There have been so many party games in the last ten years, but apart from the ubiquitous Mario Party, someone will have to remember Carnival Games. The series debuted back in 2007 on the Nintendo Wii, when the novelty of motion sensors represented an opportunity that was too tempting for developers to end up neglected: let alone in the party game genre, where for the first time players could be offered the possibility to physically get up from the sofa to mimic the movements on the screen. At the time Carnival Games did not shine particularly on the Nintendo Wii, but a second chance is not denied to anyone, and here it is. 2K Games also tries again on Nintendo Switch, with a package of minigames designed to be immediate, fun and within everyone's reach. It did not go very well unfortunately, and reading ours review you will understand why.
Gameplay: minigames and village party
Carnival Games to Nintendo Switch it is proposed as a light (and cheap) package containing inside 20 mini-games organized by thematic areas and a couple of modes. You can play up to four players physically present in the same room (no online functionality), each with a single Joy-Con available. If you were an asocial you could also consider playing alone against an artificial intelligence that is not particularly smart, but in any case the experience, as you might expect, would suffer a lot, missing the group laughter and the magic of playing all together. The main topics of Carnival Games are the party as an end in itself, the country fair, the theme of the carnival: all the contents are exuberant and festive, most of the minigames are inspired by the world of the circus or by the rides present on the occasion of local festivals. A decidedly spot on atmosphere, but unfortunately the excitement begins to wane once you start playing for a very simple reason: not all minigames are initially available.
Mind you, it is not at least absolutely such a serious defect: after all, Super Mario Party also offers a group of mini-games immediately available to the player, then requesting to unlock the others as you continue to play with friends. But be careful, because if the Nintendo title can count on an arsenal of 80 minigames, minimizing the repetitiveness of the first moments, Carnival Games has only twenty minigames in all. Of these, just eight can be started right away, while all the others must be purchased using the Tickets. Let's also add that the mini-games immediately present are not even the most inspired of the entire production, and it is understandable why Carnival Games risks being abandoned almost immediately by those present.
The mechanics linked to Tickets are fundamental within the title, and it is one of the many aspects of the production that in theory works very well, while once implemented it creates significant damage. Each minigame, completed both in single in that party mode, ensures users a reward in Tickets based on ranking and overall performance. These Tickets they are the only way to unlock all the other minigames present, and secondly also alternative audio tracks and customizable elements for your alter ego. The problem is that almost everything costs a lot, and the rewards in Tickets are around modest amounts. Imagine getting twenty-thirty tickets per game, when it suits you, and being faced with a minigame that requires 400 to unlock: you probably won't play it for a long time, and your experience with Carnival Games may not necessarily be. last so long.
Contents: many games, but not very convincing
Ideas and the good will are the two really positive elements behind Carnival Games: unfortunately, game in hand, almost everything else turns out to be incomplete, done too quickly or just superficial. This starts with the variety and offer of the contents present: as long as it comes to throwing colored balls inside the glasses or hitting a baseball on the fly to make a home run, things still work fairly well. But minigames like balloon / hot air balloon warfare and spacecraft speed racing are on the verge of acceptable: commands they are not clear, their realization proceeds in an even worse way, and everything is resolved in a general chaos where it proceeds a bit at random until the end of the game; minigames that will probably never start again at a later time. It certainly doesn't help either poor technical realization, not very refined, the angular polygonal models, the almost grotesque features of the characters present, and an irritating dubbing in Spanish, not so much for the tone of the voice, but for the fact that the presenter continues to speak continuously at high volume and always repeating the same things: it was at least possible to make him shut up!
Completely incomprehensible even the inclusion of motion controls as a reward for certain objectives achieved within the title: the player expects to be able to start the baseball minigame by "physically" imitating the stroke of the bat on the ball, and is instead forced to use the left analogue coordinating with the press of the button A upon impact. If he manages to get a high score within the match, then the game will reward him with the ability to use the motion controls - a decision that not only triggers a giant question mark, but also in our case not. rewarded us at all. For some strange reason a bug a message on the screen indicated that he had unlocked the new control system, but at the time of activating it he didn't want to start working: maybe it was just bad luck, because in other minigames it was instead regularly activated.
Comment
Tested version Nintendo Switch Digital Delivery Nintendo eShop Price 30,98 € Resources4Gaming.com5.0
Readers (3)3.2
Your voteCarnival Games is a title that perhaps can entertain adults and children, as long as none of them have special requests or expect who knows what from the 2K Games production. Goodwill, ideas and atmosphere aside, the defects of the title are too many and too evident to be able to turn a blind eye (or both eyes): the mini-games are few and anonymous, lacking in particular originality and moreover made superficially . The control system is sketchy and woody, and things improve a little with motion control (as long as you can unlock it as a reward). The mechanics of the tickets could have provided a stimulus to replayability, but its implementation does nothing but preclude many possibilities for less patient or tolerant players. In short, almost everything should be revised: if it is true that every joke is valid at Carnival, we did not like this joke.
PRO
- The basic ideas were good
- The little ones could still have fun
- Relatively little coast
- Slow and boring progression
- Poor technical sector
- Controls are not always responsive
