The Wii is often criticized as a machine that is dumped with ports and games which really are of the most poor quality available. Nintendo hasn’t exactly helped this by promoting it as a casual machine, seemingly not caring that hardcore gamers aren’t fans of the system. Let’s be honest - they are printing money by the truckload at the moment with this machine, so it’s all well and good. However every so often a game comes out that reminds us of the system’s potential and Boom Blox is one of these. Coming from the mind of Spielberg, Boom Blox shows what the Wii could be if every developer and publisher put as much effort into Wii games as other systems. This simply is a must buy for those who own a Wii system.

The premise behind Boom Blox is quite simple. Take the Wii remote, perform a throw motion and knock blocks (blox) over. At its core the game is very basic which is why it is the perfect pick and play title for new gamers, but it is also a game which is extremely difficult to master. Each level has a bronze, silver and gold objective, with bronze allowing progress and silver and gold offering more unlockables for the mode where you can build levels. Gold and silver get insanely hard in this game, but it’s so much fun that you will keep trying a puzzle until you get those low scores.

Boom Blox is made up of four primary game modes - Adventure, Explore, Create and Multiplayer. The adventure mode forms the main meat of the game with players being tasked to solve a number of puzzles to progress a story. The stories are admittedly aimed towards a younger generation, and most adults will skip it. We also can’t help but feel that the story doesn’t add all that much to the game. However, it is there for those who want it.

Explore is basically a set of puzzles to solve in a row, progressively getting harder. More puzzles are available in this mode compared to Adventure, and once you finish Adventure, this is the place to be. You can also use levels built by other users downloaded over WiiConnect 24 in this area so the replay value is high. There are over 300 in the game without any downloads, so you will be busy for a while.

There is more to the game than throwing however. Some puzzles ask the player to throw blox down, others ask the player to throw bombs towards advancing enemies to stop them stealing gems. Other puzzles remind us of jenga with the game tasking you of pulling out a blox without disturbing the others. This is harder than it looks and sounds.

The blox also have various attributes which affect how they play it. For instance, hit two explosion blox together and they will explode causing huge ruptures in blox structures. Other blox will disappear when hit, helping you topple them, whilst a bomb blox will explode on impact. It is using these blox that allows you to clear levels with a low number of throws.

Where the game excels is the pace. This is a game where you can fail a mission and be back into it within 5-10 seconds. This makes it very hard to pull yourself away and it takes a long time to become frustrated due to the quick replay times. When you do finally beat a tough level, you feel a real sense of achievement and still won’t be able to pull yourself away, wondering what is coming next.

One area which disappoints though is the graphics. While the Wii will be forever criticized for its lack of graphical prowess, Boom Blox somewhat takes this to the next level. If Blox relied on its graphics alone it would be a total failure, but once again this is a game which shows that gameplay over graphics wins every time. There is also some cute farm style animals included as blox to keep the kids interested and the game in general does successfully tread the thin balance between appealing to adults and being pleasing for kids.

Boom Blox is the first big surprise of 2008. Spielberg may have weaved his magic with EA and it shows what the Wii can do when it is given the chance to. It may not have the best graphics, but the sum of its parts adds up to one of the best games on the market for the Wii so far. If you own a Wii you simply must get this game.