Carnival Games: all the fun of a carnival sans the constant fear of dying

I know there must have been a time in my life when I enjoyed going to the carnival. Don’t get me wrong, I would still kill a man for some funnel cake, but nowadays, when I think of a carnival, all I imagine are scary clowns and rusty, tetanus-ridden Tilt-a-Whirls run by toothless carnies. What happened to all the fun I used to remember?

Well, Take-Two (in association with its publishing label Global Star Software) hopes to bring back everything that was nifty about the good ol’ bowler hat wearin’ state fair days with Carnival Games, a Wii-exclusive coming to Nintendo’s system this summer.

The game is designed (from the ground up!) for up to four players, will feature over 25 of the most popular carnival games, and offer up to 250 upgradeable prizes. While my “ho-hum” alarm goes off every time a new minigame collection is announced for the Wii, who knows what Carnival Games has in store for us under that mysterious facade of mediocre graphics? A game that has skee ball in it can’t be all that bad, right? Right? Skee ball? Anyone?

What do you think? Have you hit your Wii minigame threshold? Like me, are you unbelievably fascinated by whoever directed the above trailer (assumed overused line of direction to the actors: ‘Almost there – try taking it up a notch or two!’)?