Boom Blox Review by: Uzar - 6.8/10
Boom BloxLadies and gentlemen! Breaking news! As it turns out; there actually is a fun casual game on the Wii!
Boom Blox was a game I honestly had forgotten about until fairly recently. But I had fond memories of it. This is a somewhat puzzle game. It's like a mixture of angry birds, jenga, and minecraft. So after some replaying I have gathered enough information to write a review on it! So let's delve into this game that seems to have gone unnoticed by most.
Graphics: 5/10
The graphics aren't too great. Even by the Wii's standards. But it's at least passable. The backgrounds aren't the greatest, but I honestly don't see much more they could have done, aside from some more 3D models; as opposed to sprites.
The characters are what I can only describe as pre-minecraft minecraft style. They all share the same base, but with different skins on top. Only unlike Minecraft these characters are all rectangles instead of squares. :P
The blocks are simply...blocks. Although each type of block has it's own distinct skin. No two kinds of blocks look alike! Although like blocks look identical. So in a way it's unique...Do a degree. Once you get a lot of similar blocks you can tell that there was a lot of copy + paste going on. But honestly there isn't that much else that could be done. So it's forgivable, I guess.
Sound: 7/10
This game doesn't have too much music in it. Each map has one song on it. And by song, I mean somewhat appropirate music for the setting. Like, the Volcano level has tribal chanting, the wild west level has the typical western music going, the spooky forest has organs going...You get the picture. It sounds pretty nice when playing it. But I don't think it's anything one would want to listen to on a playlist.
Sometimes the NPC's spout little bits of gibberish. And sometimes they make their animal noises. (The sheep go baahh, the bear roars, etc.)
Another thing, an d my personal favorite feature here is, you can hear the sound of the ball you throw hitting the blocks from your Wiimote! (More on various balls and how to play in Difficulty and Depth)
Addictiveness: 5/10
This was a game I played a lot when I was younger. But like many wii games it was best in multiplayer. So when everyone else I knew lost interest, I kind of did too. The single player delivers a lot of challenges. And it was really fun when I played through it. Although after finishing that, there's no real reason to play again unless it's for multiplayer.
Depth: 6/10
There is only a little bit of depth to the game. And that essentially comes from the different gamemodes that the game takes on.
You see, in levels you can either throw a ball, puck up/pull/push blocks, or shoot. And with these, there are many different versions of balls and guns. For example: The bowling ball is harder to throw, but hits harder. The chemical ball can make single chemical blocks explode, and the shotgun has a wider spread of bullets.
Anyway, with a ball you can expect to be throwing it at blocks to do whatever the level wants you to do. Whether solve a puzzle, or knock something down, or hit something out of the air. The grabber is basically playing Jenga. And the guns typically fall into two different things. Tower defense (shooting swarms of npc's until the time runs out), and shooting things before they hit the ground. It's pretty neat, and has a lot of viarity! But there is not left besides that. Just different levels with literally no differences gameplay wise, and you can unlock NPC's, different balls and guns, and background props to use in custom made levels. But that's it. Only the weapons affect gameplay.
Story: 4/10
There isn't any story really. Although adventure mode has a few simple plots for each story. For example: One is about a gorilla finding her babies. And another is about sheep looking for diamonds. It's alright for what it is. They couldn't really have done more. And it's sequel did a lot less. So this is pretty good. Just not great or amazing.
Difficulty: 5/10
There's not too much difficulty. But the later levels in single player can get pretty challenging. And so can the challenge mode. Sometimes there's just one really hard level in a pool of easy ones. Or vise versa. The most challenging for me are the pulling levels. Because the wii remote, while working mostly well, occasionally spazzes out on me in this game. So while making a difficult pull the controller just bounced everywhere and made me lose! Thankfully that is only a rare occurrence. For the most part the controls are pretty responsive! It detects how soft or hard you swing the wii remote and throws the ball accordingly. And it pushes and pulls in and out better than I expected. Swinging things can be a lot of fun too.
The only controller that works for this game is the Wii remote. And aside from spazzing out like crazy when you go too far away from the TV. It works pretty well. All you do is point at the TV and guide the cursor to where you want. Then you press A to lock it in place. Depending on what tool you're using: It would shoot right then with a gun, or it would lock onto a block you've pointed at with the push/pull tool or the grabber. Or it would require to hold down A and swing the Wii remote if you're using a ball! It's incredibly simple to learn and do. But some of these levels get pretty challenging for using such simple concepts.
All things considered, this is a pretty fun game. Although it wasn't spectacular in the graphics department. It was actually a ton of fun to play. I was actually surprised to see that very little has been said of the game. What's stranger still is that Steven Spielberg has his name tied to this game. If you ever find this game in a bargain bin somewhere.
or emulate it I'd suggest at least thinking about it. You may be surprised! While the game is really kiddy, it is also pretty fun. You just may be surprised.
Overall: 6.8/10
Graphics
5 Sound
7 Addictive
5 Depth
6 Story
4 Difficulty
5
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