Other levels are more like Lemmings. You have to solve a puzzle of tightly interwoven blocks to clear a path for an animal, sliding platforms under its feet so that it doesn’t fall off the edge. Little people stand around and cheer while you work and, yes, you can pick them up and chuck them around as well. If it’s in the game, then it’s got the physics and it’ll bounce. Most gratifying.
There are also some assault levels in Boom Blox that work more like a normal videogame. You have friendly characters protecting gems in the middle of the screen, while enemies pop out of holes around the edge and try to steal the booty. Chuck bombs to set off traps and foil the bad guys. We weren’t so keen on these - the pressure of the implied time limit and a control problem meant we kept triggering the bombs in mid-air, before they reached their targets.
But those bits are just a small part of the 300+ levels in the game, and if there’s one little thing that’s preventing you from enjoying a particular scene, you can press the plus button and change it all in the Create mode. Don’t like the bombs? Swap them for bowling balls or a gun or a hosepipe, then share your remixed version with friends on Wi-Fi. Boom Blox is an ideal Wii game. It’s a box of toys you can throw around without a care in the world. It’s incredibly addictive, beautifully designed and if this is the kind of quality we can expect from EA’s Spielberg collaboration, we can’t wait to see what happens next.
May 6, 2008
