Crash Boom Bang! Hands-On

Currently scheduled for release in October, Crash Boom Bang! is a party game for the Nintendo DS that, in addition to a story-driven board game, boasts no fewer than 40 minigames that put the handheld's touch screen and microphone to good use. We got a pretty good look at the game at the Electronic Entertainment Expo earlier this year, but at that time we only got to check out a handful of its minigames. At Sierra's recent Gamers Week event, however, we had an opportunity to play almost all of Crash Boom Bang!'s 40 minigames, and we're pleased to report that there was no shortage of variety.

Crash Boom Bang! for Nintendo DS features forty mini-games, many of which are based on popular sports.

Many of the minigames in Crash Boom Bang! are based on popular sports and employ a variety of different gameplay mechanics to have you, for example, kick a soccer ball at a goal, throw a basketball at a net, throw a hammer, putt a golf ball, play squash to smash through walls, complete an obstacle race, hit a baseball, or try for a strike on a tenpin bowling alley. Puzzle-oriented minigames and tests of memory are also quite commonplace, though none of those that we saw were particularly taxing since the challenge came as much from a great sense of against-the-clock urgency as from figuring out the solution. Some of the most fast-paced minigames are those that pit you against the game's new bad guy, Viscount Devil, and that invariably task you with attempting to cause more damage to him than your opponents do. One such minigame saw the player characters piloting primitive-looking mechs and throwing punches at the boss (and at each other), while another challenged players to hit him with the most balls using pinball flippers.

Several of Crash Boom Bang!'s minigames use the microphone rather than the stylus and, somewhat predictably, require you to blow rather than speak into it. Huffing and puffing with a DS Lite in hand, we were able to blow out candles on a series of increasingly well-lit birthday cakes and keep a feather floating in the air for a set amount of time before we decided that we were far more comfortable playing the stylus-based games--largely because we were surrounded by other event attendees at the time.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Crash Boom Bang! at this point, then, is simply the amount of gameplay variety that it offers. The game's visuals are also worthy of note, since even on the handheld's diminutive screens the personalities of Crash and his cohorts really shine through. We look forward to bringing you more information on Crash Boom Bang! closer to its October release.