The entire Lego Rock Band story revolves around your band growing from garage band status to rock stardom.  Along the way, your playing skills will help you unlock new touring vehicles like a hovercraft, a helicopter, and your own private jet.  And you’ll get to play gigs just about everywhere, from the streets of your hometown, to an underwater lair, an alien space craft and even the moon.  And the coolest thing about all of the venues you’ll be playing at are that they’re made of Legos.

Aside from story mode, you can also play in a free mode and you can pick any one of the 45 songs to play along with.  And, in free mode, you’ll also get to see some absolutely adorable Lego versions of some of rock and roll’s greatest stars.  My personal favorite was the iconic Freddie Mercury from Queen.  But, you’ll also get to the rest of the band from Queen, as well a 1983 “Let’s Dance”-styled David Bowie, Iggy Pop (who looks much better as a Lego minifigure than he does in real life) and the band Blur. Here they are in all their block glory:

In addition to the game play modes, there are also a few tutorials on how to play the guitar and how to play the drums.  There is also a great drum practice area, where the skills you learn are real drumming skills, not just ones for playing a game.  Too boot, you’re guided through the tutorials by a very quirky Iggy Pop.  Here’s a brief video clip showcasing some of the music from Lego Rock Band as well as all of the game play modes including guitar, bass guitar, drums and vocals (we didn’t get to try the vocals as we don’t own a Rock Band compatible microphone…and we have terrible voices!):

What We Liked

Just so darn CUTE! The entire presentation was just so cute and silly.  It made it so easy to open this game and realize very quickly that the kids would be alright with this one.  If you’re a serious hard core rocker, this one may not be for you, but if you’ve kiddos, the Lego characters alone make this one worthwhile.  Not only are the Legos cute, but our kids recognized several of their Lego sets in the game, especially the new Lego Power Miners.

I know that one! The setlist for Lego Rock Band is really good and has some great variety in it.  We’re pretty sure that you’re bound to find at least one song in here that you like.  And, you’re kids will definitely recognize songs from Shrek (Counting Crows – Accidentally in Love), Cars (Rascal Flatts – Life is a Highway) and Kung Fu Panda (Carl Douglas – Kung Fu Fighting).

This is Super Easy! We love that for the first time in a Rock Band game, there is a Super Easy mode.  This mode really lets the little ones get into the act.  Super Easy mode lets your kids play along simply by strumming along with one hand without having to use their other hand to control the fret board.  This helps them just get into the rhythm instead of struggling to play the guitar.  There is also Super Easy mode for the drums in which your kiddos could hit any drum they want to as long as they’re in rhythm.  You can also turn off the kick drum bass pedal on any difficulty level, which makes it easier for those “less coordinated” drummers in your house.

A family band. Each band member can play a different difficult level, even when they’re playing together.  So that means that while junior is beating away on the drums in Super Easy mode, dad can pretend he’s Jimi Hendrix and wail in expert mode at the same time.

The radio edit. While Lego Rock Band contains the full versions of all 45 songs in the setlist, you can also play short versions of each song too.  This is great for the little ones who may get tired or even bored during longer songs.  Who am I kidding, it was great for me trying to play along with some of the faster bass lines in the setlist…man were my hands getting tired!

Get up off of that couch! Ok, while you could technically play most of Lego Rock Band sitting down, our house was rockin’ when we played.  Everyone was up and dancing around, and having a ball.  Even our drummer was up and jamming sometimes.  If you make this a family style fun activity, you can definitely get some calories burning when you play.

Bowie, Freddie, Iggy and Blur. Well, we said it before, but it’s worth repeating.  The Lego minifigures of these rock icons were so adorable.  Our kids didn’t really get it, but the grown ups who played along fell in love with them.

A gig on the moon! There are so many fun venues to play as your band’s career takes off and you go on tour.  The different venues and the Power Challenges associated with them really add to the lasting appeal of Lego Band.  Even though you may have rocked the house at the Power Miner’s cave party, you have a long way to go until you get to play a gig on the moon!

What We Didn’t Like

Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before. Forgive me for the obscure Smith’s reference there, couldn’t help myself.  While the playlist for Lego Rock Band is awesome, it’s also kind of short (there are only 45 songs), especially compared to other Rock Band titles.  While this doesn’t seem too bad, consider that you’ll be playing a lot of these over and over again as your band’s career blossoms.  Also, a little hint, when you record an album, make sure you like the songs you record on it because you’ll be playing them again…a lot.

Lego Blocks. The graphics on the Wii were a bit blocky and not quite as sharp as they could have been.  I have had the chance to see Lego Rock band on the XBox 360 and Playstation and the graphics were much sharper.

Yawwwwn. There is quite a bit of lag while your Wii loads the next set of songs or venue for you to play at.  The loading screens do try to help you pass the time with a smile as they give you some Lego trivia or just some silly Lego jokes.  But, deep down, after playing for a while, it was a bit annoying waiting through the loading screen.

Dude, where’s my guitar? One major drawback to Lego Rock Band is that it does not come with any instrument bundle package.  This is a stand alone game and you have to own Rock Band compatible guitars, drums, and microphones already.  That said, if you’re not going to buy the Rock Band bundle before you get this game, here’s a suggestion for those little guitarists in your family band.  Most of the Rock Band guitars are kind of big for little kids.  We ended up getting an awesome mini-guitar for our little guys that really worked out well.  It’s called the Wii Shred Axe Guitar from CTA. It’s perfect for little hands and little arms.

Good for the Kiddos?

Lego Rock Band is rated E10+ with Comic Mischief, Comic Violence and Mild Lyrics.  The ESRB issued these ratings because:

Lego characters perform in and around fantasy-themed venues such as pirate ships, underwater domes, the moon, and a medieval castle. In this last-mentioned venue, a royal Lego army—equipped with swords, spears, arrows, and catapults—storms the castle; the band fights back with toy-like swords, improvising with guitar hits (licks?) and kicks to the chest. During some cutscenes, Lego characters engage in not so civil behavior: a hotel room is trashed; a character belches loudly into a microphone; and a dinosaur destroys an outhouse, leaving a solitary figure stranded on a toilet. Song lyrics occasionally reference violence (e.g., “Somebody’s gonna die . . . My ex will start a fight”), use the expletive “hell,” and seemingly allude to substance abuse (e.g., “Brain fried tonight through misuse . . . Without these pills you’re let loose . . . Is it a monster?”).

We definitely agree with ESRB’s rating.  While Lego’s kind of conveys that good family friendly feeling, sometimes the lyrics of the songs don’t quite match the cuteness of Lego-world.  It can be a bit disconcerting.  We’d really recommend that if you’re going to play this one with kids under 10, you check out the song list and lyrics first, then play in free mode where you can pick which songs your kids can hear and play.  Here’s a link to the full setlist for Lego Rock Band for your reference.  The violence that the ESRB refers to is very cartoonish and really, there’s not much too it.  It’s actually quite comic.  There is no blood, guts, or gory stuff.  And, lyrics from Pink and a few other bands aside, there are no suggestive themes in the game and no foul language.

As for the good in this game, first and foremost it teaches kids about music.  Really, it does.  Your kids have to develop their sense of rhythm in order to be successful.  Even in Super Easy mode, you still need to have some rhythmic sense to move ahead.  They’ll also be exposed to basic music theory as the notes on screen follow real patterns of scales and chord changes.  I noticed my littlest one moving to the rhythm and changing how he was strumming his guitar each time the chords changed.  It’s amazing to see a little kid do that.

Lego Rock Band is also a great drum primer.  The drum sets that go with Rock Band are set up like a real drum kit would be (especially if you add the optional cymbals).  The drum parts in Rock Band are the real deal.  And the drum tutorials really teach you how to play.  So if you’ve got a budding drummer in your family, this could be the perfect game for you.  Our 6-year old really gravitated toward the drums and he did a great job following along.  He even realized that the beats he was seeing on screen and playing by ear had what he called “a math pattern”.  Without prompting, he blurted out “Hey, every four times it changes.  It’s a math pattern like at school”.  I then watched him start counting four beats at a time under his breath.  Now if that’s not cool, I don’t know what is!

Most importantly, Lego Rock Band exposes your kids to music.  Granted it’s not classical or opera, but not everything has to be.  We expose our kids to all kinds of music and this is just another way to get them listening.  And, I think bigger than listening to music, it’s given them (and me) a new found respect for musicians.  While games like Rock Band offer all of us a chance at being rock stars in our own living rooms, it also made us realize that playing real music isn’t as easy as it looks.  It takes practice and patience.  And those are two things I think every kid could do well by learning.

Golden Egg Rating

Overall, we give Lego Rock Band 4 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  We found this game to be super entertaining, and an absolute blast for family game night.  The cute factor is way high on this one and the educational value is higher than you’d probably expect.  The familiar Lego theme made it great for the kids and the addition of Super Easy mode made it easy enough for every member of the family to get into the groove.  The biggest shortcoming was the relatively limited playlist of only 45 songs.  If Lego Rock Band had more songs, or even the ability to add more songs with song packs, we probably would have given Lego Rock Band a five out five rating.  I also wish that Lego Rock Band came with at least the option to buy in a bundle with some of the instruments.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Lego Rock Band from Warner Brothers/MTV in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

Every year, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) compiles statistics for all of the video games that they rated. This year, we’re very happy to see that of nearly 1,800 games that were rated, 60% were rated E for Everyone and another 16% were rated E10+ for Everyone 10+. We think it’s great news that the video game industry has once again achieved family friendly ratings for over 75% of the games they released. And, we believe that you can really count on the ESRB to do a good job of rating games appropriately. Of all of the games the Five Hens have reviewed this year, we agreed with 100% of the ESRB’s ratings. But don’t take our word for it. According to information on the ESRB’s website lots of other parents agree with the ratings as well:

According to a study conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in November 2005, parents agreed with the ESRB ratings 82% of the time, while another 5% of the time the ratings were thought to be “too strict”. A recent study, published in April 2007 by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), found that 87% of parents are “somewhat” to “very” satisfied with the ESRB ratings, and 64% agree with ratings “all,” “nearly all” or “most of the time.” In fact, in a study published in 2007 by the Kaiser Family Foundation about parental views of media rating systems for television, films, music and video games, 58% of parents said they consider the ESRB rating system to be “very useful” (the highest percentage among the various rating systems), and 91% found ESRB ratings to be either “very useful” or “somewhat useful.“

Ready? Okay! Let’s check out We Cheer 2 from Namco Bandai.We Cheer 2 is a new cheerleading game exclusively for the Nintendo Wii.  Using your Wii remotes as virtual pom-poms, you follow on-screen “trace lines” for choreographed routines that include arm and body movements. We Cheer 2 features a brand new lineup of 30 heart-pumping songs that will get you charged up and ready to cheer. The game now offers the option to play as boys as well as girls, for a total roster of 45 characters, which is more than double the original line-up. You can also personalize both your character and entire squad with options including uniforms, hats, shoes, and even facial features like eyebrows and lips. New choreographed routines can be performed on more than 20 stages with choices for day time and night time versions of each. With various difficulty selections and options for single and multiple players, We Cheer 2 caters to all skill levels from newbie cheerleaders to varsity level pros.  The “Watch Routine” option allows you to preview a routine before tackling it yourself. This mode also allows you to take snapshots from your favorite spots in the routine and save them to a photo album that can be shared with your friends online through the Message Board. You can learn the basics in Cheer Camp or get your heart pumping in Workout mode. Successfully completing challenges in the single player Championships mode allows you to unlock new stages and songs as well as earn Cheer Points that can be used at the Cheer Shop for new outfits and accessories for you and your squad. Multiple cheerleaders can enjoy We Cheer 2 with options for two players to play cooperatively and up to four players to face-off in competitive Cheer Off modes. Here’s the video trailer for We Cheer 2 from that does a good job of demonstrating the player movements as well as the onscreen gameplay:

What We Liked

Get up off that couch:  We were happy to see a game for girls that gets them up off the couch and moving!  Being a tad bit rusty at these sort of moves myself, I followed the dual remote instructions and by the end of a full song my heartbeat was going!  Once you’re comfortable with the basic moves, you can start following the entire routine for a real workout.  Even the basic routines move quickly so get ready!

