Welcome to VideoGamer.com Plays, our weekly feature where we give you the inside track on what's been whirring in our disc drives this week. We'll be honest (so if we've been playing Superman on the N64 we'll tell you). But if we've been hammering the latest billion-selling blockbuster we'll let you know about that too.
Tom Orry, Editor, Boom Blox, Wii
Being completely honest, Wii games don't tend to take up much of my spare time. The last game on Nintendo's smash-hit console that I chose to play for no reason other than entertainment was Super Mario Galaxy. Boom Blox earns the honour of being the first Wii game I've played this year outside of review time. It's the kind of game that I expected to be playing when I excitedly unboxed the console in December 2006. We've been playing a fair bit of multiplayer in the office, although I'm always lumped with the broken Wii Remote which makes my throwing arm look like that of a pre-pubescent flee. Even with such a handicap, I've managed to win my fair share of games through clever thinking and not, as the guys like to call it, being lucky.
Wesley Yin-Poole, Deputy Editor, Boom Blox, Wii
Boom Blox may well be my favourite game on the Wii. At the very least it's my favourite non-hardcore game on the Wii. When the game's senior producer Amir Rahimi told me in April that the game had the best physics of any game ever made, I had to take his word for it. Now, having played the game with the rest of the team over lunchtime this week, I have to say that I agree with him. Blocks move, fall and smash into each other so realistically, I thought I was watching some high-end PC tech demo, not a casual game on the Wii. The multiplayer modes are brilliant too. Do not discount Boom Blox if you are a hardcore gamer and have some mates over. Trust me.
James Orry, News Editor, Boom Blox, Wii
Whoever said the Wii is a gimmick should take a long hard look at the EA and Steven Spielberg collaboration, Boom Blox. We've had this on almost every day this week and it has proven great fun in multiplayer. The Jenga-like game type is my fave, a mode made even more fun because one of our four Wii Remotes still has nightmares of the night it went smashing into a wall. Suffice to say whoever is using this Remote is at risk of randomly losing control, sending the currently held block smashing into the block tower and losing the game. It is of course the company line to insist that the controller is not at fault once the losing player begins to protest.
Simon Hunter, Associate Video Producer, Boom Blox, Wii
I thought Spielberg was having a giraffe when he told me he was going to make a game, but he was right you know. Good god, Boom Blox is the dogs. Playing it in the office resulted in the usual thing of us all shouting at Tom to tell him what to do, but when we moved onto multiplayer, I was very happy with Steven. The physics really are jaw dropping - a tragic thing that it will probably go straight over the heads of the majority of kids who play it.
What have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments section below.
