"Besides the bad control in minigames, and the long learning curve, this game's okay"

I myself am a Crash fan, and one of my favorite Crash games is Crash Bash, so when I heard about Crash Boom Bang!, I thought I'd love this game too. I very much disappointed in this game.

Gameplay: The game has three modes: Adventure, Festival, and My Room. In My Room you can change the options or play minigames. Festival Mode allows you to play a single level, by yourself or with friends. Adventure Mode starts with a cutscene involving Viscount wanting a super power crystal. All dialogue is in text form, and the cutscenes are presented like a comic, with no moving pictures. Once I started the game, I was confused. I read through the directions Aku Aku gave me, but suddenly a timer appeared onscreen and I wasn't able to finish reading the directions. Aku Aku tells you how to use items, but you don't need to use them. To use an item, you must hit a button on the touch screen, which will bring up the item screen. Touching an item will tell you what it does, and will ask if you want to use it. If you don't want to use an item, either wait until the timer runs out, or press the X button. If someone used an item on you, it will show that character using an item. Then you roll a number one through six. The boards are much smaller than games like Mario Party. Anyway, there are six types of spaces in the game: Plus Square, Minus Square, Item Square, Battle Square, Battle Royale Square, and Blank Square. Landing on an item square gives you an item, plus squares give you wumpa fruit, the game's points, while minus squares take away wumpa fruit. Landing on a battle square brings 2-4 players into a minigame, while the other players bet on the minigame, or shop for and sell items. Battle royale brings everyone into a minigame. In addition to these squares, sometimes you can be brought to another map in a level by landing on certain squares. There are two maps in every level except the last, which has three. There are two types of levels, levels where the goal is to get to the end of the level, and levels where you have to find the four key items hidden in certain squares. The object of the game is not to fulfill these objectives, though. The peson with the most wumpa fruit wins. Getting a key item or getting to the goal only gives you bonus points, although once the objective is completed, the level ends.

The minigames pretty fun, but they have poor control When you start a minigame, the directions are explained, but if you take too long, a timer will appear. There are about six or seven minigames in each level, and some of them can only be played with four people, while can be played by any number of people. I think there are also some that can only be played with two people, too. The minigames only involve using the touch-screen or the mic. A lot of the minigames are fun, but they are usually too easy, or too hard. Some minigames have unresponsive or bad control. A few of the minigames are dogfights. The directions say to tap on the wings of the plane to make go in different directions, but it's hard to make fly straight that way. I found a trick to control the plane better. You have to touch the area in front of the plane with the stylus, and the plane moves a lot better. Another commonly found mingame involves sliding the stylus to roll the atlasphere. The object of these is usually to collect wumpa fruit, but there are other ways the atlaspheres are used in minigames. Other minigames include putting a car back together, making a pizza, blowing up a balloon, and finding a guy who fits the desciption you are given. Some of the minigames have a power crystal, which gives you or improves an ability. Sometimes you go faster, sometimes you become invincible. This makes some minigames incredibly unfair. At the end of each level except the last one, there is a minigame where you have a showdown with Viscount. The minigames are mostly fun, with some control problems.
SCORE: 4 out of 10.

Graphics: The graphics aren't bad, they display this games comic-y theme, and the levels aren't repetitive designs. There aren't too many graphical problems or glitches, and it's easy to distinguish one thing from another. The character designs, though, need a little bit of work. Some characters just don't look so good.
SCORE: 9 out of 10.

Sound: The music keeps the theme for each level, making each level feel more like how it's supposed to feel. Some sounds, though, are not present when they should be, or not loud enough. Mostly the sound is pretty good.
SCORE: 7 out of 10.

Control: The control for this game is, well, horrible. Some minigames have tough or unresponsive controls, while others pick the wrong thing or don't do what you wanted. Sometimes the command goes too early or too late. And sometimes, in a few of the atlasphere games, you can't get the ball to roll fast enough. The controls for the outside world are okay...but they go pretty much unexplained. Reading the guidebook is highly advised.
SCORE: 3 out of 10.

Final Words: The game's minigames are pretty much the best part of this game, even though they are of bad control. This game is short, with it's about 2 hour or so Adventure Mode, but it took me longer than that to figure out the controls. If you're interested into these types of games, you can rent it.

FINAL SCORE:
Gameplay: 4/10 x 2 = 8/20
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 7/10
Control: 3/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/06