Until playing this game, I had never heard of a Squeeball. A Squeeball is a fictional toy made on a secret island located mysteriously in the Pacific Ocean. These toys must be tested before they are released for sale, and YOU are the tester.
It sounds like this was inspired by the success of Viva Pinata, but the two games couldn’t be more different. Squeeballs Party Wii is mini-game based that tasks you with bowling over, shocking, squashing, shooting, feeding, pumping and painting with the cute little guys. That’s it, really.
Since the studio went through the trouble of creating a backstory for the Squeeballs, not including a story mode in the console version seems like a missed opportunity to get to know the twelve different Squeeballs. You get a quick opening movie that is easily missed if you press any button.
Instead, you unlock Character Bios as you play the game. And while this is supposed to give you some incentive to play through the game, the bios are just short descriptions of the behavior of the Squeeball. I was hoping they might have their own little short movie clip so you could really start to like them. Instead, each mini game starts with a little clip that sets up the game a little bit. I kind of wished they would have focused on the individual critters more.
At the start of the game you have access to four challenge types: 10-Pin Bowling, Cannon, Cooking, and Paint By Squeeball. As you play through the game, you can unlock eight more: Shock, Stampede, Crazy Lanes, Feeding Frenzy, Pumping, Golf, and the Squeeball Testing Belt. Each one has its own challenges that you have to work through, and save for a couple of very frustrating mini games, have a trick to them.
There are several modes in which they present these games:
Ladder Challenge takes you through the mini games one at a time, and have certain criteria to meet before you can advance. For example, in the 10-Pin Bowling ladder, you might have to knock down 20 pins with 8 throws. Once you complete that challenge, you have to knock down 30 pins in 8 throws. For the most part, these challenges move at a nice pace.
The Single Game has you competing in each of the mini game types for high score over four rounds. The top three scores are stored and accessed from the main menu.
Head To Head Game pits two players against each other in challenge sets. you can either create your own set of challenges, or create your own custom set.
Party Game allows up to four players to pass the Wiimote competing in the same challenge sets. I found it odd that the Head To Head Game supported multiple Wiimotes, but the Party Game does not. Seems a little lazy on the developers by today’s standards.
These modes are fine, but it’s the mini games that need to be good for this type of game to succeed. Are they? Well…sort of. They each have a little sadistic charm to them. You forget sometimes that you are torturing these poor little creatures for the sake of big business. When you first start playing each mini game, you will probably be pretty bad at it.
Sticking with them is the real challenge. If you can figure out exactly how you are expected to use the Wii-mote, the games are a bit more fun. None of the games offer a really deep experience at all, yet I found myself wanting to complete the next challenge and finish off the Ladder Challenges.
10-Pin bowling was very frustrating to start, but once I figured out how to really control the spin, it was a pretty entertaining bowling game. Wii Sports has a better bowling mechanic, however, I had a good time once I could make the ball do what I wanted it too. The screams of the various Squeeballs on the head of the pins was pretty entertaining, especially when you find yourself getting frustrated.
Cannon has proved to be the most troublesome. Each time either my wife or I had thought that we had figured the control out, a challenge would come up where it just wouldn’t work. This coupled with odd premise of the game, made it my least favorite in the package.
Cooking has you creating various dishes for one of the meaner-looking Squeeballs, who goes by the name El Toro. I have played much better cooking games, but that’s not to say that this is a bad one. It’s just very simple, but playing through the challenge ladder has been fun. Exhausting, but fun.
Paint by Squeeballs was a fun little game where you use a slingshot to shoot the Squeeballs at a coloring-book style poster. You must either shoot the Squeeball at the like color on the poster, or you hit watercolor balloons that are attached to the poster. You succeed by coloring in a percentage of the painting in a certain amount of time. By pulling back the Wiimote away from the TV, you are pulling back on the slingshot, and therefore making more splatter on the surface of the poster.
Each game you unlock has another little quirk to it and, once you figure out what the game wants from you, is pretty fun for short periods of time. The game can really tire you out, especially Cannon and Cooking.
The music is right in line with the cutesy, cartoony presentation. It borders on annoying at times, as does some of the sounds the Squeeballs make. Some moan, some scream, some laugh. It seems as though the developer thought that these noises were enough to really bring out their personality, and it isn’t.
That pretty much sums this game up. I had fun playing through it more than I thought I would. Parents and kids could enjoy this game together, and kids would probably adapt to the controls faster than most adults. I’m not sure if people will fall in love with the Squeeballs game, but a plush toy tie-in looks inevitable.
Squeeballs Party Wii is rated E for Everyone and is available exclusively for the Nintendo Wii. You can also play Squeeballs on the go with Squeeballs Party DS. Read our review here. Look for Squeeballs Party on the Xbox 360 in 2010.
A review copy of the game was provided by PDP and did not affect the outcome of this review.
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