Blox Party

BOOM BLOX_Character Art 1
Originally uploaded by gonintendo_flickr

I didn't get to put as much time into Boom Blox last night as I wanted but I did get enough into the game to get a good taste of what it has to offer.

In, essence, this is a puzzle game. Items are suspended above the ground on structures built of blocks. The aim is to knock the all the items to the ground.

A simple scenario might be a single tower with a gem block at the top. You could try to simply throw the ball at the gem and knock it off or you could target the tower and topple it. As scenarios progress, the structures become more and more complex.

There are different types of blocks. Some will explode when hit with the ball, others will vanish. There may be others I haven't encountered yet. Many of the puzzles revolve around recognizing and properly using these special blocks.

Thanks to a good physics engine (havok, I think), the blocks topple, explode, teeter and totter, and generally react with a great sense of weight, inertia, and momentum. Since the game depends upon the interaction of the blocks, this is vital to the game and it works brilliantly.

There are a couple of different modes: a story mode, a puzzle mode, multiplayer, and a level editor/creator. So far, I've only played through some of scenarios in the puzzle mode and a bit of story mode. In both modes, the puzzles range from placid pools of reflection to more frantic, timing based attacks. The game has done a good job (so far) of mixing in both to keep the pace fresh.

While the game's aesthetic is ultra-cutesy, it isn't annoying and who doesn't like lobbing bombs and bear-shaped blocks (or block-shaped bears?) and launch them toppling end over end across the screen?

So far, Boom Blox has lived up to the expectations I had of it and I haven't even touched the multiplayer or user creation parts of the game. This might be the one game to get me away from GTA IV. Who would have thunk it?