Review: Carnival Games (Wii)

Written by Jim Squires

Wednesday, 05 December 2007 08:30

If there's one thing the Wii hasn't had a shortage of since launch (can you tell we're not talking about hardware yet?) it's party games and Wii-Sports-alikes. This past August Global Star Software and developer Cat Daddy Games jumped into the mix with Carnival Games, a title promising all of the maddeningly addictive fun of a carnival midway without the clamidia or dental issues associated with those filthy filthy carnies. So how did it play out?

Better than I'd expected. CG offers a ton of games to choose from, many of which I'd forgotten about until firing this bad boy up. Everything from Balloon Darts and Ring Toss to Leap Frog and that game where you throw a baseball at the horrifying clowns with day-glo Einstein hair are included. More than 25 games in all, and each plays differently enough to be worth a once through. Your performance in each of these games earns you carnival-style prizes and tickets that can be used in vending-style games like The Claw or the Love Tester. On top of that, your performance can also unlock different costume options for your character. All in all the game offers a ton of replay. You're going to find a good number of games you'll want to go back to and master, and if you're a clothes-whore like our very own Kevin Alexander, chances are you're going to catch gotta-have-em-all fever.

Not everything is wine and roses on the midway though. Carnival Games has some fairly major control issues that make some of the games downright frustrating. In a weird way it pretty much reinforces the "house always wins" reality of most midway games. Control issues aren't across the board and after a few attempts at any game you can usually adjust, but for the most part if feels like things are a little too sloppy. If this title had the tight controls it needed I'd have given it a big gold star, but as it stands it's hard to recommend it for anything more than a rent.

My other complaint is pretty minor, but still significant enough to be worth a mention. Carnival Games requires you to create a new avatar when you fire it up which is ridiculous, because we've all spent hours customizing our Mii's to perfection already. I know that third party games have been hit and miss on Mii support, but if there was ever a game that felt custom designed for it, this was it. Instead we're forced to create what amounts to an American-designed, bang-it-out-the-door, budget take on an already perfected concept. It's not a major thing, but it's a little irritating to be forced to recreate my Mii with limited and poorly-designed choices.

Carnival Games has a ton of potential, and in a lot of places it hits the mark and earns the big prize. Unfortunately it fails to get the ring on the bottle too often due to it's frequently sloppy controls. Worth a bargain bin buy or a rent, but definitely not a full price purchase.

**Editor's Note: In lieu of screenshots, we thought we'd share with you what is probably the strangest of all the "watch people playing the game" ads on the Wii we've seen.