Some games suck. That's just the way of life in the video game world. But sometimes, games that everyone thinks sucks get a bum rap, and looking back on them, we realize they don't suck as much as we thought they did. Consequently, there are other games that we once thought were awesome, but looking back, they weren't so great. And some games just suck no matter what.

As a reviewer of video games, you don't always get the great titles. Sometimes you get ones that are just crappy as hell, and I've had quite a few of those experiences in my past year at Blogcritics. Tonight, we're taking a look at one of the more recent games I reviewed, a game that was not great. But just how bad was it? We're about to find out.

And so, hopefully not tipping the tower over, it's time for...



Basic Info

Jenga World Tour
Developer/Publisher - Atari
Console - Wii
Year - 2007



The premise

Play Jenga with your Wii remote, trying to beat different levels without the damn tower tipping over. That's it.

The game





In my Blogcritics review, I basically stated that Jenga World Tour has take the notion of Jenga always being fun, torn it to shreds, burnt those shreds, taken the ashes, put them on a rocket ship and shot them into a black hole, never to be seen again.

Yes, it's that bad. The main mode is World Tour mode, which gives you challenges to beat. Beating them gives you more options for freeplay mode, like new levels and blocks, but these really add little to the game besides aesthetic design.

Then there's the power-ups, which also prove to be more hindrance than help, a poor A.I. for opponents and annoying voice acting that sounds like it was recorded by two people who were on drugs, because there's no reason to be that excited about Jenga.

The controls

The controls manage to make Jenga much more complicated than it should be. In an attempt to simulate the game, they've tried to make it hard to get some blocks out, and the game has a built-in cursor, which will highlight blocks you can remove easily. Green means good, red means bad, and blue means... well, if you get blue, your copy is screwed up somehow. But there are too many different buttons for too many different actions, and the controls will often not respond to your exact movements, leading to frustration. I can seriously waggle the remote all over and it won't move the block a square inch.

On top of that, the game's physics engine feels like third-graders designed it. It's completely possible to remove a block that's supposed to be easily removed and see the entire tower topple over. In fact, toppling the tower is so easy that I was frequently doing it, something I wouldn't be doing if the real Jenga were in front of me. It's almost like moving any block will cause the tower to fall, resulting in many games ending quickly.

Placing blocks on top of the stack is also needlessly complex because of the game's camera angle and controls, causing you to sometimes miss the top completely or put the block in a position that you don't want it to be in. This often leads to, you guessed it, the tower tipping over. So much fun!

The graphics and sound

Just look at this:





Yeah. Moving on...

The conclusion

Graphics, bad. A.I., bad. Sound, bad. Options, bad. Mini-games... good? Game play and controls, bad. Overall, really bad. Buy the real deal, not a game. It's better and cheaper.

This is a prime example of a game that deserves to be B.O.A.'d (bargain-binned on arrival), and even then, I can't justify a purchase.

FINAL VERDICT: Massive suckage. Two lone mini-games that are fun keep this from being full blown suck.