Cheat Code #2 - Boom Blox Bash Party

What do you do when you want to play video games with your kids, but there isn't a game that fits for you and your younglings? If you're Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg, you talk to EA, and coproduce one of the more comically violent and challenging puzzle games to come along in some time. Although this game was released back in Spring 2009, it's still a fun title that I'm sure Erini will be able to understand and play along with soon. The controls are a little tricky for her to figure as of right now, but she really enjoys the number of characters and the general chaos of things exploding.

While some reviews cite that this version has some new features and does not include some of the less than stellar features, this is the only version I have played. The challenge of the level is matched by the variety of tools to destroy the blocks. Colour balls change the colour of blocks allowing for matches of three or more blocks to score points. Once the block disappear, the physics engine takes over. Sometimes the bottom of the playing area is not flat, and sometimes the blocks will land wrong and fall out completely.

The grabbing hand makes for some tricky balancing exercises. At times it feels like Jenga, only with exploding blocks. And sheep. Stupid sheep.

Erini's favourite area is the Pirate Bay, and she quite enjoyed the cannon battles. Yet she kept asking to go to the Parrot section, which involved more blowing things up.

The most fun I ever had playing this game was with my brother-in-law in Calgary. He and I were the only ones in a group of six guys who had played it previously, but it was still a heap of fun. We ventured into a space battle, in which you had a certain amount of bombs to throw in a certain amount of time. Eventually, we got the idea to gang up on one person, but that backfired, since you get bonus bombs if you get hit a significant amount.

We also played a version of mini golf, only it was pucks instead of balls, slingshots instead of clubs, and there were elevators. But you did have to hit a red flag! At first it was a joke. Straight away shot, and boom, 100 points. But it got more and more complicated, you had to judge the power you put into the shot, and hope that the other players were not feeling ruthless.

It's fun when my wife gets in on the action too. She doesn't pick up a controller, but she does give me tips on what to do. Once she figures out the level creator, I'm sure she'll have a ball with it though!

I was most interested in this game when I read an article on That Guy With The Glasses featuring the Top 6 Games to Play on a Date. Most of the games I was quite familiar with, but then the final game mentioned caught my attention with earnest. I can't say that I've had the same experience as detailed in the article, but it is one of the games that I has been a great investment.

Cheat Code #1 - Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time

This is the third video game review I've done with my daughter's input, and I only now realized that I should have set it up as a separate series. Since I was cheating previously with the movie project by adding in those review to the Movie Project, the title Cheat Code seemed appropriate.

We originally got this game for Grandma and Grandpa Tolley, since it was mentioned that they wanted more multiplayer games for their Wii. Something that everyone could enjoy and the kids could play along too. This game delivers that in spades. This is the kind of game that you could play for hours, or just pick up for fifteen minutes. Setup takes no time at all as the extra players are added in via the washing machine that is capable of creating temporal rifts. It just pops out of nowhere, spits out a Rabbid, and then disappears again. Much like the Rabbids do as they ride this washing machine through time, making a mess of things, or just adding a story that was skipped over in the annals for history.



The entrance to the game is through a bathroom, and upon entering the main area of the museum, a roll of toilet paper gets stuck to the characters foot. I found it quite annoying at first, but when I played co-op for the first time, I saw how important it was. All the players are anchored to this roll of toilet paper, which makes it quite handy when someone doesn't want to go where you want, or in the case of my daughter, doesn't know how to handle the controls very well. You can drag these characters along, and it makes for great comedy!

Most people know the Rabbids for their unique voice, or rather scream. BWAAAAAAHHH! Erini and her cousins always mention this whenever they ask if they can play the game. In this game, that is taken up a notch. There is an area where you can do Rabbid chorus, and the tone is adjusted by rotating the Wiimote clockwise or counterclockwise.

On feature that I liked quite a bit in previous Rabbid games was the dance sequences. While it is featured in this game as well, it's not at all the same, and it seems Ubisoft directly imported some songs from Just Dance 2 into Raving Rabbids. It's still fun having the Rabbids dance to Jungle Boogie, but they take a back seat to the dance steps demonstrated on screen.

A number of mini games are hidden throughout the museum areas, such as a memory game, object chase games, even a bouncing game. The part I had the most difficulty figuring out was the flying. Erini loved it whenever I crashed, so maybe I was doing something right after all!

Some might argue that these games encourage fighting and violence because of the fact you can beat on other Rabbids at pretty much any time, and there is no penalty for it. The same argument could be said for the Looney Toons, but I don't see my daughter running off to hit her cousins with comically large weapons. At least not those that can inflict lethal damage. I would think that I've thought her well enough what is acceptable and what is not.



My daughter and her cousins love this game like none other, and it would be better if they were able to play the game with me instead of just watch. This really is a great party game, and the more people you have the funnier it gets.

That's why I figured it would be ideal for Grandma and Grandpa's house!