Roland Tellzen | May 27, 2008
ATTACH the name Steven Spielberg to a game and you'd probably think you had a pretty good idea of what it would be like: well-produced, escapist, cinematic, adventurous.
It's all about puzzle-solving and destructive mayhem
What you probably wouldn't expect is Boom Blox, the first partnership in games territory between the action film director and Electronic Arts.
It's hard to think of a game less cinematic than this one. Forget action or even plot, Boom Blox is a destruction game aimed squarely at young children and families.
That's not to say it isn't fun or innovative. As is all too often the case, simplicity does not need to mean dull, and Boom Blox is anything but. In fact, its simplicity is quite deceptive.
Anybody who grew up building towers of Lego blocks (or indeed any other type of building blocks) and then enjoyed the fun of smashing them down - and isn't that nearly all of us? - will understand Boom Blox.
Quite simply, it's all about puzzle-solving and destructive mayhem through hundreds of levels of block-generated structures.
It starts off as a simple smash-for-points exercise: you are confronted with a series of structures with jewels interlaced in them. Your job is to survey the structure, find the weak points and bring the whole thing down in as few "throws" as possible so as to gather the jewels and amass points.
In later levels, the puzzles change a bit. Some involve trying to bring different types of blocks together and cause a "chemical" chain reaction to make them explode. Some involve blasting away at armies of thieves hell-bent of stealing the jewels before you can release them. The puzzles to be solved become quite difficult and strategic. Instead of being a simple blasting game, you really have to think through how some of the structures fit together to figure out the most efficient way to bring it crashing down.
The controls are easy to pick up and make great use of the Wii's motion sensing capabilities.
It's simply a matter of pointing to a part of the screen you want to throw a missile at and then actually going through the motions, using the Wii controller, of chucking an object at the screen.
The characters and settings have a definite young appeal - fluffy sheep, beavers, ducks and the like - but I found it quite addictive. Indeed, my six-year-old niece had a hard time trying to get the controller from me.
It's certainly a lot of fun for all ages.
SPECIFICATIONS
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Platform: Wii
• Price: $79.95
• Rating: 7/10