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When the Wii was first unveiled, the unique motion-sensing controller led many to believe that it would lead to a boom in creative, original titles. Unfortunately, that has not been the case, and aside from a few notable exceptions (mainly consisting of first-party Nintendo titles), games for the Wii have mostly been rushed ports and budget shovelware.
That’s what makes Boom Blox so great: It’s a game that couldn’t be played on any other system and, instead, it plays to the console’s strengths, offering a wholly fun and unique experience.
One of the best things about Boom Blox is the amount of variety there is in terms of gameplay. There are several unique modes including two throwing stages, which can involve tossing balls at stacks of blocks (aka blox) to knock them over, hitting bomb blox to set of chain-reaction explosions, or even trying to hit invaders from reaching your castle. There are also grabbing levels, which involve pulling blox from a stack without knocking the rest over, Jenga-style.
The weakest of the bunch are the shooting stages, where the Wii remote essentially becomes a light-gun, and blox are tossed about in the air waiting to be shot.
All of this variety would mean little though, if the game wasn’t such fun. It makes incredible use of the Wii’s control scheme, creating a very immersive and tactile experience. Throwing a ball is as simple as it sounds, and the game does a great job at accurately mimicking the strength and speed with which you throw it. Similarly, the grabbing levels are just as intuitive, requiring players to simply pick a block and then yank it out. And like a good game of Jenga, it requires a very steady hand.
The single-player game has a lot of meat to it, featuring a straight-up puzzle mode and an adventure mode as well. The stages in the puzzle mode are divided by type (Throw, Grab, etc.), and get progressively difficult as you go on. While the adventure section features more narrative driven stages, such as helping a mother gorilla reach her babies by building a bridge. All in all, there are around 300 different puzzles in the game. Playing through both campaigns unlocks items which can then be used in the games extensive create-a-level mode, which extends the playability even further.
But where Boom Blox really shines is in multi-player. Throwing games can get frantic as you race to knock over your opponents castle before he does the same to you, meanwhile the grabbing stages can get equally as tense, as the remote gets passed around and each player removes a block. Unfortunately, due to the heavy physical interaction involved in the game, prolonged multi-player sessions can lead to some seriously sore arms.
Visually, the game is simple but charming. While the characters - which are blockified versions of various animals - look great, most of the blox and backgrounds are fairly plain.
Despite this lack of detail, though, the framerate slows to a crawl when too much action is going on on-screen. This doesn’t quite make the game unplayable, but in some levels - particularly the shooting ones - it can be quite frustrating.
Boom Blox is definitely not what most people expected when EA announced their partnership with legendary film director Steven Spielberg. Instead of an epic, story-driven experience, it’s a fairly simple puzzle game. But beneath that simplicity, there is a great deal of depth. And beneath the kid-friendly veneer, there is a great game that should not be missed.
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