Review - Boom Blox (Wii)

When it was first announced that Stephen Spielberg would be designing a Wii exclusive game, fans across the globe shouted out in joy. However, when it was announced that the exclusive game wouldn’t be an epic adventure on scale with his films, but a block based physics game, those fans hearts immediately sank. Despite sounding the equivalent of a bad game of electronic Jenga with your 5 year old cousin who prefers to push the whole damn thing over just as you finish setting it up for the 500th time than play, Spielberg has produced a game that can be held high above gamers heads and rejoiced for its fun, uniqueness and brilliant physics.

First of all I just want to point out it’s taken a considerable amount of willpower and a dash of force to drag me away from the game to write this review. Also, words cannot do this games brilliance justice, which is why i will be including a video or two at the bottom.

In its simplest form, Boom Blox is a physics engine based around blocks (or blox as the X is needed to emphasizes how insane the game truly is apparently). However, just calling it a physics engine wouldn’t be doing the game just. It’s a bloody marvelous physics engine! The physics in the game are spot on, whether its blox slowly teetering on the edge before plummeting to their end, or blox being blown to pieces and flung to the furthest reaches of the cubeiverse, or a tower swaying in the wind looking as if its about to fall, or a block (whats the singular of blox?) edging down between a small gap only to grind to a slow hold as friction holds it in place. Interactivity is added with the ability to hurl balls at the towers, grab blocks and move them around, shoot , squirt and smash with a variety of tools, each offering very different ways to play. It’s all brilliant and feels natural (ok maybe not the rectangular sheep) and has been used creatively to build a great game upon its roots.

The gameplay itself is spit into three main sections, Single Player, Multiplayer and Create, each offering a wealth of modes and options to engross yourself in. Single Player is split into two main modes, Explore and Adventure. Explore offers challenges based on the prominently featured type of block, such as bomb (which blows up everything around it), chemical (which explodes when two touch) and vanish (which vanishes when you hit it). Theres around 60 levels in total, split across 6 categories, with a challenge mode providing even more puzzles once you’ve completed the first batch. Adventure offeres 4 different stories, each offering three types of gameplay, ranging from defend your castle scenario’s to elegant block sliding puzzles to target practise type shooters to barrier building games. Each of these modes feels fresh and unique and are fun to play. As with explore mode, theres an additional challenge mode, offering about 2/3 of the amount of content as the main mode, but with twice the difficulty level (I’m guessing Explore’s will be about the same length but I can’t tell as theres a giant LOCKED sign on front of the option).

While the Single Player mode is brilliant fun, levels are pretty short and you can find yourself having played through it all after a week of playing. However the levels are fun enough for replayability and a medal system has you constantly trying to beat your scores.

I’ve only played an hour or so of multiplayer, but from what i’ve played, Boom Blox could easily be the next big party game for the Wii, offering 12 co-op modes and 11 competative modes. Like the main games, theres alot of variation offering something for everyone, wether it be castle siege, reverse-jenga, normal jenga, block collection, or a in can alley. About half of these modes only need 1 wiimote too, so you can have great fun without the expense. All the modes i’ve currently played have been great fun and i’ll definitely be inviting friends over to play.

Finally theres create mode, which offers an extensive level editor to make whatever you please, whether it be a tricky challenge, a perplexing puzzle or just as much destruction as possible. The editors pretty easy to use, offering click and place controls and a wealth of premade contraptions to use in your levels, such as castle walls, domino runs and catapults. However, for the more creative theres a wealth of advanced options such as scaling, mass copying, height editing and property changing tools. In the right hands the possibilities of this piece of software is endless.

However, the biggest drawbacks of the game also come from the create mode, specifically the level sharing. Level sharing is possible via WiiConect24 , but theres no online community to upload and download from, leaving you with the creaive talent of your friends only. This is a real letdown as there will be a community of users making great levels, but no way of sharing them. This game would also be perfectly suited to DLC, but this is stopped by the lack of online and the Wii’s small hard drive (at least until Nintendo unveil their storage solution). Still, despite these large setbacks, the level editor is fun, but is limited to yours and our friends imaginations.

Overall, Boom Blox is a brilliant, unique game, offering excellent physics and plenty of variety and fun. Despite its short length and lack of online, I would still reccomend you pick it up and try the game for yourself.

The Flipside:

• Brilliant Physics
• Multiplayers A Blast
• Incredibly Fun

The Flopside:

• No Online Level Sharing
• A Little On The Short Side
• Too Many Right Angles