Elements of Destruction

Moby ID: 39050
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Description official description

In Elements of Destruction the player can unleash the most volatile forces on Earth such as tornadoes, lightning storms, ice storms, earthquakes and meteor storms, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting cities and causing massive amounts of damage and creating complete and utter chaos.

The story tells of a TV weatherman by the name of Marty Storm who is fired from his job for reporting the truth about bad weather conditions instead of lying about good weather conditions in which the station's producer hopes will result in better ratings. Afterwards he vows revenge as his former co-workers ridicule him, unknown to them however, Marty Storm is also a part-time mad scientist that has created a device that can create disasters at will. With this device, Storm goes on a quest to bring the city and his former co-workers to their knees. The gameplay is divided into three weeks (levels) which have seven days, each with their own set of goals. Some consist of causing a set amount of damage, others consist of destroying a certain percentage of building while others consist of destroying certain buildings. These objectives must be done within a certain time limit.

To conjure these storms a menu is on the right side of the bottom screen which has a list of disasters available (some are only available on certain days). After selecting their disaster they use the stylus pen to create a path of destruction for the tornadoes and storms or pick a certain point for either the earthquake or meteors. For the storms and tornadoes, players can click onto them with the stylus and continue to change their path until the run out. Additionally, the player must have a certain amount of energy to be able to select them which regenerates over time or can be obtained by destroying buildings. To help the player, a mini-map is also located at the top of the screen which shows locations of buildings, which types of buildings they are and the buildings health status.

Each storm also has their own special attacks which are only available after they reach a level three later into the game and can be accessed by clicking an icon above the disaster. The tornado becomes much more powerful and has the ability to cause more damage. The lightning storm can cause fires to buildings which the player can then blow into the DS' microphone to fan the flames and spread them. The ice storm causes a blizzard which will weaken buildings for other storms. The earthquake will become more powerful when the player continually taps the center of the earthquake with the meteor storm has the same effect.

However there are attempts to halt the players progress which certain buildings that can instantly stop the players selected disaster. A tornado trapper can suck up a tornado while a cloud cruncher takes out lightning and ice storms. The seismic nullifer prevents earthquakes while the meteor shield keeps meteors from destroying buildings and the weather sucker stops both tornadoes and storms. The storm free zone building prevents any disaster from being performed around it and a weather repeller bounces storms and tornadoes off of them. There are also two types of drones that come in from time to time: a repairing drone will fly around and repair a building while a rebuilding drone will instantly bring a building back without any time to rebuild it. The player can use the lightning storm to hover above these drones and destroy them.

Power-ups are also scattered throughout the level which will upgrade their storm or disaster to the next level for a brief amount of time. To use these power-ups, the player must have their storm or disaster consume them, however the color much match the disaster that is being used, otherwise the power-up will have no effect.

There are also multiplayer modes that support up to three different players. A race mode lets players complete a certain set of objectives given to them with the winner being the first player to complete them. There is also a Tug-of-War where the main objective is to either have the largest amount of destruction monetary wise or through a certain percentage.

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Credits (Nintendo DS version)

78 People (73 developers, 5 thanks) · View all

Director of Art
Director of Design
Director of Development
Producer
Lead Designer
Lead Artist
Gameplay Programmers
Additional Writer
Additional Programmer
Modeler
Graphic Artist
Music Composed by
Music Engineering
Quality Assurance Manager
Quality Assurance Testers
Additional Quality Assurance
Localization Team
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 3 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 1 ratings)

A nice concept, but falls short.

The Good
The first time I saw EOD, I was very intrigued. The chance to destroy towns and cities using tornadoes, storms, earthquakes and the like seemed interesting. When I popped this sucker in I was very pleased at how bright and vibrant the graphics are of this game. The story is told through non-vocal comic-style which is nice, but a little voice-overs would have been nice. The main antagonist of the game cracks me up, a disgraced TV weatherman by the name of Marty Storm...yes Marty Storm. Not only does the incidental name make me laugh, it's also the fact that he could pass for Dr. Wily of Mega Man fame.

The control actually works pretty well, using the stylus to drag the direction you want the storms to go or pick the spot for earthquakes or meteor strikes. The sound is very well done, including the effects of the disasters and the music is kinda of an upbeat diabolical-style. The looks of the cities looks reminiscent of SimCity 3000, which doesn't bother me, it actual gives you the sense of you are playing a SimCity game, just that you are destroying rather than building. The game has a nice length to it too, 21 levels in all so you can actually play this for a while.

The Bad
Well, even though the graphics are nice and vibrant, there isn't a lot of detail when it comes to the actual destruction. By the front cover of the game, I thought you would see cows, cars, people and debris fly all around the base of your tornadoes, sadly there isn't. Now granted, the destruction and explosions of the buildings look nice, but still they could have sprung for a little bit of detail, I'm mean after all, the capabilities of the DS aren't that limited.

Also, the game is kinda monotonous when it comes to the cities, they all seem the same. There are some differences in the buildings when you switch from rural to suburbs and finally the city, but the bad part is that many of the buildings are all the same. Not only do the buildings do seem to resemble SimCity 3000, but the roads do as well such as half-assed placement and dead ends in the middle of a flat area. What's worse you really get the most of the game half-way through since you unlock all three levels of these disasters half-way through the second week, instead of leveling up gradually over time which is disappointing. You basically have seen what the entire game offers by the second week.

Well, I do have to admit, the difficulty is along the lines of "pulling your hair out and spitting at the DS screen" level. Now I do love some challenge to a game, but come on, towards the end of this game it gets so cheap you wonder if they ever intended for a person to finish the game sanely or resort to cheat codes (which sadly I had to do just to see the end of the story). The later levels throw everything at you at once, especially on levels where you have to have a certain criteria such as 90%-95% total destruction. They have so many of the anti-disaster buildings clumped together it gets harder to conjure up one disaster to destroy the others. Once you do, it takes up a good bit of time to take out these row of buildings and if your not paying attention those damn repair drones sneak in and rebuild it before you can stop them and have to start over. Very very frustrating.

The Bottom Line
In the end this isn't a bad game, it just wasn't give much attention to. The concept is interesting, but the monotonous gameplay, lack of detail in some areas and brain throbbing difficulty hurts it. However, the comical characters and storyline does compensate for this. If you want to try this game out, do go overboard with the price. I paid $9.00 at a Wal-Mart for mine while a well-known national video game dealers which shall remain nameless, cough game cough stop cough, wanted $14.99 for a used one with no instruction booklet and original case. The $9 was barely pushing it, but still it is fun for a short time.

Nintendo DS · by Big John WV (26955) · 2009

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Game added by Big John WV.

Game added February 13, 2009. Last modified February 22, 2023.