Do you remember as a kid how you used to make block towers just so that you could see them fall down, crashing to the ground? Boom Blox is just like a set of those wooden blocks, only in video game form. Every variant of game you can think of that could be played with wooden blocks (and a few more that couldn’t) is in Bash Party, making this a fun kit of games for a group of players.

The single player game consists of a bunch of rulesets, each with a bunch of levels to play. For example, one set of levels sees you given a bowling ball that you use to knock everything to the ground in the least number of throws. To throw the ball you point the Wii Remote at the point you want to throw at (rotating the stage if you wish to by holding B), pressing A to select the spot and flicking the Wii Remote as hard as you want the ball to be thrown. When you release A the ball goes flying towards the spot you chose and the realistic physics engine takes over from there. If you found the weak spot in the structure you have the pleasure of watching the entire thing fall apart in spectacular fashion.

Another set of levels has you trying not to let the structure fall down while pulling various blocks out of it (similar to Jenga). Everything else is a variation on these – one set has you trying to get as many points in a fixed number of throws by knocking as many blocks down as possible, another has you trying to knock blocks into certain areas to score multipliers, another has you throwing bombs at flying saucers that are trying to steal your blocks. Essentially you’re either throwing balls to destroy things or pulling blocks out of things without destroying it. There are a lot of variations but they’re mostly the same mechanic applied in a slightly different way, and the single player game becomes monotonous after a few hours.

Multiplayer is a better prospect – after all, the name of the game features the word “Party” in it. There is a large set of co-operative levels where players must work together to achieve a set goal. These are often the same kinds of goals as in single player but the co-operative aspect adds a lot more to the experience as players discuss where to throw, or what block to extract next. I would go so far as to say don’t bother to play Boom Blox in single player – leave it for those times when you have friends over and you’ll enjoy it far more.

Even then, Boom Blox is not a game that holds up well over extended play periods – after an hour or two the mechanics become a little monotonous and you arm gets tired of flicking the Wii Remote as hard as it can. There are also a bunch of competitive levels where players play against each other, either in teams or each for themselves. These offer the same variations – you can either destroy each others’ structures, try to score higher than other players or try to ensure that someone else knocks over the high-rise block tower and take pleasure in their downfall.

Boom Blox: Bash Party features a very impressive level editor that you can use to make your own levels. You can also upload your levels and make them available for other players to download, so the in-game levels are not the only ones available to play. There are quite a large number of levels included on the disk, so between those and the downloadable ones the amount of content is huge. The problem is the repetitiveness of the mechanics – but that can be mitigated by playing in shorter doses over a period of time.

There is also a lot of charm in the Blox themselves – little characters in the shape of blocks that populate the stages. You can throw your baseball at them to make them go flying for great comedic effect, or knock down the pedestal they stand on to see them go flailing to the ground. There are various types of Blox, some in the form of sheep or cows, some in the form of robots, all in the shape of a rectangular block, and all oozing charm. Bash Party has a good measure of polish applied to it – for the most part it doesn’t have the presentation of a low budget game, although there are some bits that break that impression (such as clipping issues, or imprecise controls at times.)

Bash Party is a good game for players of varying ages – the mechanics will be understandable by young children (everyone understands the concept of destroying things), and the content is suitable for children too. I would recommend it for family gaming as it offers enough to keep adults interested but is still accessible for everyone.

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