Easy to follow:  The on-screen Trace Lines in We Cheer 2 are bright and easy to see.  A large star appears in the middle of the screen, color coded for either your right or left hand, along with a large arrow showing you which way to move you arm.  This is onscreen a few seconds early and then when it’s time to perform the move with your character, the star moves along the arrow path showing you how fast you need to go.  You are told right away how you did (“cool”, “faster”, “slower”).  And if you’re new to this kind of workout, you can preview each routine as many times as you want before you jump in.  The preview comes in very handy – I used it a lot!

Several places to cheer:  You can have fun learning some basic moves in Training Mode and take your time to do some workout routines in Exercise Mode (some of these are really tough).  You can then move on to the competition format where you can either perform in squad tryouts (pick your song and perform with a small group in a school gym) or go on to the team competitions (pick your song and venue and cheer with the entire team).  These formats are unlocked right from the start and you start with several songs and venues to choose from.

Easy to unlock rewards:  Quickly unlock intermediate and advanced routines, new songs and performance venues (plus their nighttime versions).  With 30 songs, 20 venues and 3 cheer levels that are interchangeable, your kids have a ton of combinations to choose from.  Plus it’s easy to accumulate points to use at the Cheer Shop to pick new outfits and accessories for your team.

Can’t stop dancing:  The authentic routines make you feel like you are at a REAL cheerleading competition and the hip soundtrack makes it fun to work out to.

Don’t worry if you stumble:  Even if you don’t hit all your moves, you are encouraged to keep trying, and practice and teamwork are always emphasized.

Multiplayer mode:  We Cheer 2 will support up to 4 remotes, so you don’t have to play alone.  You can play up to two people with dual (left and right) remotes, or up to four people with single remotes.  It’s not done as split screen here, instead everyone cheers together so just watch your character and your stars.

Cute characters:  Although they are skinny, the characters have big heads, eyes and feet, which gives them a cute, cartoonish feel.

Guys are welcome:  For the first time you can cheer as a boy.  This is great for siblings or if you have a group of friends over – everyone can give it a try!  And there are even outfits and accessories for the guys at the Cheer Shop.

Great Music: There are 30 great songs included with We Cheer 2 and we’re not talking cheesy cover versions, they’re the real deal. Here’s the full song list for We Cheer 2:

• “All Star” – Smash Mouth
• “Beat It (Feat. John Mayer)” – Fall Out Boy
• “Closer” – Ne-Yo
• “Doing It Right” – The Go! Team
• “Get Ready For This” – 2 Unlimited
• “Girlfriend” – Avril Lavigne
• “Glamorous (Clean Version)” – Fergie
• “GNO (Girls Night Out)” – Miley Cyrus
• “Headstrong” – Ashley Tisdale
• “Higher Ground” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
• “Homecoming” – Hey Monday
• “Imani Coppola” – Get Down With This
• “Just Dance” – Lady GaGa
• “La La Land” – Demi Lovato
• “Leavin’ (Radio Edit Remix)” – Jesse McCartney
• “Let’s Dance” – Vanessa Hudgens
• “Mickey” – Toni Basil
• “Pon de Replay” – Rihanna
• “Popular” – The Veronicas
• “Pump It (Clean Version)” – Black Eyed Peas
• “Push It” – Salt N Pepa
• “Real Wild Child” – Everlife
• “Run It Back Again” – Corbin Bleu
• “So Bring It On” – The Cheetah Girls
• “Song 2″ – Blur
• “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” – Selena Gomez
• “The Power” – Snap!
• “Tubthumping” – Chumbawumba
• “Walk This Way” – Run DMC
• “Whoa” – Paramore

What We Didn’t Like

This was yet another game that we had a hard time finding something that we didn’t like.  If anything, the graphics were a little simple.  But then again, We Cheer 2 is aimed at 10-12 year old girls who probably care more about the music and dancing than great graphics. Not that they were awful, but they were nothing to write home about.

Good for the Kiddos?

We Cheer 2 is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and older with cautions for lyrics and mild suggestive theme.  The ESRB issued it’s rating and cautions because

“…Some song lyrics contain the expletives “a*s,” “hell,” and “damn”; other lyrics make references to alcohol (e.g., “He drinks a whisky drink, He drinks a vodka drink” and “Poppin’ champagne, livin’ the life”). Although the majority of cheer routines depict moves not uncommon in cheer choreography, a few of the moves may be considered provocative (e.g., girls turning their backs to the camera and grinding their hips; girls’ undergarments exposed as they bend over, do the splits, or lie on the ground).”

We agree with the ESRB rating that this game may not be suitable for younger kids.  Screening the songs is a great idea if you are unsure if your kids are ready for some of the themes contained in them.  And the dance moves, while a lot of fun, are pretty authentic and move fast.  The under 10 age group may have a hard time keeping up with the routines.  The basic uniforms you start out with reminded me of college cheerleading outfits (long-sleeved sweaters to cropped tank top styles).  And if you do a kick while wearing a skirt you will see plain “undergarments”.  You can purchase shorts at the Cheer Shop, which can seem a bit “short”, but all essentials remain covered.

As we mentioned before, we were happy to see a game for girls that gets them up off the couch and moving!  In addition, the interaction between characters is written out on the screen, so your kids will have to do some some reading too!

Golden Egg Rating

We give We Cheer 2 4.5 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  Overall, the game was really fun, energetic, and definitely entertaining.  The fact that there is a game for the Wii that is aimed at active girls bumps up our rating up a few more notches.  The fantastic soundtrack, multi-player mode and extensive gameplay and variety really makes We Cheer 2 a “Wii must have” if you have girls in the 10-12 year old range.

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game We Cheer 2. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of Namco Bandai.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of We Cheer 2 from Namco Bandai in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

I grew up playing some of the old Spore games on my PC and loved the idea of essentially creating and managing bizarre species of space creatures.  Now Electronic Arts and Maxis have brought Spore to the Wii in their latest release, Spore Hero.  It’s a really fun, colorful, and entertaining game with a story that’s interesting and characters that keep you laughing throughout the adventure.  Here’s the basic story behind Spore Hero: You are an alien space creature that has been hurled through space on a blue meteor that crash lands on a foreign planet.  The inhabitants of the planet you land on don’t seem quite right at first glance.  That’s because “evil” creatures followed you to this planet on red meteors and are quickly spreading chaos around the world using the power of their red meteor crystals to turn the locals into babbling “idiots”.  So, it’s your job to battle the evil creatures and save your new home from evil.

When you first arrive on your new home planet, you are basically a blob with a set of eyes and short stubby legs.  By exploring your new world, you collect body parts that allow you to “evolve” yourself and form some very silly looking creature creations to use in the game.  You can also collect other “collectibles” and body parts by fighting the evil red meteor creatures.  These body parts give your character new strengths and abilities that you’ll need to solve challenges and puzzles as you explore the planet like flying or jumping really high.  Here’s a brief trailer for the game from EA that shows off some of the gameplay as well as the quality of the graphics:

What We Liked

Creatures just wanna have fun! We really loved the very light and playful presentation of Spore Hero.  Not only are the graphics colorful and cartoonish, but the creatures are so funny and animated so well that you’ll be smiling most of the time you’re playing.  Picture a world populated with less-annoying, more loveable versions of Jar Jar Binks and you’ve got it.  Spore Hero is definitely geared toward the younger crowd and our kids definitely enjoyed the playfulness and silliness that permeated the game.

Wide open spaces. The exploration part of Spore Hero offers great worlds to move through and lots of room to roam around and discover.  There are plenty of diverse environments to explore and they’re all rendered in beautiful graphics (especially for a Wii game).

Be creative. The whole idea of creating your creature is so much fun and has been a core element of all of the Spore games to date.  This creativity not only stretches your kiddos mind, but also extends the game quite a bit.  You can change your creature with over 250 parts, warp the shape of your creature and its body parts, and color your creature in such a myriad of patterns that the combinations are almost limitless.  This part of Spore Hero was possibly the most fun and our kids loved stretching their creatures and trying out all of the different ways they could change them.  It’s was lots of silly time for sure that also offered lots of creativity too.

Sporepedia. If you really want to have fun with your creature creations, Sporepedia is the place to hang out in Spore Hero.  You can create creatures to your hearts’ content and then save all of your whacky creatures in a Sporepedia so your kids can come back later and show them to their friends and family or use them to fight with in the game.

Extended play. There’s lots to explore and see in Spore Hero and it’ll take your kids a while to see and do everything.  And with the ability to create nearly limitless types of creatures, play is extended even more.  Plus, within the exploration and fighting, you may need to fight some enemies several times to collect everything from them that they have to offer.

What’s your point of view? Spore Hero features some really nice point-of-view options during gameplay that make things easier and more interesting.  Most of the time, you’re operating your character from a third person point of view.  But, you can simply press a button and see the world through your character’s eyes (which really helps with understanding the world around you better).

What We Didn’t Like

There wasn’t much we didn’t like about Spore Hero.  It’s a solid title with a good story and entertaining characters.  The only thing we did notice was that sometimes the game just seemed to slow down, especially during the fight scenes.  At first, it seemed like our controllers weren’t really responding during fights, but then I realized that they were, just a lot slower than normal.  This made it kind of tough to “enjoy” the fight sequences.  We also noticed some technical difficulties with some of the graphics when scenes got a little too close in (like your character missing body parts, or certain things becoming blocky or transparent”.  We also wish there would have been some kind of multi-player or two-player mode as it would have made it fun for the whole family to play together.

Good for the Kiddos?

Spore Hero is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and up with Crude Humor and Mild Cartoon Violence.  The ESRB issued this rating because

“…players can battle hostile creatures in one-on-one, arena-based combat. The combat usually involves kicking another creature until its health meter reaches empty. Other attacks include biting, using needles and spikes, spitting, charging, and employing a “Combo Strike.” During the course of the game, players can feed their creatures all types of food; if players give them the wrong type of food, their creatures can vomit a green spew on the ground.”

