Boom Blox Bash Party

When I was a kid I used to enjoy setting up elaborate, delicate lego and wooden block constructions. Giant towers, walls and fortresses would develop and grow in my room over a matter of days, often populated by astronauts, ninjas, Arthurian Knights, and maybe the stray G.I.Joe or Transformer as well. There may have been no limit to the heights to which my architectural fancies may have developed, had it not been for another presence in my childhood home… a chaotic, destructive force that for my towering constructions could only mean periodic devastation. Yes, I speak of my kid sister, who would regularly take great delight in smashing each tower and minaret, gleefully undoing any small edge against the forces of entropy that I might have achieved. It is for my kid sister and the delight she takes in destruction for which Boom Blox appears to be aimed. If you’ve ever had that particular impulse to collapse a house of cards or knock over a tower of Jenga blocks, this game may be for you as well.

The basic idea behind Boom Blox is to use the Wii-mote to topple towers of exploding blocks in various ways, while strange little rectangular farm creatures watch on. There are three primary mechanics by which you accomplish the various tasks… you can pitch baseballs, grab and pull blocks away, or blast them with a gun. The game consists of a series of levels organized around a type of task, like toppling a tower with the fewest moves or pulling away the most blocks without allowing a special block to fall to the ground. Playing Boom Blox is like spending an afternoon playing some Jenga, going to the beach and kicking over a few sand castles, and then visiting a carnival and either shooting targets or tossing baseballs at piles of cups. None of the games in Boom Blox will feel particularly new or revolutionary, but the interface is well executed and the game can certainly provide an afternoon of mild family fun.
Supplementing the basic rules are a variety of special types of blocks, including blocks that explode on impact, blocks that disappear on impact, blocks that give you extra points on impact, and so on. In order to earn a gold medal on a level where you are knocking over structures with the least number of baseballs, you have to have a bit of strategy and a bit of luck for your shots to cause the most effect. That being said, none of the levels are particularly hard to plan for… much of the pleasure of the game is just seeing things topple and explode, which happens to great satisfaction whether you are optimizing your performance or not.

As you make your way through the game knocking away support struts, racking up points or gingerly grabbing and sliding precariously balanced beams out of the way, you slowly unlock new levels and building materials, with which you can design your own levels and constructions. You also unlock the cubical pigs (ever see Space Truckers?), sheep and other parallelpiped animal friends, all of whom look like the mutant offspring of Playmobile toys and plastic farm animals, which is best not to think too deeply about. There are some levels where you toss balls at these critters rather than at blocks, often when they are trying to carry away your loot. I found this more challenging, as the little suckers were moving targets and I always wanted to get a good view of them exploding.

There are also story segments that, uh, well, exist, I guess. They don’t answer a lot of deep questions or really have much to do with the game, but they do supply some useful information on the various animals. I learned, for instance, that Doc Babadoo “throws balls at everyone” which somehow reaches true comic potential when you get a glimpse of this rectangular monkey’s crazed eyes, generous mustache and 10-gallon hat. I mean, I’ve heard Med School can have this effect, but sheesh… and just don’t ask about his friend “Boots Beaverton.”

There are two main issues with the game. One is my wrist, which after flinging the Wii-mote around for an hour or so starts to ache something fierce. Excessive use of Boom Blox feels like the fast lane to arthritis of the wrist, or a few hair fractures at the very least. Some may say this is an advantage to the game, as it imposes a definite limit on play time in any one sitting… you could tell your kids they can play until their wrists start smarting or fall off or something. The other issue is self-similarity. I found myself growing bored after ten or so levels at a time… once you’ve knocked over one pile of blocks, it isn’t that different to blow apart another. If Jenga is really your thing, you might enjoy playing twenty rounds of Jenga in a row, but without that kind of dedication Boom Blox is likely to be an intermittent exercise… I predict it will spend some decent time on the shelf as you devote yourself to more absorbing enterprises.

That being said, this is a game that is both child and parent safe. With a name like Spielberg attached to the enterprise, you can expect the final product to be both well-made and appropriate, and Boom Blox succeeds on both counts. Bright colors, happy farm animals and a gleeful soundtrack combine to make a good game for going head to head on a rainy afternoon. Boom Blox may not have more than simple ideas in store, but it executes those ideas in a clean, competent way.

Will I play it more: Sure. A good game to entertain the parents with when they visit.