Stop Stress: A Day of Fury Review: Walk A Mile In Jack’s Shoes

Written by 2.o | December 28, 2009

Stop Stress: A Day of Fury

This console generation’s downloadable games were supposed usher in a whole new level of variety for gamers and developers alike. While Sony’s PSN and Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade have dabbled in introducing indie games to the larger gaming market, it’s becoming overwhelmingly apparent that, outside of XBLA’s dedicated indie games section, Nintendo’s WiiWare is the best way to go to discover new developers, and check out their latest work. Abylight is one of those young developers that has been using WiiWare to showcase their games, the latest of which is the ambitiously titled “Stop Stress: A Day of Fury.”

No, the game isn’t a self-help guide on how to reduce your daily frustration; it’s actually much more like the highly entertaining Michael Douglas vehicle from 1993, Falling Down. In fact, “Stop Stress” could have been renamed “Falling Down: The Video Game,” and no one would have questioned it.

Stop Stress: A Day of Fury

Simply put, the game’s main character, Jack, is having a very, very bad day, from start to finish, and is on a quest to escape the city and relax. From the moment he wakes up in the morning, the alarms clocks are out to get him, to his giant, half-spider boss, nothing is going right for this guy, and it’s the player’s job to make sure that he keeps his stress level under control in order to make it to the next stage. Each level drops you into a different environment as you go through your day, pitting you up against a host of different stress inducing situations and enemies which you have to make your way through before the time runs out. The overall goal in the game is to make it from your bed to the beach as quickly and safely as possible, surviving any breakdowns along the way. And you thought Homer Simpson had a problem with rageahol.

As you progress through the game’s handful of levels you’re presented with a standard assortment of instruments of destruction – slippers, baseball bat, sledgehammer, rubble, and an ax – all of which are controlled using Wiimote motions. For all of the melee items, you swing the remote, and for the projectile rubble you make pretty much the same motion, just holding the A button to throw things. The rest of the controls are just as basic, using the nunchuck as the primary tool for movement.

Stop Stress: A Day of Fury

“Stop Stress” may not be the most beautiful WiiWare game on the market, but it does have a very unique look to it. The story is told comic-book-style, with hand-drawn static images for the cutscenes that pan by in-between each level, as you find out what your next objective is. As you go from setting to setting in the game bashing and destroying everything in your path, the game’s first person perspective gives it a very “Elebits” feeling, boiling Konami’s first Wii game down to the simple fun of destruction.

If you’re looking for a quick fix at stress relief, “Stop Stress” might be the way to go, especially since it is so quick. There’s only four levels that an experienced gamer can run through in a couple of hours max. On the plus side, the game’s fairly challenging, and can have you going back through a couple of the levels multiple times before you manage to beat the clock to advance to the next area.

Stop Stress: A Day of Fury

Overall, “Stop Stress: A Day of Fury” is a great effort from a small developer, but it might not appeal to the larger gaming crowd. The game does a good job at what it tries to do – present an interesting title that takes advantage of the unique platform that it is on – but it doesn’t go too far beyond that. However, if you’ve had a long day, where things just haven’t really gone your way, and you need to take out your frustration while being presented with the possibility of ending up on the beach when everything is all said and done, “Stop Stress” is the absolute perfect game for you, hopefully it won’t enrage you even more.

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