Although there is fighting in the game, it is not the central theme of Spore Hero.  Most of the gameplay centers around exploration and creature creation.  When you do need to fight an “evil” creature, the level of violence is actually fairly low for a “fighting game” and there is no graphic violence at all.  There is no blood or goriness and when a creature loses a fight, it simply falls down.

There is some educational value to Spore Hero.  First and foremost is reading and reading comprehension.  Although the characters in Spore Hero do speak, it’s not a language that you’d recognize.  The silly language is actually quite funny sounding, but it also means that every character interaction in Spore Hero is text-based and that means your kiddos will have to read and retain what they’ve read to understand and solve their quests and challenges.

Aside from reading skills, Spore Hero also offers an opportunity to sharpen your kiddo’s map skills.  Although you can just run around your character’s new world haphazardly, it’s best if you use the map feature to get a sense of where you are and where you need to go.  The map feature will have your kiddos reading maps, understanding map symbology and using the symbology to find what they need, as well as translating their position and the position of their destination on the map into “real world” visuals to help them get around.

We’ve already discussed the creature creation portion of Spore Hero above, but I thought it’s worth reiterating that it has a good, positive influence on sparking that little artist inside of your kiddo.  The creature creation process is so much fun and so silly, but at the same time it provides a message to kids that there is no limit to creativity and you can make your creatures look however you want them too. Like I said, our kids loved this part and laughed themselves silly with the fun creatures they created.

OK, I know evolution is always a touchy subject, but I’m going to touch on it anyway.  Yes, your kids will get the chance to “create” a creature and “evolve” it over time to be able to adapt to it’s surroundings and challenges.  I’m not personally offended by this idea, but, if you or your children are sensitive to the whole evolution/creation idea, you might want to take into consideration that it does form the basis of the Spore Hero story.

Golden Egg Rating

Overall, we give Spore Hero 4.5 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  The lighthearted adventure, engaging and simple gameplay, high level of creativity (both by the game makers and the game players) made Spore Hero super enjoyable.  Simply put, this was really one fun and entertaining game.  The only drawback was the rendering speed and frame rate gaffs during the fight scenes, but that didn’t detract too much overall from the quality of Spore Hero.

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Spore Hero. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of Electronic Arts.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Spore Hero from Electronic Arts in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

The Dragon Ball franchise has been around for years and the folks at Namco Bandai keep finding entertaining ways to extend that franchise.  The most recent addition is Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo exclusively for the Nintendo Wii.  Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo is a side-scroller fighting game with some basic platforming gameplay thrown in for good measure (Side-scroller platformer action means the action is viewed from a side-view camera angle, and the onscreen characters generally move from the left side of the screen to the right and involves  jumping to and from suspended platforms as well as jumping over objects).  The storyline revolved around Dragon Ball’s main character Goku, but this time around it’s the young Kid Goku.  The entire story and gameplay is based on Goku’s quest to aquire seven Dragon Balls, a set of mythical orbs that, when all seven are brought together, have the ability to grant a wish.  In order to gather the balls, you’ll need to advance through several levels and worlds by fighting and defeating enemies.

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo reproduces the humor of the early Dragon Ball series, while adding a blend of action and adventure to the mix. Gameplay is essentially a one-player deal as you battle your way through levels and collect items.  There is also a World Tournament mode in which you can play as any of the unlocked characters from the game against the computer or another person.  In addition to the gameplay modes, there is also a shop where you can spend your hard earned cash to buy simple items like character graphics, background music, event scenes, voices, and power ups you can use in the game.

Here’s a video trailer for Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo that pretty accurately demonstrates the quality of both of the cut scene animation (which is awesome) and the gameplay:

What We Liked

Good story. We liked the basic storyline and the gameplay really works well to advance the simple plot of gathering Dragon Balls.  Plus, if you’re a long time fan of the Dragon Ball series, this kind of goes back in time and lets you hang out with Kid Goku.

I know that Kid! The graphics in Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo faithfully reproduce the original drawings of legendary Dragon Ball artist Akira Toriyam.  They’re fun and cartoony and actually very well done, especially for a Wii game.  If you’re kids are already Dragon Ball fans, they’ll definitely recognize and appreciate the high quality with which the characters are reproduced.

I’m hearing voices! Although not every scene has voice over support (most do), the spots where voices are used are excellent.  And, in a very cool nod to the series’ origins, the audio track can be heard in either English or Japanese.

Ease of game play. Game play is fairly simple and straightforward.  If you’re a hardcore gamer, this one isn’t for you.  But, if you’re looking for a fun, easy to play game for the 10-12 year old crowd, this one is probably a good bet.  There are a variety of moves Goku can do and most of them require pretty simple controls.

Multi-player support. Although the bulk of the game is centered around single player gameplay, there is a World Tournament mode which allows you to fight against the computer or a friend.  This enhances the lasting appeal of the game, because once you play the single game all the way through, there’s not much else to do besides fight friends.  While having this multi-player ability is good, it’s still a pretty basic experience.

What We Didn’t Like

I’m done, now what? While the gameplay itself is fast and furious, it pretty much isn’t going to last beyond 6-8 hours for an average player.  Once you’re done with the game, you’re done.  You can go back and replay completed stages, but we didn’t notice anything different in the stages after you’ve completed them.

I’ve been here before. Although the action is fast and fun while it lasts, it does get a bit stale at times.  The scenery changes and so do the enemies, but the repetitive nature of the fighting (and the fight scene sound effects) wear a little thin after an hour or so of playing.

Hanging on the couch. It’s odd that although Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo was released exclusively for the Wii, it doesn’t really offer much in the way of motion control support.  Nearly all of the gameplay can be accomplished with the Wii remote buttons and keys.  We’re guessing it was designed that way to make support for all controller types possible, but it seems kind of short sighted.  This could have been a very cool motion control game.

Good for the Kiddos?

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo is rated E10+ for Everyone over 10 with cartoon violence, mild language, and a tobacco reference.  The ESRB issued the rating with the three qualifiers because

“…players use energy blasts, sticks and staffs, and hand-to-hand combat (i.e., punching and kicking) to defeat an assortment of enemies (e.g., mercenary humans, enemy wolves, robots, and aliens). The fighting sequences employ several cartoony effects that mitigate the level of violence: tweety-bird sound effects, dizzy stars, and words like “WHACK!” and “BANG!” flashing on screen. A tournament mode involves more intense fighting as players battle one-on-one to drain each other’s life meter. During the course of the game, players can find reward items in treasure chests, one of which is a cigar. The expletive “hell” can occasionally by heard in the dialogue”.

Straight up, this game is all about fighting and defeating enemies.  If you don’t want to expose your kids to violence, even in a cartoon fashion, then this game is definitely not for you.  If you’re a big fan or the Dragon Ball franchise, this is probably the simplest, least violent way to introduce younger gamers to the world of Dragon Ball.  Aside from the warning issued by the ESRB, which we agree with, there is no other foul language, graphic violence or suggestive themes to be found in the game.

As for education value, there isn’t much.  But, if you’d like to expose or introduce your kids to the Japanese language, you can turn on the alternate audio track and hear all of the dialog spoken in Japanese instead of English.  That’s kind of cool.  Also, there are scenes that require quite a bit of reading, but beyond that, like we said, this game is all about fighting your way through the various levels.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo 3.5 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  We really wanted to like this game more because the Dragon Ball franchise has been so much fun in the past.  And, in some ways, this game really delivered and held true to the franchise roots, especially in terms of the storyline and the great graphics.  However, the limited and somewhat repetitive gameplay and the semi-good mutli-player support drove our score down quite a bit.  Also, being a Wii exclusive game, we really wish there were more of a focus on embracing the Wii platform and building in better motion control support.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo from Namco Bandai in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

Of all of the games we own or have tested for our Nintendo Wii, the game that our family (mom, dad, the kids, and grandma and grandpa) kept coming back to again and again was Wii Fit. We all love something different about it, but we play it together just about every time we turn on our Wii. So, when we heard that Nintendo was releasing Wii Fit Plus, we were super excited. We went right out and bought a copy of the game and we’ve playing it constantly ever since. For our review of the Wii Fit Plus, we’re going to break it into two parts. Part I will be more about the family friendliness of the games and why it’s good for the kiddos, while Part II will be part of our January reviews of fitness titles for the Wii and will focus on the fitness/exercise/workout portions of Wii Fit Plus.

Wii Fit Plus greatly enhances everything that was in the original Wii Fit. It seems like just about all of the things we didn’t like about Wii Fit (and there weren’t many) were fixed and updated in Wii Fit Plus. Wii Fit Plus has all of the original Wii Fit games included with it and now there are 15 more new Training Plus games to liven up the action. The new games include:

• Perfect 10: A bumper game that makes you use your hips to hit bumpers and complete simple arithmetic problems.
• Obstacle Course: A challenging romp through an obstacle course…that’s floating in the sky!
• Bird’s Eye Bulls-Eye: A cute game where you flap your arms like bird wings to make a bird fly to various platforms in a timed event.
• Driving Range: A driving range and golf swing analyzer all in one. Swing the golf club and use the balance board to graphically see your balance shift as you hit the ball.
• Skateboard Arena: An exciting ride through a wide range of skateboard park ramps, half-pipes, sliders and jumps.
• Snowball Fight: Dodge fast flying snowballs and ping your opponents with as many snowballs as you can in a timed event.
• Rhythm Kung Fu: Think rhythmic Kung Fu, and then mirror the moves your Mii does on screen in perfect timing to score points.
• Island Cycling: Ride around the new, expanded Wii Fit Island on a mountain bike.
• Segway Circuit: In an interesting branding tie-in, ride a Segway around Wii Fit Island and pop beach balls with it to earn points in a “fast” paced timed event.
• Tilt City: A nerve wracking game in which you use both the balance board and your Wii remote to carefully balance, move, and drop balls into their matching colored barrels.
• Rhythm Parade: Be a majorette in a marching band and march to the beat on the balance board while matching the hand movements of your on-screen majorette Mii.
• Big Top Juggling: Ever dream of being a juggler? On a balance ball? Well then here’s your chance. Use the Wii remote and nunchuk along with the balance board to juggle multiple balls while keeping your balance on a big, striped circus ball!
• Table Tilt Plus: It’s the classic Table Tilt game from Wii Fit with a bunch of new, added twists like bumpers, spinning gates and more.
• Balance Bubble Plus: An update to the original Wii Fit Balance Bubble game, this one takes place in faster moving water with lots of new types of obstacles, and super tight turns and curves.
• Basic Run Plus: Run around the Wii Fit Island and pay close attention to everything you pass…there’s a quiz after the run.

Here a video trailer that show a bit of each new game:

What We Liked

Get up offa that thing! We love that every game in Wii Fit Plus gets you and your kiddos up off the couch and moving around. All of the old games and the new additions involve real physical activity that will get your heart pumping and your body moving.

