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The aptly named Boom Blox is Steven Spielberg’s first attempt at producing a video game. You’d have expected the renowned director to latch onto a movie tie-in, such as ‘Lego Indiana Jones’ or ‘The Bourne Conspiracy’ and put all his directing talent into the screenplay. Even if that wasn’t a lucrative option, you’d be excused from thinking that Spielberg would have opted for a more adventure orientated title like ‘Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune’ or ‘Tomb Raider Underworld’. But alas, Steven Spielberg’s first foray into the massively popular medium that is video games is with a little title named ‘Boom Blox’.

Boom Blox is a puzzle game, one that sees you taking on the role of an invisible hand that can throw balls and grab blocks to knock down buildings or create pathways. You ‘fight’ for any of the tribes on offer, such as the Bahhs – a sheep and domino hybrid – and the Gorildas – loads of Gorillas who have dyed themselves blue. The game has many storylines which are given to the player in segments before and after a section is completed. The story is delivered via a poetic form, while watching a series of cartoon pictures. Not the most modern, or Spielberg-esque, form of conveying the story, but nevertheless it does its job.

Boot up the game and the first thing you embark on is a sequence of training missions to prepare you for what’s to come. These show you how to knock down blocks by throwing balls - your primary weapon, how to grab blocks and move them into places you want, and what each different type of block does, such as the chemical blocks and bomb blocks.

There are 14 types of blocks; obviously there’s the normal block, and the point scoring blocks. The penalty blocks do the exact opposite to the point scoring blocks; instead of earning the amount of points shown, you are deducted set amount. Bomb blocks are self explanatory, when hit with a ball, or when they fall to the ground they explode, and any blocks or gems in the blast radius are sent flying into the air. Chemical blocks are huge green blocks that can’t be exploded by being stuck; the only way to get rid of them is by matching two or more blocks together, the blast radius of these is usually more destructive than the bomb blocks, in spite of their name. Then there’s the vanish blocks, which stay true to their name. If you make contact with a vanish block it – you guessed it – vanishes. Then there’s a whole host of novelty blocks like jingle blocks – pretty self explanatory – and firework blocks – again, pretty self explanatory.

Your average level pans out like this: There is a big tower of blocks, or a fortress, and you have to throw little balls at it to, make all the gems sitting on top fall down. What sounds like a boring concept on paper, doesn’t translate so. Boom Blox has some of the best physics seen on the Wii to date on. Sometimes you’ll look at how the tower is standing and think, ‘as if, that would have definitely fallen over’ and sometimes you’ll throw a ball and think, ‘wow, that happened exactly how I would expect it to in the real world.’ Plus, there are over 300 levels to sink your balls into – yep, we just said that – so it is definitely to be taken seriously.

Multiplayer often is the main selling point for your average Wii title. Boom Blox’s multiplayer is beyond great and arguably its biggest selling point. The competitive multiplayer, while it can get a tad repetitive, is loads of fun. Up to 4 players can play in competitive or co-operative multiplayer, and remote sharing is permitted in certain modes so if you only have a single remote then Boom Blox is perfect for parties. In competitive multiplayer you do similar things to what you would do in the adventure mode; like knocking down towers, but this time instead of aiming for the gems, you aim for the blocks that give you the most points.

Score: 8/10 

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