D plane. Simple enough. Now, as this is going on, there are also enemies in the background. When you point at those enemies, you shoot in the 3rd dimension, shooting towards the background. Therefore, depending on how the area is set up, where the enemies are located and where you are pointing, the game decides which direction your character will be shooting. However, this is all more of a visual thing and less about how gameplay is actually changing.

The gameplay throughout Sin & Punishment: Star Successor remains constant. You have three attack moves, a jump button, and a quick dodge move. I played the game with the Wii remote and nunchuck. You can also play with the classic remote and Gamecube remote, but I believe that no pointer equals to no fun. You hold the 'B' button to shoot constantly at all the enemies on screen. The 'B' button also has the player whip out a sword to hack and slash enemies who get close enough (a move that obviously will not work on the enemies that stay in the background). This is where I find the game gets a little clumsy. Holding 'B' shoots and pressing 'B' has the player slash. I don't mind not being able to do both at the same time, but why does it have to be the same button? This is a case where I would have preferred perhaps some waggle to cut down the close range enemies. The third attack is done by holding down the 'A' button to charge up devastating a super shot, which regenerates every 7 seconds. Lastly, the 'C' and 'Z' buttons control the jumping and dodging. I find it funny that jumping only works when you're on the ground, which is kind of useless because you always have the option to float around.

Now that you know how the game works inside and out, one of the high points of Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is that the game keeps things fresh. There is so much variety in scenery and types of enemies to defeat. Another high point of this game is its difficulty factor. The game has you shooting, dodging and mastering the game to complete chapters. On the plus side, there are plenty of checkpoints, so the frustration level is kept very low. To make things a bit easier, you can have a partner play with you on your journey. A second player can pick up a Wii remote and shoot along with you. Unfortunately, the second player has no on-screen character and can only shoot regular shots. That's it. Both partners I have played with during my sessions with Sin & Punishment: Star Successor became really bored, really quickly.

My biggest gripe with Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is its story. The cutscenes are mediocre to watch and the voice acting makes you cringe at how cheesy they are both written and spoken. Thankfully, the cutscenes can be skipped. I just want to continue shooting and blowing stuff up. It's nice to see that they showed some respect and allowed the player to decide whether or not a cutscene is worth watching.

Overall, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is a fun and challenging game that can get a tad repetitive. I also feel that the game needed some more replay value. The only reason you would want to go back to this title is to break some scores and to perfect what you have already beaten. For me, that is just not enough for me to pop in this game for a second go. You will get a good one or two days out of this title, but if you're looking to purchase a full priced title that will give you more bang for your buck, you may want to look elsewhere.

• Game: Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
• Platform Reviewed: Wii
• Release Date: Available Now
• MSRP: $49.99
• Developer: Treasure
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Review Copy Info: A copy of this title was provided to DualShockers, Inc. by the publisher for purposes of this review.