"Stop bitching and buy - this game deserves your support"

Every generation there are games like Okami, Beyond Good and Evil, and Eternal Darkness, games that get great review, develop a rabid following, and yet failed to sell. Boom Blox is shaping up to be one of those games. Don't let it happen.

Wii owners and critics all harp on the lack of quality software, especially third party software. Well here we have a high profile (EA! Speilberg!) effort for the Wii that, while a little rough around the edges, is a pure joy. Boom Blox is pixellated crack - addictive, old school game play (ie simple to grasp, not so simple to master) that makes good use of the next gen controller.

True, this is basically a puzzle game, and a minigame compilation. But it's the best one to hit the Wii since WiiSports. Hundreds of puzzles, some easy, some muderously difficult, lots of the them just about right. Start playing and, after the standard, tedious tutorials (thankfully quick), you'll be amazed at how quickly the time flies by. And like Tetris and FreeCell, this is a game you'll come back to again and again.

Gameplay appeals directly to the inner child (which should appeal to any truly mature gamer) who would spend hours building complex structures out of blocks, legos, K'nex, etc, simply for the few pleasurable minutes of tearing it down. This simple idea has a deceptive amount of depth - you'll blow things up, mine for gold, clear pathways, protect wayward kitties as they walk through haunted graveyards, and more. There are puzzles, adventure modes, coop play, multiplayer challenges, and build-your-own modes. For all the games that fail to mine the depths of interesting premises, here's one game that takes a simple idea and milks every last possible drop of joy out of it.

The one drawback would be the graphics. The Wii may not be up to PS360 standards in terms of horsepower, but it should easily outpace the performance of the XBox, Gamecube and PS2. It seems that here all the effort went into the gameplay and physics engine - which is at it should be - but it's still a pretty unattractive effort given the fact that it's just a buncha blocks, er, blox. Fortunately the lack of polygon-pushing power is made up for by the art design, which is cute, but not cloying or sweet - very Lego-esque.

And now some rambling to fill up the word requirement... That should do it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/15/08

Game Release: Boom Blox (US, 05/06/08)