Spongebob Squarepants Featuring Nicktoons Globs of Doom
Score: 90% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: THQ Developer: Incinerator Studios Media: CD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Action/ Adventure/ Family
Graphics & Sound: SpongeBob Squarepants Featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom was fun! It is the second SpongeBob/Nicktoons game I've played (the first being on the DS called Attack of the Toybots), and SpongeBob Squarepants Featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom is set up the exact same way, really. The graphics for the Wii are the best I've seen in a game lately. I was really getting sick of crappy graphics on every game except the $60.00 ones. Cheaper games deserve some graphics love too! The characters are all rendered exceptionally well, and I about flipped out and did a happy dance when I saw Zim from Invader Zim. Any game with Zim in it has to be good! The cut scenes in Globs of Doom are superb. Did I mention I was very excited over such great graphics? In-game graphics are smooth, and everything that is meant to be seen is seen... even the hidden rooms and areas look suspiciously like they need to be explored. The music and voice acting for SpongeBob Squarepants Featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom are also just this side of wicked. The characters all have their real voices used, and the voice actors do an excellent job. The in-game music is so good that I never really noticed it, which is amazing considering normal in-game music is so repetitive that I want to tear my ears off. The only minus on the list is that the in-game voice cues are a tad annoying. Each character has a few phrases and when you smash things, they cycle through these phrases. Considering the fair amount of smashing going on in the game... the phrases get old very quickly.
Gameplay: SpongeBob Squarepants Featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom is a really fun, engaging - if somewhat repetitive - game. It is like a giant moose sneezed orange goo over the entire Nicktoons world; and then the goo started taking over people's brains and forming into evil attack monkeys that want to eat your face off. The evil monkey goos are called morphoid minions, and the big guy is called Globulous. They become such a threat that the heroes of the Nicktoons world decide to team up with the bad guys (yay Invader Zim!) to stop the gooey orange blobs of doom from eating every brain they can. Jimmy Neutron comes up with a wicked invention that scans each hero (and anti-hero) in order to match their perfect weapon. SpongeBob gets a bubble blower, Jimmy gets a vicious-looking badmitton racket and so forth and so on. Every level has one hero and one evil Nicktoon teaming up in order to get through; you can switch between the characters at any time by pressing the (-) button. Basically, the game is just a button-masher. You run through every level (with maybe an extremely simple puzzle here and there) and smash the trigger button till every bit of goo has stopped moving. Your goal is to get to the end alive and collect as much money as you can to buy upgrades. Eventually, the fact that you can't save mid-game gets so annoying (sometimes life just really gets in the way of gaming time), and the button-mashing gets on your nerves to the point that I flicked off my Wii mid-game in order to take a break. Smaller kids will love that their cartoons are a video game and older kids will dig the mindless gameplay. You always feel like you are getting somewhere, and the reward system (upgrades) are worth it. The story is fun too... if just to keep getting cut scenes.
Difficulty: There is almost no difficulty in SpongeBob Squarepants Featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom at all. It is definitely a button-masher. The combos are automatic, and on the rare occasion, you can perform a double combo with your buddy; it only requires you to shake the Wii-Mote in a certain pattern (one that pops up on the screen and is very simplistic). While running through the linear levels (almost like a side-scroller), you will encounter goo blobs of doom that you must smash. And smash you do; by hitting only two buttons a couple times. I only died once while playing the game, if that gives you any indication. When you reach the third portal in every level, you will fight the boss of that level. The boss is always a crap ton harder than the rest of the game. The game is challenging on occasion, but only because it is hard to keep up enthusiasm for mashing buttons for extended periods of times while on levels that aren't as visually fun as others. The boss battles and the goo puddles are the hardest part of the game. Some goo puddles will suck you in and drown you... and take away your hard-earned money! The difficult part of this is trying to decide what puddles you can wade through (some will just slow you down and not allow you to jump), and which will suck you down into the evil depths of goo hell and eat your money. SpongeBob Squarepants Featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom is a lot like old school arcade button-mashers. While it may not keep adult attention for very long, it will absorb kids' brains and keep them very entertained for hours.
Game Mechanics: Game mechanics are exceptionally easy for SpongeBob Squarepants Featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom, but it still keeps you occupied. For some reason, they decided not to use the motion recognition of the Wii much at all. As I mentioned before, the only time you use the motion sensors in the Wii-Mote is when your characters build up enough energy to perform a double character combo. It will tell you that you have access to it the first time you build up the energy. You press the control pad in any direction and a shape will pop up on the screen (mine was a "Z" the first time). After you shake your Wii-mote (it is timed), your characters will perform a fun combo that will devastate the evil goo blobs. The (A) makes your characters jump and the trigger makes them attack. I am a dork so I mixed this up quite often. For some reason, I think the (A) should be the attack... I found myself jumping around like a moron a lot when I should have been melting faces with my bubble gun. The (Z) button will perform your gadgets' attack once you have built up enough energy. The (-) will switch between the two characters mid-game, and the (C) button will interact with the few items that need interacted with. Overall, the game was a lot of fun. It got a bit repetitive because all the levels have the same goal, but the characters and the storyline was fun. This would be a fun gift for any fan of the Nicktoons characters, or anyone that just wants a fun, mindless game to piddle around on.
-Phate Kills, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Field
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