Boom Blox, I Had You All Wrong
When I had heard that Steven Spielberg was working on a video game, my skepticism alarm went off and I thought, that’s great – we’ve finally got the gaming equivalent of Madonna’s children’s books. Well, I’ve tried Boom Blox and now I’m hooked, ready to sing its praises from the rooftops. It’s a terrific puzzle game, perfect for kids but fun for adults, too.
The whole game is basically throwing things at blocks. Sometimes the blocks are glass or bombs or chemical blocks. Sometimes you’re throwing a baseball or a bowling ball or spraying a hose. Sometimes there’s a time limit or you have to save your blocks from intruders or you have to knock all the blocks down with a single throw. The point here is that Boom Blox is an amazing, rich game based on one simple motion. Sometimes simplicity is best. Here’s a look at the game play:
Boom Blox has three modes: Play, Party, and Create. When you go into Play Mode, there’s just about the most intuitive set of tutorials I’ve seen in a video game – the perfect nesting of skills to get kids to understand all of the different play dynamics. Play Mode has direct access to the puzzles, but it also has 4 different adventure paths. It is in adventure play that we get to meet all of the Boom Blox characters and see what they can do. In Party Mode you can try the puzzles competitively or cooperatively with friends.
And then there’s Create Mode, oh lovely Create Mode. Have I mentioned before how much I love it when kids can design their own video games? Here you can design levels from scratch using props, sets and characters you’ve earned in the other modes. Share the levels you make with friends over WiiConnect! You can also take any existing puzzle in the game and edit it – how cool is that? Did you hear that cranky gamers? If you think this is all too easy, why don’t you take a crack at making it harder?
Kudos, Steven Spielberg. My apologies for misjudging you.
On Amazon: Boom Blox
