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FlingSmash doesn’t so much sound like a game, but a child’s toy designed to cause havoc around the house. You can imagine it being sold alongside Nerf guns as a way to inflict mild pain on your siblings, and in many ways that would be more entertaining than this Wii-exclusive, MotionPlus-enabled, block-smashing game. As far as Nintendo-published titles go, this is bottom rung of the ladder stuff, sharing a small ledge with the likes of Wii Play. Like that game this will sell mainly because it comes bundled with a Wii Remote.
If you’ve come to this review hoping for an intelligent discussion on the latest Wii exclusive, you might want to look elsewhere as there’s really not much to say about this incredibly basic game. You use the Wii Remote with MotionPlus to hit a yellow ball around the screen, smashing up blocks that fill the sideways or vertically scrolling levels. You can charge up the happy yellow chap and fling him with more anger through blocks, but you’re still just smashing up bricks.
Our spherical hero takes on different properties and sizes throughout the game, but there’s no getting away from the fact that throughout the entirety of the (admittedly extremely short) game, you’re essentially hitting a tennis ball into blocks. Over and over again. There are certain blocks that need hitting in a correct order and items to collect, but after about 30 minutes anyone older than 10 will have grown tired of the endless flinging and smashing.
Flinging and smashing no doubt has its place in video games (breaking blocks has been a staple part of the gamer’s diet for years), but this core mechanic isn’t even handled as well as it should be. The problems stem from the game’s inability to determine the angle you want to fling the ball around at, meaning you’ll often fire the hot-headed melon into things you weren’t intending to hit.
You’re graded for each level completed, with an S Rank being the ultimate achievement, but there’s really little in the way of skill or challenge. I only died once in a session of about 3 hours, by which time I’d reached the end boss – who then proceeded to kill me numerous times, in the most ridiculous difficulty spike I’ve ever encountered. You could go back to try and get S Ranks across the board, but due to the lack of precision in the controls, you won’t want to.
In its defence, Fling Smash looks fairly cute (although it could be confused for an N64 title), but the audio sounds like the bits Nintendo rejected from its Mario titles. The music takes more than a few cues from the famous plumber’s games, while the ball makes a noise that sounds remarkably close to Yoshi’s famous constipated groan. The fact that you hear this noise about once every second lessens its “Aww, that’s cute” appeal rather rapidly, though.
I haven’t mentioned the plot yet, as it’s bizarre, long-winded and completely unnecessary. There’s a (hopefully) tongue-in-cheek, attempt at making the ball out to be the saviour of the island, some kind of hero who’s been lying dormant for years. You fling a ball into blocks – that’s all you need to know. If you see this going cheap, buy it for the included Wii Remote Plus, otherwise avoid.
