Boom Blox

Review from AJ - Thursday, 31 July 2008 @ 4:02am

Boom Blox should’ve been a great commercial success. It’s a fun game by any measure, with interesting characters, more than enough puzzles to keep you entertained, heck it’s even got Steven Spielberg’s name on the front of it and yet still nobody seems to have bought it! It’s almost as if the Wii has so much bad content that the good games just get "lost" amongst the noise. You can place Boom Blox squarely alongside Zak and Wiki and Okami in that regard. Good company to keep if you listen to the critics. These are three games that feature in pretty much any game journalist’s top 10 Wii games and yet most people have neither played them nor heard of them. Unsurprisingly, tripe like Mario and Sonic sells like hotcakes, but right now you’d be hard pressed to find a copy of any of the aforementioned games at your local EB. I don’ really know who to point the finger at... but I’ve got a feeling I should just blame Nintendo. I don’t have any real reason to, but it just feels kinda right.

Boom Blox at its heart is a really fun puzzle game, and for once is actually something original. Originality is worth a lot in this age of sequels and rehashes. For those of you who haven’t heard much of the game, it essentially boils down to using the wii remote to throw, fling, shoot, pull, push, blow, splash and balance a pile of Jenga style bricks. Sometimes your objective is to knock a tower down, sometimes it is to NOT knock a tower down. Sometimes you’re trying to create a chain reaction to destroy an entire structure, and other times you’re trying to cleverly remove certain blocks without disturbing the rest. The underlying principles don’t change during the game, there are blocks and they fall down. Sometimes you want them to, and sometimes you don’t want them to...and sometimes, just to confuse things, there is no falling down at all. The game is split into two totally different styles of game. The first is purely puzzles (with lots of blocks and them mostly falling down); whilst the second is more action based game play with a bit of a fairy tale of sorts running in the background (not always with the falling down of the blocks HOYVIN-GLAYVIN!).

The puzzle aspect of the game was initially what I thought Boom Blox was all about. If you haven’t played the game yet, this is probably what you’re expecting when you pick up the box. There are a heap of puzzles split into groups which introduce each of the game mechanics to you one at a time. It could’ve been a simple tutorial level, but instead it’s an entire game in itself. You’re given tennis balls, lasers, water cannons and all sorts of other missiles to fire at these blocks with the basic goal of scoring the most points possible. Points are awarded by special gold blocks with numbers written on them. As a numbered block hits the floor you are awarded those points. In some cases you will even lose points for dropping the wrong type of block, and that is where precision comes in. There are other types of blocks as well, such as explosive blocks, acid blocks (which explode when they hit another acid block), and blocks which simply disappear when they’re hit. The designers mess all these different blocks and missiles into dozens and dozens of very tricky puzzles.



Not all puzzles involve knocking down an entire tower however. Quite a few of the puzzles involve removing scoring blocks from a tower on which are perched a collection of cows... the idea being to score as many points before the cows topple over the edge to their doom. The nervous mooing have the doomed cows is one such example of how the designers have managed to add a distinct charm to what otherwise would be a fairly bland game. This part of the game really hits its straps when you’re confronted with the seemingly impossible task of knocking down an entire screen of blocks with one throw of a tennis ball. A correctly aimed throw to the right block at the right angle will set of a chain reaction obliterating the entire collection of blocks and, in the process, many of the onlooking animals. Finally finding that single weak point to score gold, can be a very satisfying challenge. It’s impossible for me to really give an impression of how many different ways to interact with these simple blocks, or the sheer number of different challenges and point scoring methods. The more I list, the more there are to list! Suffice to say, this isn’t just as simple as the title "Boom Blox" suggests.

There is only one level out of all of these that wasn’t an absolute blast (pun intended), and that is the laser shooting gallery. It should be fun, but the method the game employs to lock on and then fire is terrible for moving objects. After locking on with your targeting reticle, the object moves but the reticle doesn’t meaning you have this very jerky motion of locking the target at a certain point on the screen and firing.... it just feels clunky. It works wonderfully for stationary objects, but really they should’ve employed something different for those levels involving moving objects.

The major part of the game, which I didn’t realise was the major part of the game initially is the story mode. The story is cutesy and totally forgettable, but the kids will love it and at the very least it adds some nice fluffy context to what is otherwise mindlessly destroying stuff. Actually, saying destroying stuff is not entirely accurate, as only a small portion of this part of the game actually involves simply blowing shit up. The puzzles in this part of the game are far more interesting than that. A classic example early on has a gorilla walking through a maze of sorts on a quest to find her baby. Your objective is to ensure her safe passage. This may involve building a walk way, or unblocking her path. In one instance it involves undoing a series of interlocking blocks in quick succession to get her to the end as quickly as possible. Similarly, you are often faced with a series of challenges involving defending a group of blocks from the invading masses determined to make off with your precious gem blocks! These kinds of challenges make Boom Blox a whole lot more entertaining than a simple Jenga clone. In fact, the name Boom Blox really does the whole thing a serious injustice, as the game has a whole lot more to offer than just blowing stuff up... even if that is seriously fun.

It’s not like Boom Blox is perfect, mind you. For a game that boasts 300+ levels, the game has a fair bit of filler. It certainly doesn’t have that "leaves you wanting more" zing of something like Portal, but given the target market, that probably isn’t surprising. In fact you’ll be well and truly done with the game well before finishing it. I kind of got the feeling that a lot of the levels were designed just to keep the kids entertained while the grown-ups drink coffee and talk about the weather. Having said that, the developers really do face a tough choice with puzzle games like this. Make the game too short and it just feels half arsed, but make it too long and you’ll have reviewers like me complaining that the game had too much filler. Not to mention the screaming kids whinging to their parents that they’re done with it already. It’s not that the game is repetitive, far from it. The developer’s have done a fantastic job of making every new scenario have a new set of game play rules or mechanics.



I think it really comes down to the fact that the game is somewhere between a challenging puzzle game for the thinkers among us, but also has to cater for the younger demographic as well. The game finds itself stuck somewhere in the middle of the two. It succeeds to please both demographics, but fails at the same time.... which amusingly is a similar the experience to playing the game. By requiring the bare minimum standard to get a bronze, the game allows you to zoom through most of the puzzles without any real effort. You can win easily, just by losing! To offset the difficulty, the devs have created such a vast number of levels that attempting to win gold on every level seems to be both overwhelming and pointless. Personally, I think the gold, silver, bronze concept works for games Project Gotham Racing where getting the top grade can be truly impossible for all but the most skilled drivers, but really doesn’t work for games where Gold is the minimum standard expected for any 'adult' player. A better option would’ve been to have a difficulty setting at the start of the game which ramps up the required scores appropriately, forcing the lazy among us to really earn our stripes before moving to the next level.

Speaking of next levels, the game also includes Multiplayer and a level builder. Unfortunately, Multiplayer is vastly inferior to the single player experience, and the level builder is rendered unnecessary given the sheer number of levels already available!

Overall, I think Boom Blox is up there with the Lego Star Wars games in that rare position of reaching a younger audience whilst still being a heap of fun for adults.

Pros

A genuinely fun puzzle game. More puzzles than you can shake a monkey at. Fun for the whole family... providing your family is made up of only two people and at least one of them is under 10.

Cons

Even with the level builder, replay is unlikely. Lengthy play time will have people questioning why you have a sore wrist.

Summary

This is the game that Michael Atkinson would have us all playing. At least until he finds out it encourages kids to use explosives, allows you to selectively maim helpless animals, shows cows with exposed breasts and has several references to drugs like "Acid" and "Ice". Oh, the damage this will surely cause to our youth!