Reactions to the Boom Blox press release we fired off on Infendo a few days or so ago were mostly positive, if I recall correctly, with a sprinkling of negativity. At the time, unlike Spore DS, I decided to give Boom Blox the benefit of the doubt because A) it was a simple, fun looking premise designed for the Wii and B) Steven frickin’ Spielberg was one of the contributors.
As a first wave of impressions come in about Boom Blox, I hope the naysayers will give it at least another look.
While all of this benefit of the doubt stuff was going down, the folks over at Joystiq were getting some first impression action in with the title. In a word or two, it went well.
“It’s feels like a Miyamoto game,” someone observes. “Yeah, it’s very first-party,” agrees another. Flying sheep-blocks and all, Boom Blox is destined to earn Spielberg some street cred (or whatever form of kudos it is that gamers bestow). Just what is Spielberg’s involvement? It’s his idea, EA insists.
An idea so simple, it’s really only plausible for Wii. You just pitch a baseball at blocks — that’s it (well, sometimes it’s a bowling ball, bomb, or shotty blast … you get the idea). But where so many mindless motion farts dissipate into the foul heap of Wii “mini-game” crap, Boom Blox stands tall, as a tangible actualization of what Wii games should, no, are supposed to be!
Basically, it boils down to ths:
The GOOD — “Boom Blox possesses that expansive, LBP-like potential; a game of infinite, user-generated possibilities,” Joystiq reports. Great, so the level building and collaboration is a simple to play blast.
The BAD — “… it’s also crippled by Nintendo’s ‘over-protective’ online community system (friggin’ friend codes!), which means all of us may never be able to share the ultimate fun.” No real surprise there. If you’re still on board with Nintendo by now you’re either resigned to the fact that Friend Codes are the herpes of the video game world or you’re in complete denial and will never be satisfied by anything. Please head the nearest short pier and take a long walk.
But wait… the really GOOD — “EA knows it though, and is pursuing a sort of workaround; something like an ‘EA friend’ every Wii owner can have. A friend who receives, and carefully distributes the best Boom Blox levels the community has to offer.” Ingenius, and it’s a wonder no one has thought of this before. Why not, as a publisher, establish your own “Friend Code” so that customers of your product can interact with a central hub for leaderboard and online play purposes? As a player, you need only remember and enter one code, which grants you access to the castle, so to speak, where you get to play with everyone else playing the game online. Boom Blox seems to have this figured out, and has elminated the stingy Nintendo middleman.
Add in some responsive in-game physics and you’ve got me sold. Plus, I’ll probably be winding down from Brawl by the time this puppy hits the shelves. EA? I take it all back.
Spore DS still blows though.