Accept the challenge. While the old games in Wii Fit were fun, the new games are fun and even more challenging than the originals.  Some of the original games were kind of easy, but the new ones require you to challenge yourself to move to the next level.

It’s all good. Speaking of moving to the next level, unlike Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus comes with all of the games unlocked right from the start.  That means you don’t have to work to earn access to the games, which is a good thing.  What you do have to work to unlock are the advanced levels to the games.  We’re happy to see that because it really was disappointing to drop $100 on the original Wii Fit only to find a limited number of games available for play out of the box.

Everyone can play. Wii Fit Plus has much better multi-player support than its predecessor.  The simple act of switching a players’ profile to share the game was a tedious action in Wii Fit.  Not any more.  Just click the switch button and select the Mii you want to use next and voila, you’re ready to play in no time at all.  And, several of the games have an option for true multi-player mode where you select the Mii’s that are going to play the games and it automatically cycles through the players’ turns for you.

Something for everyone. Wii Fit Plus includes all of the new games we mentioned above as well as all of the original Wii Fit game including Soccer Heading, Ski Slalom, Ski Jump, Table Tilt, Tightrope Walk, Balance Bubble, Penguin Slide, Snowboard Slalom, Lotus Focus, Hula Hoop®, Basic Step, Basic Run, Super Hula Hoop, Advanced Step, 2-P Run, Rhythm Boxing, Free Step and Free Run.  With a roster of over 30 games (not to mention all of the yoga and strength exercises that we haven’t talked about), there is something for everyone in Wii Fit Plus.  And, you’d think with all of those choices, something would have to be bad.  Nope! There’s not a dud in the group.  Everyone in the family will find something they’ll enjoy.

The price is right! We love that Nintendo released Wii Fit Plus two ways: bundled with the Wii Balance Board or just the game.  The balance board bundle retails for $99 and the game alone retails for just $20.  If you already own a balance board, this game is a steal at $20.  It probably offers the most value of any $20 game out there and is definitely worth the upgrade.  If you don’t already own a balance board, $99 is still a great price considering all of the games you get in Wii Fit Plus, plus all of the access you’ll now have to other balance board capable games.

Rank out. Wii Fit Plus, just like Wii Fit, keeps track of high scores and best times for all of the games for the entire family and keeps a constant ranking.  This makes the games competitive and increases the lasting appeal of Wii Fit Plus.  I know in our family, we’re still competing almost daily for the title of ski jump champion!

Your personal best. Although the ranking keeps things competitive, some of the younger members of the family have a tough time reaching the top of the list.  Not to worry, Wii Fit Plus tracks everyone’s progress and congratulates you when you have achieved a personal best too.  That keeps things interesting for everyone because you’re not only competing against your family, you can compete against yourself.  It’s very encouraging for the little tikes who aren’t the fastest or the best…yet!

Fido? Well, this isn’t a blockbuster feature, but our kids love that in Wii Fit Plus you can add your pets to the show too.  Granted, all you can really do is track their weight, but the kids love seeing the “whole family” when their Mii’s appear on the screen.

What We Didn’t Like

No multi-player balance board support. We’re still disappointed that Nintendo hasn’t come up with a way to support multiple balance boards in a game yet.  Although there have been improvements in Wii Fit Plus for multi-player support, it would have been even more fun if we could race each other down the slopes together on multiple balance boards.  Please Nintendo, figure out how to make multi-balance board support possible!

Harder for little ones. Although we love the fact that all of the new games are more challenging that those in the original Wii Fit, some of the new games are harder for the smallest members of our family, especially those in the under 4-year-old crowd.

Good for the Kiddos?

Wii Fit Plus is rated E for Everyone with Mild Cartoon Violence.  The ESRB issued the mild cartoon violence rating because “…during the snowball fight, players use a crosshair target to hit opponents, causing them to fall to the ground and disappear“.  Snowball fighting aside, Wii Fit Plus contains no graphic violence, no foul language or suggestive themes.  It’s probably one of the most family friendly games out there today.

It’s also great for the kiddos because there is so much physical activity involved.  Your kids will be up off the couch and moving around for every game in Wii Fit Plus.  And they’ll be using their minds too.  Games like Perfect Ten require them to do mental math while they’re moving about and Basic Run Plus tests their memory skills as they need to pay attention to everything they run past for a quiz after the run.  The physical activity, mental challenges, and of course improved eye-hand-body coordination make this a winner for families with kids of all ages

Golden Egg Rating

We give Wii Fit Plus 5 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  The well rounded roster of games, the overall fun factor, better multi-player support and great lasting appeal all for a low price make Wii Fit Plus a must have for any Wii owner.  We wish Nintendo would figure out how to support multiple balance boards someday, but until then, Wii Fit Plus is certainly a winner in our book!

Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Wii Fit Plus. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of Nintendo.

12 years ago, Klonoa made its debut on Sony’s Playstation.  At the time, it was an almost instant classic.  Now, Namco Bandai is bringing it back to the Wii in an all new, beautifully designed mixture of 2D/3D side-scrolling platformer action.  (Side-scroller platformer action means the action is viewed from a side-view camera angle, and the onscreen characters generally move from the left side of the screen to the right and involves lots of jumping to and from suspended platforms as well as jumping over objects).

The storyline is simple as you help the floppy-eared main character, Klonoa, save Phantomile, a land formed by the dreams of its inhabitants, from an unknown evil.  Klonoa’s journey takes him and his best friend Hewpoe through a fantastic journey across multiple kingdoms as they try to stop nightmares from spreading across the land.  Along their way, they fight fearsome enemies and figure out challenging puzzles through increasingly difficult stages.  Armed with his trusty Wind Bullet, Klonoa is able to inflate and grab enemies to use as tools to overcome hazards and defeat other enemies.  Here’s the video trailer for the game, which does a pretty good job showing what the graphics and gameplay look like:

What We Liked

Good storyline. The storyline in Klonoa was entertaining and was advanced cleverly through 15 different levels of gameplay.  Although the cut-scenes for the story were a bit gloomy and dark from time time, they were easily offset by the really bright and colorful gameplay sequences.

Nice graphics. Klonoa features a really interesting mix of traditional 2D side-scrolling graphics with innovative 3D graphics and movement.  That means that not only do you move left and right, but you can move forward and backward into the screen at some points.  Graphically, this was done very well. In addition to the cool mixture of 2D/3D graphics, the 15 different levels offer great environments to move through that are rendered with good detail for a Wii game.  They’re very colorful and entertaining and range from cheery forests to gloomy caves.

Fun voices. The voice-overs in Klonoa are really fun and definitely oriented towards kids.  It’s good to hear some nice voice work in platform style games these days.  And, not only are the voices kid-friendly, there are some very humorous segments that will keep you smiling as you wander through Phantomile.

Ease of play. Gameplay is fairly straightforward and the controls are simple to master.  This is a side-scrolling platformer so most of the controls are simple left-right-up-down and jump kind of stuff.  All of the Nintendo game controllers are supported including the Wii remote alone or with the nunchuk attached, the classic Nintendo controller, or the Nintendo Gamecube Controller.  Klonoa does take advantage of the Wii remotes motion control as it lets you throw enemies with a flick of the Wii remote, but it doesn’t do much in terms of getting the kiddos up off the couch.

Great instructions! I don’t know about you but I find most games out there have very thin instruction booklets in simple black and white (and sometimes in poor English).  Klonoa has one the best instruction booklets I’ve ever seen in really good color detailing just about everything you need to know to jump in and start playing the game right off the bat.  And, it does it in a very simple, graphic manner.

The Price is Right: Klonoa retails for about $30, making it fall into our “Price is Right” category.  For the level of gameplay, the good graphics, and overall fun of the game, the price is definitely right for Klonoa.

What We Didn’t Like

Limited gameplay. Although the gameplay is super fun and really entertaining, there are only 15 levels of play and most kids will probably play through the levels in 4-6 hours.  When you do beat all of the levels in Klonoa, you unlock a few additional puzzles and Reverse Mode.  In Reverse mode you get to (you guessed it), play each stage in reverse with the bonus of a secret portal at the end of each stage.  While that sounds interesting, it’s not much of a motivator to play Klonoa beyond the first time you move through each stage in reverse.

Didn’t I beat that boss? At the end of each level of play, there is a boss battle where you square off against a bigger, meaner enemy than usual. Unfortunately, after battling a few bosses, the boss battles get kind of stale and repetitive.

Dancing with yourself. Klonoa is a single player game and doesn’t offer any options for multi-player gaming.  This is too bad because adding some kind of multi-player support with either split-screen modes or cooperative gameplay could have made this one a really interesting family and friends game.

Good for the Kiddos?

Klonoa is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older with Mild Cartoon Violence and Tobacco Reference.  The ESRB issued their rating because “Enemies can be grabbed and tossed at one another, or in certain areas, used to traverse distances or break obstacles. Bosses howl in pain and fall to the ground when defeated. During one sequence, a villain destroys a character’s house with a giant laser beam, resulting in an explosion and the dramatic death of the character. An older character is depicted with a pipe in his mouth and a tobacco-like substance in the bowl”.  Overall, there is a fair level of violence in the game, but it’s definitely not graphic or blood shedding kind of stuff.  It’s pretty comic-book style and not offensive for the most, although I would agree with the ESRB that it’s probably not for the under 10 set.  There is no foul language or suggestive themes to be found in Klonoa.

As for educational value, there is a fair bit of puzzle solving to be done in Klonoa.  In several levels, there are items you need to reach that are out of reach of normal actions.  You need to figure out how to get to them.  While not too challenging for adults, kids will find probably find the puzzlers in Klonoa engaging enough to keep them thinking for a little while.

Golden Egg Rating

Overall, we give Klonoa 4 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  Although the gameplay was on the short side and didn’t have multiplayer support, it was really fun and graphically very appealing.  Usually bringing back a game that debuted 12 years ago presents some stale, dust-blown-off copy of the original.  But Klonoa really excels at updating the original game with innovative use of the 2D/3D graphic environment, voice-overs, and an interesting storyline.  If you’re a hardcore gamer, the ease of gameplay is probably not for you, but if you’re looking for an inexpensive game that’s fun and challenging for your kiddos, Klonoa is a safe bet.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Klonoa from Namco Bandai in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

Aaah, the days of sitting around the kitchen table playing family board games. We still try to make time every week to play a non-digital game, but we recently received a copy of Hasbro’s Family Game Night for the Wii from Electronic Arts and we might be playing some classic board games on our TV. That’s right, Hasbro has released some of it’s most beloved family games for the Wii, including Operation, Jenga, Connect 4×4, Bop-It, and Pictureka. And, each game is playable in it’s classic mode or in remix mode, where you can do things not even imaginable in their real-life counterparts. Plus, the whole night is hosted by the loveable Mr. Potato Head, including the fun Family Game Show where you and your family compete with an audience and the “Challenge Wheel”. Here’s a good video walk through of all of the classic and remixed games as well as the Family Game Show:

What We Liked

Pictureka! Pictureka is hands down the most fun and whacky game of the bunch. The gameplay in classic mode closely resembles the original game and the remix version is just downright fun. Although this one may be a little tricky for the youngest members of your clan, it is by and large easy enough for everyone to play.

