CarnivalIslandReview

A little while back Sony was kind enough to send us a whole pile of Move titles that are being pushed for this holiday season and we’re going to try and get the reviews out for all these titles in the next week or so.

These reviews are going to be shorter than normal simply because most of these titles are pretty small and designed for our children for Christmas. So without further delay let’s take a look at Carnival Island.

The idea behind Carnival Island is that you as a little girl or boy can save the carnival by playing their games and walking away with their prizes. So you’re going to save it by taking the only assets they have left… awesome that makes sense.

Next, each stand only allows you to play the first game and then when you do well enough they’ll allow you to try the more advanced version. Again it’s not hard to see why this carnival is failing.

But I’m reviewing this with my daughter so I put my happy dad face on and we keep going and much to my initial surprise we start to have some real fun. When starting we were asked whether we were playing the story or party mode and have chosen story.

CarinvalIslandRockets

We are taking turns at each event from throwing basketballs to flying frogs and everything in between.

The mini-games are a mix of what you’d expect to find in a carnival such as rolling a ball onto a ramp and trying to get it in certain holes or trying to throw our hoops onto bottles worth extra points to games that aren’t really carnival games like bouncing our flying frog, which we can control, onto as many Lilli pads and toad stools as we can.

Once you complete a set of challenges in a level it opens up the next level in that genre, after doing that a few times the carnival booth gets upgraded and you can move onto the next one.

Oh each game rewards you with tickets which you can then use to buy useless garbage in the shop such as balloons or ice cream and the like. It’s pointless and yet my daughters love that sort of thing.

As we progress the story unfolds, it’s really not a very good story, and more parts of the island are explored and the carnival starts looking pretty epic.

And that’s about the gist of the entire game, it’s a series of mini-games that can be played to open up a story of sorts. You can also play the party version where you compete against each other in all the same games but I found sharing the story version far more interesting.

CarnivalIslandBasketball

Scoring

Gameplay: 8/10

The Move controller is perfect for these sorts of mini-games and the accuracy of the capture makes this far more entertaining than a mini-game on the Wii. There are a fair amount of mini-games to play as well

Design and Presentation: 7/10

It doesn’t look fantastic but I guess they were going for the Professor Layton Japanese styling… or they were saving on the design area either way it could have been nicer.

Value: 8/10

Kalahari has the title for R271.95 at the moment which is a bargain, if you have young kids and a Move this may be a nice stocking filler at Christmas that should keep them entertained for most of the holiday

Overall: 7.5/10

It’s probably one of the better mini-game experiences I’ve had in a long time and it’s at a great price which is a bonus. However there really is nothing else to this game of any value so make sure you know what you are buying into.

Last Updated: November 22, 2011

Carnival Island
7.5

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