Gameplay: 8.8/10
When you start the game, Mario will be on a stage containing various walls and enemies. Your mission: tear down all the walls while avoiding the enemies. To do this, you have to stand in front of the wall and press B to hammer it down and score points; but sometimes it's not that easy. Some walls take 2 or 3 hits to bring down, and there are also ladders that you can climb; but some of them you'll have to destroy eventually. You may also find Bombs in stage, and if you set them off they will damage nearby walls and perhaps cause a chain reaction for extra points.
It's quite straightforward and distinct among puzzle games, but the enemies are really more annoying than you'd think. They only consist of Gotcha Wrenches and Eggplant Men, but they're still enough to be quite a nuisance. For one thing, Mario himself can't damage except in certain, rare circumstances. Second, Mario only takes one hit. There are ways to defeat these enemies, though... well, keep them out of your way, anyway. The most common option is to use your hammer to open a door to the background. If you can lure an enemy in there and keep them in until it shuts, they'll be stuck in the background and will not be able to damage you. It's worth the effort, but it's quite hard to catch multiple enemies in there without them escaping. The second tactic is more complicated. Throughout the game you'll find floors supported by pillars, which may hold various objects, in this case, an oil barrel. Say if an enemy is approaching you, you can destroy the pillar and make the barrel fall atop the enemy, finishing them and scoring lots of points. But be careful; the barrel can fall on you as well.
Ah, and there's one more enemy I forgot to mention, and he's the worst. It’s Foreman Spike. He'll follow you around and whenever you get near a wall, he'll try to smash it up and steal the points unless you smash it first. Even worse, if he destroys it while you' re in front of it, you'll be knocked to the bottom of the stage. You can do the same to him, but it's difficult to time. Worse yet, if you've trapped other enemies in the stage behind a door, he can open it up and allow them to escape, which is very annoying indeed.
So far I've been pretty harsh with the enemies of the game, which I heavily faulted the overall score for, but that doesn't keep me from enjoying Wrecking Crew's unique style. Not to mention, the game's got a Stage Editor with which you can create, save, and edit up to 4 levels. This is perhaps one of my favorite features of the game.
Graphics: 7.4/10
It's an NES game, pixels galore. There's really nothing too special about the graphics, but there are problems with a few select characters. When I first saw a Gotcha Wrench, I honestly thought they were zombies. >.> And why in the world is Foreman Spike's beard blue? There are no backgrounds either, but that doesn't really affect the score much. I guess that's early graphical design for you.
Music and Sound Effects: 3/10
This is where the game is most lacking. Literally, not including jingles, there's only 2 pieces of music in the game. And those aren't all that special either. The first one is the typical level music, while the other is the bonus stage music. I must admit the bonus stage music is a bit catchy at first. The only musical scores other than those are the level completion and death jingles. It seems like the musical category in this game was almost completely ignored, with a few quickly-composed tunes just throne in. At least the sound effects are decent... gah, but nobody cares about the sound effects!
Controls: 9.9/10
There aren't many controls you'll have to memorize in Wrecking Crew, as there are only 2 available commands while playing it (unless you count quitting the level). When playing this game on the Wii’s Virtual Console, the Analog Stick moves Mario around, and B makes him swing his hammer to hit stuff. That's basically all you need to know. Oh, and Z is reset. Seeing as there are so few commands, they couldn't be easier to learn and memorize and are not irritant during the game. Surprisingly, the sideways Wiimote and the Classic Controller work just as well with the game. That's a rarity with Virtual Console games. The sheer simplicity of the controls makes it hard to come up with any criticisms.
Replay Value: 5/10
Unfortunately, after you've completed whatever of the 100 levels that you can, there isn't too much of a reason to play anymore. The main part of this score came from the Stage Editor. This great feature allows one to build levels from scratch using all the different objects seen in the game. It's fun to challenge yourself with your own level and keep on updating them until they fit your tastes perfectly. But of course, this feature doesn't last forever. Eventually you're gonna get bored with it and not have much of a reason to replay Wrecking Crew. Sometimes you may find yourself wanting to go and do a few levels, but that's not so common.
Fun Factor!: 8/10
Despite my complaints, this game is usually quite fun to play while it lasts. It isn't another puzzle game where you just have to line up colored objects, and is a nice and fun innovation to the genre. As I mentioned before, the Stage Editor is a great and addicting feature. Though the game is usually a good challenge, sometimes it's just frustrating. As aforementioned in the gameplay section, the enemies seem overpowered while Mario seems underpowered. That Foreman Spike in particular is really a pain and can just be a terrible nuisance and make you reluctant to play. Stages where there are no or just 1 enemy (so you can effectively trap it behind a door) are the most fun, as it mostly only requires strategy and thinking while still offering a good challenge.
Overall: 75/100
Wrecking Crew had the potential to be a superb puzzle game; it just didn't seem to use that potential to its fullest extent. It's just got too many major flaws to compare with some of the great puzzlers of its era. In short, the elements of Wrecking Crew were a great idea, but not pulled off correctly. Don't spend your first few thousand Wii Points on this game as there are much better choices, but Wrecking Crew still manages to be a pretty decent game.
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