Connect 4×4. Aside from Pictureka, this was the other game in this bundle that was really well done. It’s completely addictive and the cool little features that were added to the remix mode make it especially fun. The kids love the “levitating” flying saucer that makes your pieces hover in place for a short time. The fireworks effect is cool too, raining down bunches of Connect 4 pieces when a player lands their piece successfully on a firework icon.

Music/Jukebox. The music in Family Game Night 2 is so much fun and so varied. It ranges from really funky, almost infectious, electronica grooves to smooth jazzy riffs. The best thing is that if you don’t like the music, you can change it and customize your game jukebox whenever you want to. The music that you select in your jukebox is played during gameplay. You can even mix it up and make your own gameplay playlist.

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. Who doesn’t love Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head? They are your hosts throughout your night of gameplay and they are quite amusing. The fun part of the Potato Heads is that as you progress through different levels of gameplay or win games, you are rewarded with new parts and outfits for your Potato Head. This adds a lot to the lasting appeal of the game as it’s not all that easy to unlock some of the parts and outfits. Here’s a fun video of Mr. Potato in some of his grooviest outfits:

Family Game Show. All of the games in Family Game Night 2 are multi-player capable for up to four players. However, the most family fun is probably to be had in the Family Game Show mode where you compete head to head with family members in a series of mini-games based on the five games included in Family Game Night 2. Game Show mode has the just the right mix of funny game show cheesiness and exciting, fast-paced gameplay to keep everyone laughing and having a good time.

High Score Mania. Compete against the clock to get the highest score you can in 10 minigames picked at random from the 5 games in this title. This is yet another addictive mode of gameplay that keeps you coming back over and over again trying to beat your high score and unlock some of the cooler Mr. Potato Head parts.

Bang for the Buck. Talk about bang for the buck, you get $60 worth of board games for just $40. If you added up what it would cost to buy all of the board games separately, you’d save yourself $20 by buying the Wii version. So, this way, it’s cheaper than buying the real thing, easier to set up, and not only do you get all of the original games, but you get the remix version which contain cool features that you don’t get in the box version of the games. Add all of that up and Family Game Night 2 gives you quite the bargain for everything you get.

New York, London, Paris, Munich. Well, maybe not London, Paris and Munich, but you do get to play with some great backdrops like New York, Las Vegas and Tokyo. The graphics are super clean and really add a nice touch touch to the already entertaining gameplay.

Lasting appeal. With the multitude of remix games, mini-games, Family Game Show mode, great multi-player support and the music jukebox Family Game Night 2 is going to be a long time favorite around here. From family game nights with the kids to parties with friends and relatives, we can see ourselves playing this one a lot.

What We Didn’t Like

Bop It. Although we really loved Pictureka, Connect 4×4, and for the most part, Operation, we didn’t really dig Bop It all that much. For one thing, the game itself is kind of confusing to follow, but that’s just Bop It. What made this game fall into the not-so-great category was that the game didn’t seem to respond very well to the motion controls of the Wii remote. There were more than a few times when we were definitely doing the right move with the Wii remote and the game just didn’t recognize it. We’d have to do the same gesture several times before it worked. Then when it did work, we’d sometime overdo it with one extra gesture, which then registered with the game and made us lose because it wasn’t what the game was expecting next.

Jenga. I think this one was a lost-in-translation problem. Jenga isn’t that bad to play, it’s just that it’s very hard to replicate the real-life physics of Jenga in a virtual environment. Something about it just didn’t feel right. That said, it is impressive that EA/Hasbro even found a way to make Jenga work on the Wii. I just wish it felt a little more like the real thing.

Good for the Kiddos?

Hasbro Family Game Night 2 is rated E for Everyone with Comic Mischief. The ESRB issued the comic mischief rating because “…the Pictureka game includes several jumbled puzzle images, one of which depicts a cow emitting a smoke cloud with a flatulence sound effect”. So, if you can handle a farting cow, everything else in Family Game Night 2 is pretty harmless. There is no foul language, no suggestive themes, and no violence of any sort.

As for educational value, Family Game Night 2 definitely delivers. Pictureka is all about finding objects that match the cards you get. You need to use picture matching skills, color skills, deductive logic, memory skills, counting skills (sometimes you need a certain number of matches), spelling skills and listening. Connect 4×4 is a classic strategy game that will really make your kids have to do some thinking to win. Operation classically introduces anatomy (well, maybe a whacky version of it), but also makes fighting germs fun. Bop It, although hard to control, does reinforce memory skills in a big way, as well as listening skills and color recognition. Jenga is great for teaching the basics of physics and engineering. Overall, Family Game Night 2, while fun and very entertaining, also provides a great platform for putting those learning skills to work.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Hasbro Family Game Night 2 4.5 out of 5 Golden Eggs. The fact that this game is intended to and does bring families together for an entertaining night of gameplay is great. Most of the games are really fun and entertaining and they have a lot of educational value to them too. The music and graphics are fantastic and really add a level excitement to the games. And, this title gives you a lot of bang for the buck with over $60 worth of board games crammed into a $40 Wii game. We wish Bop It would have worked a little better with the Wii remote than it did and that Jenga had a better real-world feel to it, but overall this is a game that you shouldn’t miss out on if you like to have family game nights, especially on your Wii.

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Hasbro Family Game Night 2. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of EA.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Hasbro Family Game Night 2 from Electronic Arts in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

If you have kids in the 10 and under crowd, chances are pretty good that you’ve heard about Bakugan by now. The Bakugan craze has hit a frenzied pace this holiday season with a Bakugan ball being sold every 4 seconds! Plus, there’s the top rated animated series on TV, and McDonald’s fueling the fire with Bakugan Happy Meals. And now, Nelvana and Activision have released what is sure to be a top seller this season, Bakugan Battle Brawlers for the Wii. If your kids play Bakugan now, they will love this game as it combines all of the strategy and action of the Bakugan balls/card game with the graphics and story of the animated series all in one video game. The game revolves around Bakugan battles in which you throw your Bakugan cards onto a battlefield and then try to roll your Bakugan balls onto the cards. If two Bakugan land on the same card, they “come to life” and battle it out. Here’s a video of the official launch trailer from Activision:

What We Liked

Good storyline. The production values were really high in this game and Activision had the writers of the animated series pen the all-new, original plot for the game.

I know that voice. All of the major characters from Bakugan are represented in the game and they are all voiced by the actual actors from the animated series.

Bakugan Battle! If you’re kids are into Bakugan like our little ones are, they’ll love the fact that gameplay in Bakugan Battle Brawlers mirros the game play of the card game, so they won’t have to learn a whole new game just to enjoy this title.

Great graphics. It’s not all that often that we say something amazing about the graphics in a Wii game, but this game is on par with some of the high-end graphics of other gaming systems. The cut scenes are really well animated and all of the gameplay action features characters that kids will easily recognize.

Lasting appeal. You can play as one of 17 different Bakugan Brawlers with just about 40 Bakugan balls in 8 different worlds. Plus you can collect hundreds of cards, including some that your kids can only see here. That gives Bakugan Brawlers some pretty good lasting appeal.

Multiplayer support. Bakugan Battle Brawlers is for one to four players, so your kids can team up with or play against up to four of their friends (or you, if you dare to enter the world of Bakugan).

What We Didn’t Like

Game Controls. Although the gameplay is straightforward, the game controls during the battle were a little tricky at first, especially steering the ball. After a few tries though, you get the hang of it and the game controls aren’t too difficult.

Nothing new. Although we liked that gameplay closely resembled the real world game, we were surprised that aside from three simple mini-games used to raise your Bakugan’s “G-Power” there wasn’t a whole lot new to this title. It’s almost exactly the same as the real life game, so if the card game works good enough for you, this video game may not be what you’re looking for.

Couch potatoes. Unfortunately Bakugan Battle Brawlers doesn’t take full advantage of the Wii platform’s motion remotes.  While there is some movement of the remotes required, you can pretty much play this one from the couch.  We wish there was a little more to action in this title.

Good for the Kiddos?

Bakugan Battle Brawlers is rated E for Everyone with Fantasy Violence. The fantasy violence rating was issued by the ESRB because “…players watch brief animations that include humanoids slashing at enemies, robots shooting lasers from their hand cannons, dragons clawing at enemies, and other magic/light attacks. Creatures sometimes fall on their backs with a thud or collapse to their knees when they sustain a final blow”. Although the Bakugan do fight each other, the fight scenes literally last just seconds and contain no graphic violence. It’s usually a big roar, one Bakugan charging at the other, a big thud when they collide and then the losing Bakugan falls down. That’s pretty much it. There is no foul or offensive language or suggestive themes. Some of the female characters in the game are animated in typical Japanese anime style, which means they wear short cropped tops, tight clothing, and short skirts, so if you’re offended by this kind of thing, you might take that into consideration.

Believe it or not, there is some educational value to be found in Bakugan Battle Brawlers. Both the card game and the video game are based on using math skills to help your Bakugan have the most G-power going into a battle. Each Bakugan has it’s own base G-power, then you use ability cards to increase that G-power. Your kids will have to do some mental math to figure out which combination of Bakugan ball and ability card are going yield the highest G-Power combination. So, if you’re looking to improve some basic mental math skills, this could be a good choice.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Bakugan Battle Brawlers 4 out of 5 Golden Eggs. For a game that is a Bakugan franchise extension, we were pleasantly surprised with the high production value and the lasting appeal. So many franchise extensions seems rushed and cheap just to cash in on a craze, but that’s not the case here. There is plenty of good game play in a fairly high quality game. We wish Nelvana/Activision would have thrown in some new surprises to extend the gameplay a bit and made the controls easier to use. Overall, a good game to look into if your kiddos really dig Bakugan.

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Bakugan Battle Brawlers. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of Activision.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Bakugan Battle Brawlers from Activision in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer from Ubisoft is the follow up to the wildly successful Monster 4X4 World Circuit.   Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer puts Wii-lovers back into the driver’s seat for a whole new race. Gamers of all ages will enjoy even bigger wheels, faster trucks and crazier stunts which made Monster 4X4: World Circuit the second highest selling driving game on the Wii ever. Whether you’re grinding through inner-city construction sites, crunching out-of-town canyons, or scraping through exclusive wall-driving features, players will be able to perform vertical stunts and find shortcuts as they take on their friends and family in 4-player split-screen modes. Here’s a video of the launch trailer for the game:

What We Liked

Like the name says: STUNT RACER. Not only is the driving in this game top notch, but the crazy mid-air stunts you get to perform are downright fun. From high flying back flips to all out barrel rolls, you’ll have a blast taking your monster truck through its paces.

