Boom Blox Bash Party (Wii)

This fantastic sequel slips the surly bonds of the original party block-knocking game.
5/26/2009 7:25 PM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

That's because the second half of Boom Blox Bash Party, the part you get to once you can see past the childlike delight of seeing stuff fall over, is the level builder. As far as I can tell, it's not changed too much since the previous game. Of course, I didn't build any levels in the previous game because there was no need to. Oh, sure, I dropped a couple of monkeys into an arena to see what would happen. I stacked up a few blocks and knocked them over with baseballs just to verify that, yep, it was that easy to do. But once I'd done that, I was done. What Electronic Arts failed to understand about level builders is that I don't want them for me. I want them in there so other people can use them and I can enjoy the fruits of their labor. And that's clearly not something that was supported in the original Boom Blox, which required various shenanigans with Friend Codes and, uh, other stuff that I couldn't be bothered with. 2008 was the dark age of the Wii's non-connectivity.

So I'm delighted to report that Boom Blox Bash Party has overcome its handicap as being a game by and for the two companies most clueless about online interactivity. Here at last Nintendo and Electronic Arts, both usually synonymous with single-player gaming, get it right. You can easily go online to download new levels, and it's a simple matter to submit stuff you've made to the moderation system, which will presumably filter out the hundreds of penis levels while still letting worthwhile stuff get through. As of launch, EA had plenty of internally created levels available, across all gameplay types, including the competitive and cooperative modes. And there are a few player-made levels cropping up. It looks promising. And I say that as someone who fully learned his lesson when he thought the music studio in Guitar Hero World Tour looked promising. This time, for real.

By the way, Bash Party deserves a special nod for its clever cooperative modes. We already know the awesomeness of Boom Blox as a head-to-head game for up to four people. But now Bash Party is a particularly awesome game for two people to put their heads together and work through some fiendishly clever puzzles that require, well, cooperation. For instance, one of you gets the bowling ball to knock the blocks loose. The other gets the bomb that has to be placed into the gaps created. The cooperative levels really get what it takes to make gameplay interesting beyond two people taking turns to get a high score.