Official Website

Platform: Nintendo Wii

Genre: Party

Number of Players: 1 - 4

Just about everyone at some point in their life has spent a day at the carnival. It’s more than the rides that draw us there and it’s more than the smell of popcorn or the taste of cotton candy. Many of us went for the games. It was the challenge, the thrill, and the possibility of winning some kind of prize no matter how cheap it may be. Carnivals still drift into towns across the United States from time to time, but the magic seems to be a fading dream, and even though it’s not quite the same, now there’s a game that recreates the carnival experience to some degree.

Carnival Games is yet another collection of mini-games for the Nintendo Wii. I’m not sure how many of these can possibly be pumped out on the system, and there in fact should be a law limiting them since a number of these “fun-filled” mini-games titles are less than impressive. I had assumed that Carnival Games would in fact be one of these, but actually it’s quite a bit more entertaining that I had thought that it would be. Players start by making a character for themselves. I’m not sure why it is that your Mii can’t be imported over, though it could be because of the prizes that you can win which I’ll cover a bit later.

Exploring the carnival is really just a matter of pointing at the sign in which ever area you’d like to visit. There you will find a collection of games, many of which you’ve undoubtedly seen at some point and might have even played outside of the virtual world. The areas that you can select from include Prize Boulevard, Fortune Way, Claw Alley, Lucky Pass, Love Lane and Rodent Row. Once you’ve arrived, you can choose the game you’d like to play and the ringmaster will instruct you on the rules as well as the controls as they do differ from game to game. You will also see a list of target scores and what the rewards will be. The prizes are small, medium and for those who really play well, large. Some games also have hidden prizes within them, usually costume pieces that can be unlocked and added to your list of accessories.

Carnival Games offers a little something for everyone. If darts is your thing you will find the balloon darts game might be for you and the smaller the balloon you pop, the more points you earn. You can try your luck at tossing coins on the collection plate or throwing baseballs at milk jugs. Alley Ball, known to some as skeetball, is a game that everyone is familiar with and even on the Wii, it’s not easy to hit those hit point marks. If you’re still up for rolling balls, Bowler Coaster will have you trying to put just the right amount of energy behind a bowling in order to get it to stop on the colored rails.

If you don’t like clowns, you can throw beanbags at them and knock them down to earn points, but you only have three chances. You can also shoot them in the face with water guns and try and pop the balloons on their head. If sports is more your thing, there is the Pigskin Pass where you need to pass the ball through a moving hoop. While it’s not a sport, there’s also a dunking tank or you can test your physical strength or even try to get a hole-in-one playing some mini-golf. Carnival Games even has a few shooting games ranging from the usual idea of shooting ducks to trying to completely eliminate a star on a target, but you have limited shots in which to do so.

Getting points will not only reward you with a prize but also with prize tickets. These tickets can be used to buy more items for your character or to play some of the other games that the carnival has to offer. If you want to know more about your future, you need look no further than the Grand Swami, but if you’re more interested in affairs of the heart, the Meter-o-Love will let you know how you rank. You can try and help a squirrel catch falling nuts, win prizes from the claw, or even drop coins in hopes of winning more. Each of these games will cost you some of the tickets that you’ve earned, but there is the potential to gain even more. Each of the game areas also has a super game which are harder versions of the game you’ve already played. In order to open it, you must win the big prizes in games that are close to where the super game is located. These big prizes can be traded for a jumbo prize and gain you access to these more difficult games.

The different costumes that you win or purchase can be applied to your character at any time. This of course gives everyone a more unique appearance, and winning these or even buying them is part of the fun. Besides the clothing and costumes, Carnival Games features over 250 different prize that can be won. From dinosaurs to playing cards, ninjas to knights, each of the games has a theme in regards to what you can win.

The graphics in Carnival Games aren’t overwhelming and definitely aren’t anything that makes the game look spectacular, but this isn’t really a game that needs to be over the top. It’s more of a subtle game where the real focus isn’t on graphics as much as it is good, solid, fun gameplay, and there is plenty of that. The characters themselves are designed to look like the Mii’s that are usually found on the Wii, but the games themselves are really the key part of the game, not your in-game character, not the ringmaster, and not the attendants working each and every game.

Party game and mini-games are to the Wii what first person shooter are to other consoles, and that would be a dime-a-dozen industry. Carnival Games however is one of the more memorable efforts that has a variety of games and controls to work with and master, something that will keep most who appreciate games of this variety playing for more than just a few minutes. Carnival Games is the next best thing to actually playing these games at a real carnival, and while the virtual version won’t give you a poorly designed mirror with the some hard rock band on written on it, you can at least pretend that it does.

-mike-