Games of Shame: Boom Blox

by Ethan Moses on August 8, 2011 at 3:09pm

I really have no idea what prompted me to purchase Boom Blox upon its release some time ago. Was it Steve Spielberg’s involvement or did a run through Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles leave me yearning for the lighthearted (aka, kid friendly) atmosphere the Wii was built around? Regardless, the game found its way into my collection and started me down a path that was quite unexpected based on my usual taste in gaming.

Those sheep are way too close to those blocks!

This is not to say, however, that Boom Blox is a bad game, but upon first impression, it’s tough to defend the cutesy characters and seemingly simple gameplay. At the time of purchase, I was teaching kickboxing at a local gym and part of that included maintaining a sort of tough guy reputation. Giggling every time a blocky-looking bear made a funny sound is quite detrimental to such a task and my biggest fear was having someone from that gym walk in as I smiled ear to ear while tossing balls at large stacks of blocks surrounded by dancing farm animals.

The Gentler Half

Nice try skeleton, but I still want to snuggle your face

My usual cast of zombies, vampires and mutants was dominated by chimps, bears and skeletons (that, despite sounding scary, ended up being just as adorable as the others). Even demons were given the Boom Blox coat of frosting and melted my battle hardened heart with their mischevious grins and G-rated Satanic shenanigans. I decided that hurting these animals by hitting them with the balls meant for the towers of blocks was the only way to hold on to some semblance of manhood, but they never quite died, just flew off the screen and cried out. This ended up making me feel guilty and a little sad, thus making the situation even worse.

Based on gameplay alone, I could hardly justify offering Boom Blox up as a choice with my gamer friends when Gears of War 2 was within arm’s length. I’d be met with jeers, despite the fact that Boom Blox offers a varied, fun and active experience that could have helped some of these brosefs get up off their butts for a while. Regardless of benefit, men need blood and chainsaw guns, two things that Boom Blox could not (and should not) offer within its package. Additionally, I found it difficult not to sway my head from side to side as I booted up the game and listened to the cheerful menu music. Men my age should be headbanging to Killswitch Engage, not doing jigs to the type of tunes that put toddlers to sleep.

Moses, Party of One

Perhaps the saddest part of the equation is the fact that I tended to play the game alone. I really enjoyed the gameplay and things got intense, especially as I fought to achieve gold rankings on the many levels. Before this period of time in my life, I had cut back on games and once I’d made my comeback, this was the first all nighter I’d had for a while. I literally stayed up all night, not because I was engrossed in the deep storyline of an RPG or stuck in a critical firefight with a rival clan, but because I needed to knock down a bunch of blocks in 2 hits when I could only do it in three. Let’s not even get into the fact that such an achievement was not readily available to the masses as bragging rights due to the Wii’s less than stellar social component. Those gold levels were solely mine to behold.

I know it's late, but these blocks really need boomed

I eventually opened up and allowed someone close to me to play the game, but it turned out to be my future wife, who ended up taking to the game almost immediately. She loved slinging the Wii remote as hard as she could at the screen and even named the little characters in order to elicit some depth from the game. She was an adult, and a very professional one at that, who wears pant suits, which is both intimidating and respected in the business community. On top of that, she didn’t even like games, so there was something about Boom Blox that broke demographics and roped all sorts of people in. This sort of validated me in terms of my affections for the game until she asked who the game was for.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, did you purchase this for your little cousins when they come and visit?”

“No.”

“Is it for your younger clients?”

“Not exactly.”

“Oh…”

Hopefully This Doesn’t Change Anything

We were late enough into our relationship that she’d already been exposed to my odd qualities, but not enough for her reevaluation of my potential as a husband not to be on the table. Fortunately, she chalked the game up to playfulness and moved on. Unfortunately, this became one of the only games she’d play and consistently requested it no matter what kind of company we had over. I tended to side step the issue by claiming our guest didn’t like games or we only had two controls and moved on, but people would often question what Boom Blox was and my future wife would always respond before I could squeeze any sort of excuse out.

“Oh my gosh, it’s the cutest game ever! It has all these cute animals in it and they make funny noises and you have to throw balls at blocks to knock them down. It’s so fun! I think it’s a kids game, so I’m not sure why Ethan has it, but still, super fun.”

Perhaps Michael Bay's first foray into children's movies?

I’d eventually have to break the game out to show people how addicting and fun it was so they wouldn’t have her watered down Disney explanation to go on, as it conveyed to people that I was either really into cute animals (aka, a pussy) or used those cute animals to draw children into a kidnapper’s van to sell them overseas. The game always seemed to cause a sensation with guests, which again made me feel a bit better, but they’d always end the session by saying things like “Wow, my niece would love this game” or “Awesome kid’s game, kind of weird for a grown man though.”

In the end, I was forced to let the game collect dust in a neglected cabinet ’til the day I either came across fellow Boom Blox fans that weren’t in elementary school or stopped caring that people knew I was a man-child. Since that time, the game has reentered my life, but Boom Blox proved to be a bigger problem as its competitive multiplayer component caused a slight rift in my marriage as hurt pride turned to resentment when it was discovered that my wife could handily dispatch me anytime we played. That, however, is best reserved for our newest series – Games of Marital Destruction.

Games of Shame - As much as we love them, we’d be embarrassed if you saw us playing them. We will talk through our fears and see if our love of the game is worth it.