Drive me up a wall! One of the coolest features of the driving experience in Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer is the vertical wall driving. You literally get to drive your truck up walls and gain nitro points and bonuses while driving along the wall.

Lots of room to roam. There are tons of tracks available in Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer that cover over 50 events. You get to drive through lots of really well designed environments from urban cities and stadiums to deserts and snowy mountains. The lasting appeal of this title is definitely enhanced by the wide variety of tracks, events, and environments.

Split screen play. Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer has great split screen screen capabilities that allow up to four players to race together. This makes for a great night of family monster truck fun. The split screen features easy to see graphics and the refresh rate never seems to miss a beat. All of the split screens run smoothly.

Easy for kids to play. The controls on the game are really intuitive, especially if you have a Wii wheel. Oh, almost forgot to mention this, but Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer is available bundled with its own wheel or just the game alone. The bundled wheel is excellent, has a good weight to it and feels good in your hands. If you don’t have a wheel, you could always play with with a Wii remote and nunchuk controller, but we highly recommend using the wheel.

Cool trucks. There are lots of trucks to drive (eleven) although you have to unlock them to be able to drive them. You start off with two truck choices that you can customize as you go. As you unlock more trucks, you can completely customize them by earning credits during races.

What we didn’t like

It was tough finding anything we didn’t like about Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer. Hmm, let me think. Depending on your musical taste, the music might get a little annoying after a while. Other than that, we really don’t have a bad thing to say about this title.

Good for the kiddos?

Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer is rated E for Everyone with Mild Violence. The ESRB issued the Mild Violence rating because “…some race modes encourage players to crush smaller vehicles or hit them with barrels in order to score points”. Did you expect something else? This is a monster truck game. Other than the “mild violence” there is no foul or offensive language, inappropriate music, or suggestive themes. This game is all about racing and crazy stunts and steers way clear of any areas of concern for families looking for a night of fun racing action.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer 5 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  The great racing action and graphics make this so much fun to play.  The crazy stunt add to the excitement and the multi-player split screen mode make this a family game that will have you racing each other on Friday night game nights for a long time.

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of UbiSoft.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Monster 4×4: Stunt Racer from UboSoft in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues from LucasArts combines the fun and creative construction of Lego bricks with the wits, daring and non-stop action of one of cinema’s most beloved adventure heroes. With a unique, tongue-in-cheek take on all the Indiana Jones films—including for the first time ever Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull—LEGO Indiana Jones 2 follows Dr. Jones’ escapades from the jungles of South America to the Peruvian Ruins and beyond. Fans can experience the most authentic Lego experience yet by designing and building their own levels brick by brick, and by fusing their levels with the ones in the game to create a custom experience. In Lego Indiana Jones 2, everyone can build, battle and brawl their way through their favorite cinematic moments—or create their own. Here’s a video clip from Kella Meens, the Lucas Arts project Lead for Lego Indiana Jones 2 explaining the game and demonstrating the cool new Builder Mode.

What We Liked

Fun gameplay. The gameplay was exciting and really fun. Just the movies, the action never stops and keeps you moving at breakneck pace.

Great graphics. Much like the previous Lego’s titles, the graphics are geared toward younger kids with the familiar cute and blocky Lego characters. The cut scenes were extremely well done and featured great graphics and humorous takes on the movies.

Everything Indy! In case you’re a big fan of the first three Indiana Jones films, this title contains all new levels from the original Indiana Jones trilogy. Yippee (I love the original of all the films the best!).

A cast of characters. The wide cast of characters that you are able to unlock really add lasting appeal to this game. You’ll want to keep playing to unlock all of your Indy favorites.

Build it and they will come. The Builder Mode is hands down the gem in this game. For the first time in any Lego’s game, you can build your own levels and seemlessly combine them with existing levels within the game. That definitely adds to the lasting appeal as you can create endless levels of gameplay.

Split screen play. The all new split screen feature was great. It allows two people to play at the same time and not be tethered to each other. That means that if you have two kids, they can play together and either explore together or independently of each other. Anything that adds an enhanced multi-player dimension is always good as it encourages cooperative play and definitely adds to the appeal as a family friendly game.

Free play. We really like that you can play game levels in Story mode or Free Play Mode. This is yet another cool feature that will just add to the lasting appeal of this game.

What We Didn’t Like

Same as it ever was. Although there are new features in this Lego game like the Builder Mode and split screen play, the basic gameplay itself doesn’t vary much from other Lego titles for the Wii. So, if you already own other Lego titles, this one might not be for you. But if you don’t, grab this one as it does contain not only the classic Lego play, but the two cool new features we discussed before.

Where’s the big boulder chase? While we loved the fact that all of the Indiana Jones movies are included in this game, the emphasis is squarely on the last film Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The first three movies are weakly represented with a small amount of gameplay dedicated to them. Also, some of the best scenes from those movies that would have really lent themselves well to an action-based video were missing. Can you say boulder run from the original Indiana Jones? We were really surprised that the boulder chase and some other key scenes were missing.

Retelling the story. While the gameplay reflects the spirit of Indiana Jones, don’t expect a blow for blow recreation of the movies. Instead, the gameplay reflects a cute, but different retelling of the classic Indy stories. Most of the key elements are here, and the stories are recognizable. But, if you’re a big Indy fan and expecting a precise and accurate retelling of the storyline, you might be somewhat disappointed.

Good for the Kiddos?

Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues is rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and up) with Cartoon Violence. The ESRB gave the E10+ Cartoon Violence rating because “…players use guns, whips, barstools and bazookas, spears, and fists to defeat enemy characters that break apart into smaller Lego pieces. Although the tongue-in-cheek nature of the game is a mitigating feature, the fighting action is constant: multiple waves of enemies need to be eliminated in order to collect Lego stud pieces and complete levels”. Well, you didn’t expect Indy to just ask for things did you? Let’s face it, this is Indiana Jones and mild violence is part of the story. The good thing is we’re not talking graphic violence, blood and guts, or anything like that. There is no foul or offensive language or suggestive themes to be found anywhere in the game.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues 4 out of 5 Golden Eggs. The fun and entertaining gameplay, Builder Mode and split screen play will definitely have us playing with Indy for a long time. However, if you already own or have played Lego games on the Wii before, the gameplay will seem very familiar and not as interesting. We also wish the original trilogy would have been better represented. That said, this is a pretty solid title that yet again extends the Lego brand from LucasArts.

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of LucasArts.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues from LucasArts in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

Nerf N-Strike Elite is the follow up to last year’s fun Nerf hit N-Strike from Hasbro and Electronic Arts. N-Strike Elite is a really fun and exciting shooter style game that puts you in the front seat of all the action. The game is based around a story of four kids who are all part of the N-Strike Elite Team battling an army of evil robots in a futuristic setting. You move through lots of unique environments on-rails (which means you don’t control you own movement, the game moves you through the environment automatically) along with the other members of the N-Strike Elite Team shooting just about anything that gets in your way. The cool thing is, you’re not shooting bullets, but Nerf darts at all of the robots.

Gameplay is straight forward as you progress through chapters in the story, moving through scenes ranging from flights through narrow canyons to a trip in a space ship. You unlock new chapters in order, so you start at chapter one and work your way to the eventual conclusion of the story. Once you complete the story, you can play it again starting at any point in the story. You can also play through the plot in three different difficulty levels, each one progressively more difficult in terms of speed and number of robot enemies.

The Nerf N-Strike Elite is packaged with a real Nerf gun, the Nerf Switch Shot EX-3 Blaster. The gun can be used as a regular Nerf blaster for “non-video game” fun or, you can snap your Wii remote into it and it to blast all of those pesky robots in the video game. The Blaster also has a cool little gimmick called the Red Reveal lens that is used during the game to help detect enemy weak spots, solve “puzzles” in the game and decode secret messages. On-screen, you can choose from a variety of “real” Nerf guns to move through your missions with. During gameplay, you can shoot canisters which give you credits for unlocking new blasters and upgrading your existing blasters. The blaster upgrades are interesting and alow you to change the color of your blaster, as well as adding scopes, barrels, and dart upgrades, all of which change the power and accuracy of your gun. But, you don’t have to unlock every blaster to try it out. Nerf N-Strike Elite features a Blasting Range mode that lets you try out any of the 16 blasters featured in the game, fully upgraded, at a shooting range.

Nerf-NStrike Elite can be played alone or in two-player co-op mode. You can choose to be one of four characters, each with their own unique skills, blasters, and abilities. When you play in two-player co-op mode, you can play with a friend and get special access to areas and blasters that you don’t get when you play alone. The bundled gamed only comes with one Nerf Blaster, so you’re friends will have to either use the Wii remote without a blaster (which is easy enough) or you can purchase other Nerf blasters separately to use with the game.

What We Liked

Fun graphics. The graphics were very kid oriented and had a fun cartoonish feel to them. All of the action in the game was smooth and seamless and the cut scenes were all very well done.

Follow the story. The story line was well thought out and the gameplay does a good job of mirroring the plot and advancing you through the story. If your kids are into robots, they’ll definitely like the storyline.

Great action. The action is non-stop just about from the beginning of the game. There are no dead spots or long, boring cut scenes. The action is interesting and fast paced enough to keep the kids riveted for a while.

The Nerf Switch Shot EX-3. The real life Nerf blaster that is bundled with the games is a great idea. Sure, it definitely makes game play more interesting by letting you use a real gun to point and shoot with. But the real fun starts when you click the Wii remote out of the blaster and replace it with a real Nerf barrel. This turns it into a fully functional Nerf blaster that your kids can run around the house with and shoot real Nerf darts. Our kids both love it. And, the cool Red Reveal lens on the Nerf blaster was a hit too. The kids feel like they’re really clued into something secret when they need the Red Reveal to decode the super secret on-screen messages (and no, the messages don’t say “Drink more Ovaltine”).

Nerf Blaster customization. We had lots of fun shooting up canisters to earn credits to customize our in-game blasters. The ability to customize your blasters adds a good dimension to the game that extends the appeal of this title. Even if you complete all of the levels of game play quickly, you can go back to shoot up more canisters, unlock new blasters, customize your existing blasters and go back in for more shooting fun.

Girls allowed. Thank you EA for including a girl on the N-Strike Elite Team who is tough yet fun. Raven is the hip chic sniper in the story and she definitely rocks things when she’s involved.

What We Didn’t Like

Only one blaster. It was probably an effort to keep the price point down on this title, but the game is bundled with only one Switch Shot EX-3. That left our kids jostling for position when it came to who got to use the blaster in the game. Player 2 is going to have to use the Wii remote to join in the fun. Either that, or you can plunk down another $15-$20 for a second Switch Shot EX-3 at Amazon, Target or other retailers. That said, the Wii remote is pretty easy to use as a “blaster” and doesn’t take much away from the gameplay, except for the fact that Player 2 won’t have a cool Red Reveal lens to help decode secret messages.

Game play is too short. Although we found the action to be fast and furious, a typical 10-year old will probably be able to advance through all of the chapters in the story in a few hours. There are three difficulty levels, but the chapters and the story lines are the same in all three levels. That kind of limited how much lasting appeal this had with our kids.

