"One Big Mistake"

Crash Boom Bang for the DS is your classic party game, with mini-games that are varied and different. Not really. Although it is fun, it just doesn't deliver what gamers were looking for in this title.

Story: A wealthy person named the Viscount finds a treasure map. It leads to an item that will grant any wish. To help him achieve this goal, he holds a contest to trick the characters we all know so well into helping him find his wish. The story is decent, and considering most party games don't have a story, this is pretty nice.
SCORE: 10

Gameplay: The gameplay is below expectations. It seems as if the game was rushed. The mini-games are fun, but they are very hard to control. The stylus is hard to use for many of the games, and the messages sent by other players destroy the ability to win, by nullifying your ability to use the touch screen. The messages also take up a good portion of the screen, meaning you can't see much of anything. There is almost no explanation of the mini-games, and you cannot do a practice run of the mini-game in question. The items are okay. They have fun descriptions, and they are really helpful to winning. But the problem is, there are more than 60 items, and most of them are repeats of each other with different names and shapes. One really awesome feature of the items is the clothing. You can give any character a piece of clothing that you have bought, creating some very goofy looking characters. That is fun for a few laughs.
SCORE: 4

Graphics: The game is cell-shaded, so the graphics look cartoon-ish. This is actually very nice, because it fits the mood of the game. They are very pleasing to look at, a welcome change from what most games try to achieve: realistic graphics. My only real complaint is that the character animations are boring, and get to you after a while.
SCORE: 8

Sound: The sounds in this game will make you cry. The music is way too repetitive, and the character sounds are limited. The characters will make the same 3 or 4 sounds, and they are all pretty much the same. The music after mini-games is especially irritating, it sounds like a 4 second recording played over and over.
SCORE: 1

Replay Value: This game's replay value is high, despite the bad quality and rushed feel of the game. When you play the Room mode, you can play the mini-games that you have unlocked, and there are some fun ones. This mode alone could keep you entertained for quite a long time.
SCORE: 7

Final Score: 6
Whether or not you buy this game depends of your background. If you are a fan of Crash Bandicoot games, this would be more fun. Otherwise, you should just rent it, or stay away.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/06