Wii Review - The Croods: Prehistoric Party!

Imagine you’re a developer who has just been tasked with turning a kid’s movie into a video game. You don’t have a whole lot of budget to work with, and you’re likely on some crazy time constraint to get the game finished in time for the film’s release. This is undoubtedly a daunting task; so I never go into a game like The Croods: Prehistoric Party! expecting something brilliant.

But if I could sit down with all the developers of these Wii titles based on animated films, I’d have one question to ask them: Why the hell does it always have to be a mini-game collection?

Ice Age, Madagascar, Toy Story — just to name a few – have all been morphed into mini-game collections, and none of them are particularly good. I will give The Croods some credit for at least attempting to clone one of the greatest mini-game titles of all time, Mario Party – though the end result has substantially less variety and depth.

The Croods distributes its various mini-games in a board game format, similar to what we have seen in the popular Nintendo title. The only difference is that Prehistoric Party! is embarrassingly slow, looks terrible, and doesn’t even scratch the surface of attempting to be creative.

A typical playthrough begins by you walking across a barren landscape that is supposed to act as some sort of menu. The world turns into a board game after you aimlessly move to some arbitrary point, with other locations serving as galleries for in-game content. From there you and your friends will select a Crood, and begin very slowly rolling dice, watching the cube bounce awkwardly off the environment until, finally, your character moves the appropriate amount of spaces – after making some funny quip about their roll, of course.

Reflecting Back on the Nintendo Wii

It was Christmas 2006 when I unwrapped my Nintendo Wii. The tag on the paper informed me that "Santa" was the one who purchased me this gift. Although I was in my 20s, this still seemed more believable to me than my mother actually finding one during the holiday rush.

I had read all the launch reviews, I had studied all the media reactions to the console, and I knew that it was near impossible to get one by Christmas. I didn't expect to be able to get my hands on a Wii until the following spring, which only hyped the system that much more for me.

My only real experience with motion controlled gaming came from light gun based games, or arcade machines that used plastic motorcycles as a controller. Honestly, I wasn't completely sure what to expect from the Wii motion controls at first. I had seen the commercials of kids diving behind their couches to duck from enemy fire...did I have enough space in my bedroom to play the Wii?

My adventure on the Wii began with Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess. It was without a doubt the launch title that received the most praise, and after a few hours of playing, I completely understood why. I was in the zone when I played Twilight Princess. I was on my feet the entire time I played, slashing at enemies in an overzealous manner. I was a master of the bow and arrow, holding my arms out as if I were firing the real thing.

While I wasn't as involved in the motion controls as the gamers in television ads, I was still letting my imagination run wild. I enjoyed the Nintendo Wii experience immensely; it certainly lived up to the hype for me in every way during our initial romance.

Little did I know that somewhere along the way that romance would sour. At some point in the future the love I had for the Nintendo Wii would fade, and my love for other game consoles would resurface.