Good for the Kiddos

Nerf N-Strike Elite is rated E10+ for Everyone 10+ with Fantasy Violence. The ESRB assigned this rating because “players defeat enemy robots by shooting them with “Nerf blasters” loaded with foam darts as opposed to real guns loaded with bullets. Viewed from a first-person perspective, players engage in frequent battle across trains, canyons, underground laboratories, and through the sky. Enemies explode in a flash of light, leaving parts on the ground or trails of smoke when defeated. While robots can shoot back at players – depicted by foam darts sticking to the screen – the only damage they inflict is against players’ protective shield.”

We like that although this is a shooter game, there are no real bullets, only Nerf darts. There is no graphic violence, blood or gore. There is no foul language or suggestive themes either. For a shooter style game, this one is surprisingly family friendly and fun.

As for educational value, we’re not looking at a whole lot, but then again, this is a game about shooting stuff. The puzzles and secret messages are easily decoded with the Red Reveal lens and don’t offer much in the way of problem solving. There are situations in the game which do offer some problem solving skills, especially in relationship to the sequence in which to shoot things, but those are not too difficult to figure out either.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Nerf N-Strike Elite 4 out of 5 Golden Eggs. It’s a fun, engaging and fast paced shooter that is refreshingly family friendly. Our kids loved the whole Nerf tie-in and the bundled Nerf Switch Shot EX-3 blaster was a huge hit. We wish the gameplay had more chapters or varied story lines, but overall we all enjoyed this one from start to finish. In fact, Dad won’t stop playing it!

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Nerf N-Strike Elite. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of Electronic Arts.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Nerf N-Strike Elite from Electronic Arts in order to provide you with this review.  Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

What We Liked

Good animation. The cut scenes that helped advance the story plot were beautifully animated. I’m not sure if they are direct scenes from the DVD movie, but if they’re not, they very well could be.

Ease of play. Barbie and the Three Musketeers is extremely easy to play. The controls are simple and the levels are all very similar, so little gamers should be able to get the hang of the game very quickly.

Girl Power. It’s good to finally see a game for the Wii with girls who do the swashbuckling, although the cliched idea of collecting coins to go shopping later on kind of dampens the girl power effect a bit.

The Price is Right. You won’t be breaking the bank to grab this game.  This title is fairly low budget weighing in at an average retail price of $20.

What We Didn’t Like

Limited lasting appeal. Gameplay gets very repetitive very quickly. In fact, every level of gameplay is essentially the same with different backgrounds. There was little creativity put into the design of the game. Once you play one level, you pretty much played them all. There are 15 levels of game play that might take the average 8 to 10-year old about 3 hours or so to play through.

Not very challenging. Barbie and The Three Musketeers isn’t very challenging and it offers so many lives and so much “health” that’s it’s pretty hard to “die”. Although this sounds good for younger players, it severely limits the lasting power of the game as they’ll finish it quickly and probably not play it very much afterward.

Touché! We were really disappointed by the fact that this game is primarily made for the Wii (it’s also available for the Nintendo DS and PC’s) and it didn’t really take any advantage of the Wii’s motion controls at all. We were really hoping that the swashbuckling action would have required big swipes of your arms, maybe even some jumping or something. But alas, poor Barbie, all of the controls are pretty much standard push-the-button kind of controls.

And this has what to do with the storyline? While the cut scenes were beautiful and advanced you through the storyline, the game play pretty much didn’t. It was hard to figure out what the game play had to do with the story, if anything at all.

Where’s Barbie? OK, this probably has more to do with the DVD movie than the game, but I still don’t understand exactly who Corinne is. She’s Barbie, but we call her Corinne. If the name of the movie and the game is Barbie and The Three Musketeers, shouldn’t Barbie at least make a cameo appearance?

One for all and all by yourself? So, we have Corinne (Barbie?) and her Three Musketeer friends, right? Wouldn’t it make sense if up to four girls could play this together at one time, each as one of the characters? Apparently not. This game is single player only.

Good for the Kiddos

Barbie and Three Musketeers is rated E for Everyone with Mild Cartoon Violence. The ESRB issued the mild cartoon violence rating because “Barbie and her friends traverse castles and rooftops, jump across platforms, and face various villains (e.g., soldiers, scarecrows, rats, wolves) along the way. Barbie can attack enemies with her sword, resulting in swiping sounds effects and groans/squeals.” There really is no graphic violence to speak of as once you defeat an enemy, they pretty much just disappear. There is no foul or offensive language or suggestive themes in the game at any point.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Barbie and the Three Musketeers 2.5 out of 5 Golden Eggs. The movie tie-in, beautiful cut scenes, ease of play and “girl power” message make this title mildly interesting for a short time. However, that wasn’t really enough to save it from repetitive, uninspired game play that seemed to be kind of cookie cutter side-scrolling action for the most part. That said, the game is family friendly, affordable at $20 and will be a good for families looking for some kind of girl-centric game that will appeal to the under 10 crowd.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Barbie and the Three Musketeers from Activision in order to provide you with this review.  Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

Do you have kids that really like baseball? Then Baseball Blast for the Wii from 2K Sports might be for you. But, before you run out and get it, there are a few things you should know about it. First, Baseball Blast is not a baseball game in the strictest sense. There is no “real” game of baseball anywhere in the game.  You don’t get to pitch, hit and run in nine innings of play. If you’re looking to do that, check out 2K Sports other baseball titles (which are actually very good). You do get the chance to play a short game of baseball in Play Ball mode, but it’s probably not the baseball experience you’d be looking for if you want a true baseball game.

What Baseball Blast is is a fun collection of 20 mini-games that are all baseball themed. So, what exactly does that mean? It means you get to play mini-games like Fielding Frenzy where you have to catch pop-flies to earn points, Slide! Slide! in which you race to home plate while avoiding obstacles, or play Cannonballs and try to sink pirate ships by hitting baseballs at them. It features all of the Major League teams as well as some of the star players from each team. In addition to the fun mini-games, you also get commentary by baseball legend Bob Uecker. Baseball Blast can be played alone in solo mode, or with multiple players (up four players) in Party Blast mode.  In Party Bast mode, Baseball Blast makes for a great game for family game night, especially for families with younger kids. Here’s a brief promo video from 2K Sports for Baseball Blast:

The Mini Games

There are 20 mini-games included with Baseball Blast. The box only describes 5 of the games, so here’s a brief description of each game:

• Carni-Ball: A shooting gallery mixed with baseball. Hit targets to advance runners along the basepath. Get them home and score points.
• Fielding Frenzy: Catch pop flies before they hit the ground. The more you catch in a row, the more points your score.
• Fly Ball Fury: Compete with three other players to catch balls hit to the outfield. Catch the most balls to win.
• Bumper Base: Drive small bumper cars around on first base and try to knock other players’ cars off the base. Be the last player standing to win.
• Stealing Bases: Try to “steal” three bases from the baseball diamond and get them to home plate safely.
• Slide! Slide!: Race to home plate while dodging to avoid obstacles along the path.
• Cannonballs!: Hit cannonballs at three pirate ships in order to sink them.
• Around the Horn: Throw the ball around the bases and hit special coins with your throws to gain points.
• Galaxy Ball: Hit a “rocket powered” ball into orbit and see how far you can make it travel.
• City Ball: Throw the ball around a maze in the city and hit trophies with your throws to get points.
• Dodge Ball: Avoid balls thrown at you and three other players by an out of control pitching machine. Last player standing wins.
• Mystery Fan: A Jumbotron fun game where you have to find the mystery fan displayed on the Jumbotron in the crowd.
• Pennant Race: Control a long ball hit from home plate. Steer the ball through fielders and over the wall to score a home run.
• Pitcher Perfect: Throw pitches and hit the targets to score points.
• Power Pitcher: Find out who throws the fastest fast ball in your family.
• Diamond Double: A batting game where you hit the ball at a castle and diamonds in the sky to earn points.
• Team Twist: Team logos have been twisted up. Untwist them with your Wii remote before time runs out.
• The Wave: Control the fans in the crowd and try to keep “The Wave” going for as long as possible.
• Poster Puzzle: Baseball themed jigsaw puzzles.
• Trivia Time: Test your baseball knowledge.

What We Liked

Family Game Night: Baseball Blast features a really good multi-player mode that lets the whole family (well, at least up to four people) play at the same time.

Fun Mini-games: The mini-games are entertaining and will keep you and your kids laughing for some time. They’re fun, comical, and enjoyable to play.

Something for Everyone: The wide variety of mini-games in Baseball Blast is nice and your kids won’t be playing the same game all day. The games are so varied that everyone should be able to find something that they like.

Cartoon Time: Baseball Blast is definitely geared toward the under-10 crowd and has a light cartoonish feel to it. All of the graphics are chunky and fun.

The Price is Right: This a low budget game at only $20 that actually delivers some quality for the bucks.  Most other games in the $15 to $20 price range are pretty awful, but this one at least delivers fun games for your family to enjoy.

What We Didn’t Like

Dancing with Myself: If you’re looking for a baseball game to play solo, this probably isn’t the game for you. The only real challenge while playing alone is unlocking mini-games. This title is definitely better played in a party or crowd setting.

Who is that supposed to be? Although Baseball Blast licensed the names of some of Major League Baseball’s brightest stars, you’d never know it by the graphics. None of the players look anything like their real-life counterparts. So, if you’re buying this because you think Derek Jeter is cute and want more of him in a video game, take a pass.

Juuuuust a bit outside! I loved Bob Uecker as the half-crazed, bumbling announcer in the Major League movies so I was excited to hear him on Baseball Blast. Unfortunately, Bob’s trademark phrases and goofy comments get pretty repetitive and boring after playing the game a few times.

Swing and a miss: There are only two mini-games that give your little sluggers a chance to hit the baseball. And, if you have little ones under 5 or 6 years old, they might have a rough time connecting with the ball. Compared to something like the baseball game on Nintendo’s Wii Sports (which comes with the Wii), the batting games in Baseball Blast are kind of hard for the little ones.

A League of their own? We noticed something after playing this one a few times…there are no women in the game. Of course there are no female players in the major leagues (yet) so we get that. But even in mini-games that feature the fans like The Wave or Mystery Fan only feature male characters. Do women not like baseball? We wish 2K Sports would have found some way to include some female faces in the game for those of us with little girls looking for a league of their own.

Good for the Kiddos

Baseball Blast is rated E for Everyone with Comic Mischief. According to the ESRB the Comic Mischief rating is based on some mini-games that involve avoiding baseballs that are shot at players; sinking pirate ships on a flooded baseball diamond; and punching other avatars to “steal” their bases. “Dizzy stars” appear above the heads of players that get knocked down or injured. Other than that, the game contains no foul language, profanity or suggestive themes.

