G4TV

Look kids, more mini-games.  It must be a brand new title for the Nintendo Wii. At least with Carnival Games you know just what you’re getting into.  The title says it all.  It’s an electronic collection of those midway games designed to help a sucker and his money part ways.

More fun than a barrel full of Carnies

Any enjoyment of this title hinges on whether you have fond memories of popping balloons with darts, tossing rings around coke bottles, or sinking that smart-mouthed clown in a tank of water with a well-placed baseball. There are over 20 different games to play and they are all a pretty solid representation of the kind of things you’d likely play at a state or county fair.  Most games attempt to mimic the kinds of aiming, throwing, or tossing skills you’d need to do if you were playing in real life.

There’s no “story” to Carnival Games, you simply boot it up and start playing.  The game first asks you to create a character and a game like this would be the perfect venue to exploit the whole Nintendo Mii concept.  But alas, there are no Miis in sight. Instead you’ll create a Mii-like character, complete with egg shape torso and disembodied hands.  They are slightly more detailed than Miis and freaky looking.

Where’s my Fried Dough?

Once that’s done, you’re free to play whatever game strikes your fancy.  The quality of the games ranges from passable to downright horrible.  The best of the bunch do a great job with the motion controls.  The “Horse Race” game has players rolling a ball up a slight incline and into one of several different colored holes.  Each time you get a ball in the hole it moves your little horse further along the track towards the finish line.  It uses both the tilt and motion sensors in the Wii Remote with awesome and intuitive results.

The worst games appear to be broken. I was never able to successfully toss a ring more than one or two inches no matter how hard I flicked the Wii Remote.  Other games like the frog catapult one were far too sensitive.  Even if you barely swing the remote down in the hammer motion, the frog would fly completely out of the booth.

Kewpie Dull

Still other games (like the dart and football throw) require that you aim with the Wii Remote and gesture with it to launch your projectile.  However any movement causes your aiming cursor to shake uncontrollably.  Too frustrating.  Not Fun. Alley ball (AKA Skee ball) works perfectly well, but the developers decided it would be a good idea to show a slow-motion replay every time you roll a pretty good shot.  This of course completely kills the momentum. In a game like Skee ball, it’s all about getting into a rhythm.  Hey, trust me.  I’m a Skee ball pro.

Fabulous Prizes

The most interesting games are the ones that play around with the concept a little bit.  The “Squirt water at the clown to inflate the balloon” game is made far more fun to play because you need to spend time pumping up the water pressure between well-placed shots at the clown.

What does all this game-playing get you?  Why tickets and virtual stuffed animals.  Tickets earned can be used to purchase costumes for your characters.  Additionally, once you accumulated enough virtual plush, you can trade up and eventually unlock a few extra mini-games. Carnival Games is ok in short bursts, but much like the real-world games they are based on, they really aren’t that much fun to play more than once or twice. Wii Sports has more depth.

Review by: Greg Bemis
Video Produced by: Jeanne Goshe