Tag Archives: Low Quality

Monkey Mischief: Party Time Review

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It’s time for another party game. Honestly, this one wasn’t half bad. The actual minigames are fairly well designed and the campaign mode isn’t made to irk you like the Outdoor Fun title. That being said, the game is incredibly short and you can beat it in around an hour. I got the game for 2-3 bucks, but if you paid any more for it then you would probably be very disappointed. It appears that this game may have also gotten another spinoff for the Wii. It’s feels like for every party game that I complete, two more take its place. Gamestop is just about all out of Wii games though so I don’t see myself getting many more party games, if any in the near future.

There’s no story mode of course so lets jump right into the technical aspects. The graphics certainly aren’t very good. They are fairly low budget for a Wii game and while you can tell what is happening…the game won’t do much for you beyond that. It’s passable as the game at least isn’t fairly dark like one of the levels in Flip’s Twisted World which will get you stuck for ages. What is more annoying is the soundtrack and the sound effects. Each level will have the Monkeys laughing and yelling constantly. I suppose this can psych you out, but that’s not a positive in a party game. Some of the levels have a very awkward moan when you click on them which is just plain disturbing. The monkeys sound like humans, which is also something that you’d hope the developers would have thought of. The actual music is decent, but the sound effects are much louder so they will keep popping up. No worries though, I got you covered. There is an option in the settings to disable sound effects, this should be the first thing that you do when you turn on the game.

There aren’t many modes here to play. You’ve just got single player mode and multiplayer mode. They both take you to the same screen of games. There are exactly 20 games here and they are split up into 4 different worlds. Most of the games are fairly easy to complete with a small handful coming down to luck. No worries, the game has a bunch of glitches and some of them will help you out. Some games count as being completed even when you lose so just keep on playing til you see the “complete” sign. That helps to take a little of the pressure off.

It was certainly interesting to see that this game completely copies one of the minigames from Block Party. “Slobber Slammer” to be precise. Instead of saving a kid from being eaten by a Dog this time, I believe it’s a Hippo or something like that. It’s a little less crazy than the dog version, but it is literally the same minigame with the same controls and everything. The game better have been made by the same developers or this is just a bold faced moment of plagiarism. Another minigame is heavily inspired by Mario Party as you bounce around and try to knock each other off of a mountain. It’s not nearly as hype and awesome of course, but it’s still a pretty fun minigame here.

Another good one has you try to hold on to the ground amidst heavy wind conditions and other Monkeys trying to kick you off. This one was fun, but the computers died so instantly that I didn’t really get to have as much fun here as I would have liked. Dodgeball was another really good minigame and a bunch of others as well. There are other fun minigames like this and that’s why I’d say that the minigames were actually decent. They were enjoyable and the timer was fairly low so it’s not as if they lasted too long. If you focus on the positive minigames you’ll come out of here with a decently positive experience.

Naturally, not all of the minigames were hits. I didn’t care for the “Draw exact shapes” game because with the Wii Remote, that’s just way too hard. It’s also just not very entertaining so naturally this was one of the few minigames that the game decided to reuse. There were some generic shooter minigames as you shoot at targets or everyone shoots at a single target. They weren’t bad, but just felt rather soulless. Give me a kite minigame instead any day. (Now the kite minigame was pretty solid, it’ll test your skills!) The one shooter game that I liked a lot had all 4 Monkeys flying with balloons and you had to shoot them down before they shot you. Now that was a well thought out game. This title actually had some effort put behind it which I can expect. Considering the extremely low budget that the developers likely had, they did a decent job.

I guess you can say that there is some replay value since you can fight against your friends in multiplayer mode. I always count that as replay value, but lets face it, why would you play this over another party game. The minigames aren’t half bad of course, but there is always Mario Party to really fit the bill. It does help the game get a little longer as being a one player party game would be even worse. Believe it or not, there are some party games that actually are single player.

Overall, Monkey Mischief: Party Time was a little better than I expected. That being said, it is incredibly short with no real replay value besides multiplayer mode. That being the case, I couldn’t bring myself to give it a 6. I think a 5 is perfectly reasonable for a game like this as it can be fun to play for a little while, but has enough against it to keep from getting an actual positive score. After all, I just couldn’t really recommend this game to someone and a 6 would imply that I could right? Outdoor Fun at least had 30 games and medals to earn for each tournament so it had a lot more replay value. As I said though, if you want about an hour’s worth of fun for 2 dollars, this game is one that you should pick up. Think of it as a 1 day rental and then you can put it back in the closet.

