Boom Blox

David West makes blocks go boom. BOOM!

When you see the name Spielberg attached to a game, you can’t help but expect some extravagant, cinematic saga – you know, Saving Private Ryan in pixel form. So when we were presented a puzzle game for the Wii, we really didn’t know what to think.

At its simplest Boom Blox presents the player with a structure made out of blocks, with various ways of interacting with said structure. You may be tasked to remove blocks from it without toppling it – like our old friend Jenga – or to hurl objects at it with the right amount of power at just the right angle to satisfyingly bring the whole thing toppling. Another of many modes will require you to hurl bombs at invading parties as you attempt to keep them from destroying your blocks. All this is done utilising the game’s great physics engine and a very well thought out Wiimote control scheme.

The controls are simple, with everything being handled by the Wiimote. You can rotate 360 degrees around the block structure to get the best vantage point and plot your course of action. Throwing is handled by simply making a throwing motion at the Wii. The force of the throw is measured and translates to how hard the object is thrown in game. In other modes, the Wiimote controls an onscreen hand used to pull at the blocks in the jenga-like puzzles. The system works very well, and allows you to do everything that needs to be done simply and easily. Everyone can immediately pick up the game and have a blast.



While the premise is extremely basic, its execution is masterful. There are so many different variables to achieving these simple tasks that the game is catapulted above just being another puzzler and providing a genuinely fresh and rewarding experience. Differing object types react to the environment and the blocks in different ways. Bowling balls and baseballs have different weights and properties that affect the way they interact with the blocks; the blocks themselves also vary greatly. Wooden blocks are light and will sway as you painstakingly try and remove pieces, while steel blocks provide great resistance to almost anything thrown at them. There are bomb blocks that explode upon impact as well as chemical blocks that explode when one chemical block touches another. Vanishing blocks simply disappear when hit; leaving whatever was above them at the mercy of gravity.



All these varying elements combine to form the 300-odd puzzles in the game. The puzzles start off quite easy but as you progress in the game, they become fiendishly difficult, as any good puzzler should. Later puzzles are quite deep and with a great deal of flexibility in their makeup, allowing great opportunities to experiment with differing ways of achieving your task.

Multiplayer is an area where the game really shines. Up to four players can play, and battles can get quite heated as you steal shots from another player or take a miracle block out of a tower and watch as other players attempt to keep the thing from falling. The level editor pretty much rounds out the package; the editor is quite intuitive to use and you have near total control of the objects. You can place and stack them where you like, scale them to different sizes and apply different block types. You can try the levels in real time as you build them and make rolling edits as you see fit. You’re really encouraged to create some brilliant puzzles and this adds to the longevity of the game.

The graphics and sound are quite rudimentary, though are adequate enough to support the game. It seems a lot of the Wii’s power concentrates on calculating the blocks flying everywhere to the detriment of making it look schmick, which given the premise of the game is exactly how it should be. The cuteness of it all may be too much for some, but that really is a personal thing.

Overall Boom Blox is an overwhelming success. It has taken an extremely simple idea and executed it with enough variety and depth to keep you coming back for more. In an ever-evolving landscape of games crammed with as many complex features as possible, it’s refreshing to see a game based on simple old-fashioned fun that just plain works.