You probably didn't play Deadly Creatures. I loved it. THQ has been an unsung hero of innovation on the Wii, starting with last year's infuriatingly overlooked de Blob and continued a few months back with the creepy-crawly Deadly Creatures. Almost no one played Deadly Creatures, damn near no one bought Deadly Creatures (please fix that, TheFeed readers!), but THQ CEO Brian Farrell told me in a phone interview last week that Deadly Creatures' sacrifice won't necessarily in vain.

"The lines are blurry," said Farrell, speaking on what THQ's learned about producing core and casual Wii games since de Blob and Deadly Creatures were released. "One of the things that THQ has tried to do is innovate -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not."

Deadly Creatures was a wild success, in my book. The game was not without its problems, mostly stemming from a general lack of polish, but a video game has never made me feel unease while simply walking around as my main character. Every time my spider leaped forward, screeching with dripping venom, I shuddered. Goosebumps are forming on my arms as I type this. Spiders and Patrick Klepek do not mix, but it made for an action experience unlike any other, one well worth seeking out.

"We wanted to see 'is there an audience out there that will play something completely different on the Wii?'" said Farrell. "Commercially, we were not pleased with how it was received, but again, the critics loved it and that happens in this business sometimes."

Farrell admits he hasn't quite worked out what when wrong with Deadly Creatures. There is hope, though. Deadly Creatures 2 might not be on the table -- though hopefully my request to the highest in THQ's chain of command will plant the idea -- but work that went into Deadly Creatures will be used elsewhere.

"We don't have a good post-mortem on [Deadly Creatures]," he said, "but one of the key things that we can build on there is we have great -- that was [developed by] one our internal studios, Rainbow Studios -- and we have great Wii technology there now and so we're developing other games -- stay tuned for the announcements -- but we intend to leverage that great technology on the Wii in the future."

That "great technology" might not be used on a sequel to Deadly Creatures, but if it means more unique Wii releases from THQ, sign me up.