bake65's Full Review: Nickelodeon Party Blast for GameCube
First off - there are several levels that are hidden until they are unlocked, and frankly I'm not going to invest that kind of time. Thus, this is not a complete review.
This review will instead focus on what you get when you open the box (i.e. the games you can play right away)- which frankly isn't all that much.
I bought this game with my 4.5 year old daughter in mind. Santa brought our family a Gamecube for Christmas, but the only game of the four he brought that my daughter could play was SSX Tricky (a great game, by the way). So in an effort to find something else for my daughter, we opted for Nickelodeon Party Blast.
The draw for this game is probably obvious - it has about a dozen characters from Nickelodeon cartoons. The most notable are: Spongebob Squarepants, Jimmy Neutron, Angelica (from Rugrats), and Eliza Thornberry. Up to four human players can play simultaneously, but other AI controlled characters are also in play. So even if you're by yourself, you still will have some competition. All games are timed, and usually last about three to four minutes.
The game includes a brief tutorial from another character, the ubiquitous, Catdog. The tutorial includes both text and spoken instructions, along with still frames that actually show the basics of what you're supposed to do in each game.
There are five games available out of the box. In each game the letters N, I, C and K will appear. Running over these letters gives a boost to your score. Also, the letters G,O,O,Z and E appear. If you can run over all of them you also get a score boost. Also, stars of gold, silver and bronze appear. Running over these also boosts your score.
At the end of each game, all the characters are shown standing on the end of a bar graph. The better your score, the taller the bar. Also indicated is the number of gold, silver or bronze stars you collected. This a a nice feature, as it enables kids too young to read to see how well they did.
Now to the games.
1) Food Fight - characters run around the Krusty Krab restaurant, picking up food that pops onto the floor and try to hurl it at other characters. As characters get hit with food, their bodies become increasingly covered in green ooze. When completely covered in ooze, the character is out of the game. Ooze can be shaken off by wiggling the control stick side to side.
2) Roller Blade/Basketball - the action takes place on a playground. The characters are all on roller blades. There are half-pipes and rail for roller blading, a basketball hoop, a soccer net, and several pots of goo in an area next to the playground. Your mission is to grab basketballs that appear on the playground, and using the A button, jump and dunk them in the one hoop on the playground.
3) Pipelaying - grab sections of pipe that appear, and link up your container to a source container that will allow liquid to flow from the source to your container. You can use a giant hammer to destroy opponent's pipes, likewise your's is also at risk.
4) Water Cannon - the characters are on a very small island surrounded by water. They each have a water cannon attached to a "to-go cup" strapped to their backs. The mission is to stay on the island and out of the waist deep water. If you fall or get blasted into the water, you lose points. Basically, you run around the small group of islands running of point coins that appear. You can also fire your water cannon at opponents to knock them down and/or into the water. This game frustrates my daughter because it is very difficult to get the character to aim the direction you want. It's designed this way probably to keep more capable kids from employing a continuous blast at their less capable friends. Still - it's frustrating to not be able to shoot where you know you want to aim.
5) River Race - the easiest of the games, you float down a river on an inner tube and attempt to run over point coins. There are gates and logs to steer through. The river also contains hippos, a giant, Kong-like ape and a few other lesser obstacles. There are special tools you can pick up and utilize for a few seconds each. These include a boxing glove, a magnet, and a lizard head. If a character falls behind, it is automatically lifted and dropped back into the normal flow - at the cost of a few points.
Overall this game disc is a mixed bag. It has some very good elements that will allow pre-reading kids to play. However, the game play of the first available games is not as good as I expected. I was hoping for simple, yet classic arcade games with the Nick characters added for good measure. The load times are excessively long. It can take up to around 20-25 seconds for a game to load.
As we've only had this for a couple of weeks, the jury is still out. My daughter still asks to switch to it, so that's a good sign. But she still enjoys SSX Tricky far more than Party Blast.
Perhaps the additional games are better than this first selection. I strongly urge you to rent this one if possible before buying. At this point I'm not sure if I'd buy it again or not. I am sure that if the disc broke, I would NOT be rushing right out to replace it. I'm rating it a generous "average", based on the potential of the locked games. If these first five games were all that was available, this would be a two star game.
Choose your favorite Nicktoons star and let the multiplayer mayhem begin! Lob food at Tommy, race Otto Rocket down rapids, shoot hoops and pull tricks...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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