Baseball Blast also makes good use of the Wii remotes to get your kiddos up and moving. While some of the games are simple push-button type games, there are games that make your kids use the remote to pitch the ball with a real pitching motion and swing to hit balls. Although limited to only certain mini-games, Baseball Blast should have your kids up off the couch and moving around.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Baseball Blast 3.5 out of 5 Golden Eggs. This is a good game for family game night, features plenty of mini-games to keep everyone entertained, and it gets you and your kids off the couch and moving around. The lack of good solo play, graphics that keep you asking “Who was that?”, and difficult batting control for younger kids keep this from being a star contender though. But, if you’re looking for a fun game in the $20 price range, it delivers much more than most games at the same price point.

Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of some of the mini-games in Baseball Blast. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of 2K Sports.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Baseball Blast! from 2K Sports in order to provide you with this review.  Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

I like to move it move it! And now, you and all of your favorite characters from Madagascar can move it in fun little go-kartz through the wild world of Madagascar in Madagascar Kartz from Dreamworks and Activision. You can choose to drive as Alex, Marty, Gloria, Melman, King Julian or the Penguins through 21 different tracks including the New York City Zoo, Shark Beach, the Plane Crash Site, and lots of others. Each of the kart drivers have their own “special” skills and powers that they use to navigate the zany single player and mulitplayer modes including a Championship race series format where you progress through tracks and unlock new tracks and characters. There is also a Quick Race mode where you can race on any track you have unlocked, a Time Trial mode where it’s just you against the clock, a fun Move It! Move It! mode where you try to steal King Julian’s Disco Ball and move it along the track in a crazy race, and a checkpoint race. The multi-player mode allows up to four players to play together in a very smooth split-screen mode. Throughout all of the races (except the Time Trial) you and other players can crash open crates to collect power ups that either give your kart driver enhanced powers or disable your opponents with whacky “weapons” like beehives, Chimpsplosives, flaming coconuts and of course slippery bananas.

Here’s a short video with highlights from Madagascar Kartz:

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Madagascar Kartz from Activision in order to provide you with this review.  Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.

Buckle up your boots and strap into your snowboard, it’s time to hit the slopes with Shaun White and his friends! Ubisoft has released Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage and it’s a flat out fun game for the whole family to enjoy.  Focused on intense competition that captures Shaun‟s riding style, personality and spirit, Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage allows players to feel the thrill of the ride and experience the life of a professional snowboarder participating in the highest levels of competitions around the world.  From a half pipe in the middle of New York‟s Times Square to the most prestigious competitions in France, Canada, Japan and more, players can explore extraordinary mountains and iconic locations all over the world in 75 fun and unique challenges. With a ton of new events to compete in and seamless co-op multiplayer options, players can rise to the top of the world rankings with friends too.

Here’s a short video reel of highlights from the game:

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new game Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow. Images courtesy of UbiSoft.

Little Red Hen gave us lots of great ideas for Classic Christmas Gifts and we also wanted to give you some recommendations for the latest gifts out there. We love the Nintendo Wii gaming platform because it is so good at getting your kiddos up off the couch and moving around. So, if you’re going to get a video game system this year, we highly recommend the Nintendo Wii. But, as we all know, the investment in a video game system is just the beginning. There is the endless barrage of games on store shelves to choose from. And for the most part, the back of the video game boxes don’t tell you all that much about the game. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I’m about to shell out $30-$50+ on a game, I’d like to know a bit more about them.

What we set out to do was to find good, family friendly games for the Wii, play them, and then give you the true skinny on what we liked and didn’t like about them. No techie, gamer reviews…just reviews by real parents with real kids.  We reviewed lots of the latest games in the past few weeks and have come up with our recommended list of Family Friendly Games for the Wii. By “Family Friendly” we mean:

1. Games were rated E or E10+ by the ESRB
2. Games could be played by anyone in the family from 3 year-olds to grandma and grandpa
3. Games contained no graphic violence or foul language
4. Games contained no adult themes
5. Game play needed to be engaging

We won’t be providing full game reviews in this post, but every day for the next three weeks we will review one game from our recommended list (and some that didn’t make the cut too) so that you’ll have plenty of information to make your Christmas purchasing decisions. And don’t worry, we’ll be running other posts besides the video game reviews each day to keep giving you the best of the Five Hens. So, without further ado, here is our list of recommended Family Friendly Games for the Wii for 2009 (in no particular order).

2009 Five Hens Family Friendly Games for the Wii

Games Rated E for Everyone

• Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage (read our full review here)
• Madagascar Kartz (read our full review here)
• Baseball Blast (read our full review here)
• Barbie and the Three Musketeers (read our full review here)
• Littlest Pet Shop Friends
• Bakugan Battle Brawlers (read our full review here)
• Monster 4X4 Stunt Racer (read our full review here)
• My Baby First Steps
• Hasbro Family Game Night 2 (read our full review here)
• Wii Fit Plus (read our full review here)
• MySims Racing
• MySims Agents (read our full review here)
• SimAnimals Africa (read our full review here)

Games Rated E10+ for Everyone 10+

• Nerf N-Strike Elite (read our full review here)
• Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (read our full review here)
• We Cheer 2 (read our full review here)
• Dragonball Revenge of King Piccolo (read our full review here)
• Klonoa (read our full review here)
• SPORE Hero (read our full review here)
• Lego Rock Band

This week, we tested SimAnimals Africa for the Wii courtesy of Electronic Arts. SimAnimals Africa is a family-friendly game that transports kids into the African wild where it’s their job to explore and tame the exotic kingdom full of animals like lions, gorillas, elephants, and crocodiles. Kids pet, befriend, play with and even directly control the animals’ movements with the Wii-mote. Status cards allow kids to learn about what type of food each animal likes best and what type of environment they prefer. The game’s end goal teaches children to keep the environment in balance by caring for the animals and plants that populate it. This opens the door for your child to begin exploring the world around them from the comfort of your own home, and can offer great opportunities to explore what our world needs to remain healthy and happy.  The next time you sit down for a game night try playing a videogame that teaches an appreciation for the environment while remaining fun and exciting at the same time.

Here’s a short producer walk through video of SimAnimals Africa:

Welcome to the world of special agents MySims style. That’s right, the successful line of MySims games from EA just added a new Wii game called MySims Agents to the MySims family today. The story behind Agents is fun and exciting as you take on the role of a secret agent assigned to foil the plots of Morcubus, the evil CEO of MorcuCorp. As you work your way through the beautifully styled scenes in the game, you search for clues and interrogate suspects in an effort to solve a gamut of cases from who stole a little girl’s dog to what the evil Morcubus is really up to. With each case you crack, you unlock all different types of new items ranging from cool secret agent outfits to your own private jet. And, you’re not on your own in this crime-solving world. As you become more experienced as an agent, you get your own headquarters building that you get to decorate and fill with new agents that you recruit to help you in your fight against Morcubus. Here’s a short producer walkthrough of MySims Agents from IGN.com:

What We Liked

In a word, everything. Really! This is hands down the best MySims game in the MySims family. It’s incredibly well-designed, has beautiful graphics, fun and exciting game play, and we loved the dialog between the characters. The game is simple enough to understand and challenging enough that it doesn’t get boring. And in this generation of MySims, the focus is less on “creating” characters and environments and more on solving the cases. We found that to be refreshing and really fun.

The story line itself is really great and our whole family had a good time following around our agents as they tracked down Morcubus. The story is so captivating that our 6-year old has been talking about it non-stop since he started playing it. His imagination has taken off and he’s been talking about sorts of things that Morcubus might be up to.

We were really happy to see that this time around, the game designer really embraced the Wii gaming platform and created interactions in the game that are Wii based, that is, shake the controller to make it do things. The interactions are great.  Whether it’s prying open boxes with your crowbar or levitating objects with more advanced tools, they’re all very inspired and make the best use of the Wii platform.

We also loved the puzzles that are built into the game. Aside from solving the bigger mysteries, you are constantly challenged with smaller puzzles that you must solve to do things like pick a lock, fix Gino’s pizza oven, or repair a robot so you can interrogate him. The puzzles become more challenging as you progress through the game.

The sets, locations, and music in the game are very well done. Together, they give a good sense of place and mood and set the perfect background for the game. Our favorite sets were the disco and the ski chalet. We had a great time shaking it down in the disco.

Why It’s Good for Your Kiddos

This game is rated E for Everyone (Comic Mischief) and we’d have to agree with the rating. We have 3- and 6-year old boys that we tried this game with and we found nothing in the game that was offensive, crude, or violent. There is nothing you’ll need to skip over or cover their eyes for. It’s a very cute game and very well suited to younger kids. The kids loved the story line and especially found the way the characters spoke to be entertaining and funny.

Overall, it doesn’t work very well for our 3-year old. He understood what was going on, but it was just a tad over his head. Now our 6-year old, that’s another story. He dug right in. From building his agent to solving cases, he loved it. He enjoyed reading the dialog between the characters and his favorite thing to do was follow the suspects footprints using his magnifying glass.

Why we really love this game for kids, aside from the overall kid friendliness, is that it actually does something a lot of other video games don’t do. It encourages them to read. That’s right. The characters in the story speak, but they do so in a funny little MySims language that is entertaining, but incomprehensible. And, that’s great because all of the dialog between the characters appears in captions on the screen in plain English. Your kids have to read the dialog to play the game. And they have to comprehend what they are reading to gather clues and information to solve the case. Our 6-year old had no problem keeping up with the reading and found the basic comic-book styling of the captions fun and enjoyable.

The other thing we really liked is that this game teaches your kids deductive logic. As they work through each case, they can gather clues and information that help them solve the case. Now and then, the game “suggests” that you do something like “Hmmm, maybe I should ask Gino about his chimneys”, but it doesn’t automatically do it for you. Your kids have the option to move around and explore whatever they want to, or they can heed the advice and go talk to Gino. Watching the kids’ gears grind and their excitement build as they got closer to solving the case was really great. We let our 6-year progress pretty much unaided and he was able to solve most of the cases.

We mentioned this before, but we also love the puzzles in the game. If you need to pick a lock or analyze a sample, you need to solve a puzzle to do it. No simple “Oh, I’ll pick a lock with this tool”. Your kids have to think hard to solve increasingly more difficult puzzles.

Golden Egg Rating

Overall we give EA MySims Agents 5 out of 5 Golden Eggs for fun game play, a great story line, challenging puzzles, and good interactivity. We love the fact that it is so well suited for younger kids, encourages reading, reading comprehension, deductive reasoning, and problem solving. We would highly recommend this game for Wii owners with children over 6 years old. And oh, by the way, it wasn’t just the kids who loved the game. We’ve been having a great time playing it too!

Win a Free Copy of MySims Agents This Week on Five Hens

To celebrate today’s release of MySims Agents, we are giving away a copy of MySims Agents to FIVE of our lucky readers this week courtesy of Electronic Arts.  Head over here to enter for a chance to win.

MySims Agents Slideshow and Screenshots

Check out the lightbox slideshow below for images of the new MySims Agents. Simply click on a thumbnail to start the slideshow. Details and information for each screenshot are located at the bottom of the image in the slideshow.