Overall 5/10

We Ski & Snowboard Review

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I didn’t really care for We Ski after I had bought the game. I only gave it a 4/10 and the game simply wasn’t all that much fun to play. The controls were bad and the game lacked any real heart to it. So when I saw the sequel, I knew that I had to instantly buy it. After all, there’s no way that it could be any worse than the first right? This game is an improvement, there’s no doubt about it. But if people said that this game still wasn’t good…well…they’re not wrong. They’re really not wrong! Still, I like to see some improvement.

The Snowboarding angle is really what hits it home for me this time. I didn’t like Skiing and I still consider it to be a little dicey although it is certainly possible to make a good video game around it. That being said, Snowboarding is a lot more fun and an instant improvement as far as the gameplay is concerned. Once you go with the board, you’ll never go back to the original way to play. One of the improvements is that the hub world has changed to a more structured mission system. You can still have fun in free roam, but it’s not as mandatory to scour all of the mountains. You simply talk to someone for a mission set and then you work to beat all of the difficulty levels for each minigame. Racing is naturally the best one if you ask me. That one actually had some thought put into it.

Furthermore, the soundtrack wasn’t all that amazing in the first game. Luckily, the developers realized this and acted accordingly by adding in some classic music from various Namco games. This includes Pac Man and I may as well say that this was a very good move on their part. Nothing beats listening to good music if you’re riding around the world right? So, that was definitely a solid improvement. Not to mention that the free roam was also a lot more fun. The areas were bigger and more varied. When you fall down, you even do a quick bounce on the snow and you can fall into large fissures. It’s pretty awesome and adds a level of danger that the first game simply did not have.

Unfortunately, I’m not here to gloss over the negatives of the game so let’s take a whirl at it. For starters, the gameplay is still really bad. Being better than We Ski is a slight start, but it’s certainly not everything. It’s still hard to make any real traction at times and you will often find yourself struggling to keep your balance. I always think about greater things while waiting for the game to end. Still, I did play a good amount of it to ensure that I was ready for the review.

The sad part is that the gameplay for the multiplayer events actually isn’t that bad. Likewise, that includes when you play the minigames in single player mode. It shows that the game at least has a little hope, it simply gets thrown to the wayside when things get rough. If you’re just playing it for the multiplayer then you have gotten your money’s worth. If you’re just going to play this for the single player, then you may as well be eating Cinnamon Crunch because you’re in for a long ride. The difficulty levels almost seem unfair in how they’re handled and it makes me wonder if you need some kind of level ups or power ups in order to actually take the win.

There are a few different minigames to be found here like races, Curling, Slopes, Tricks, and I think there’s another one that I’m forgetting. Moguls is fun (Basically the slopes game) because you have to navigate your way through the hills and have a blast while doing it. Keeping your balance is pretty tricky though. Races are definitely the best minigame for sure, but make sure to keep on swinging your Wii Remotes to stay at full speed!. After that, you’ve also got the tricks minigame which isn’t bad, but I kept on performing the same trick over and over! I still appreciate the dedication though. So….not a bad array I suppose.

I actually like the graphics though. They tend to grow on you after a while and that’s always a good thing. The characters are clear and the snow is fairly exciting…….well, there’s not a whole lot of other things to see here! Still, I stand by my theory that this is one of the better animated cash in games. That’s a start even if you can’t see a whole lot of difference between this game and the first installment.

This game actually has a level of replay value thanks to the multiplayer games and the fact that there actually is a lot to do here. It may not be the ultimate game in that area, but it serves its purpose and for that reason, it’s certainly worth the 2-5 bucks that you would have to pay for the experience. It’ll also bolster your Wii collection and that’s always a good thing.

Overall, I guess this game is a fine purchase, but make sure that you don’t get wrecked by the price. Make sure you get it for the 2-5 dollars that it is worth. Otherwise, you’ll feel bad and the game will make you feel even worse. Honestly though, the game can be a little amusing even if I’m struggling to write enough for this review to reach 1000 words. That’s my target for just about every game, but it can be tough to reach sometimes so I’ll just let it end naturally this time. Just know that it’s better than the first We Ski and actually a fairly decent game. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. It’s a way to spend 30 minutes, but you may prefer just using it as a CD via Free Roam. These Pac songs basically write themselves! Spoiler Alert: I reached the 1000 heh heh

Overall 5/10