Bring on the Robo Jam
Magenta and Sony's latest Buzz game for kids has plenty for adults too.
Published: March 15, 2008
Ah, the highly coveted universal casual game, the experience that unites both child and parent, wee tyke and grandparent, a simple game that satisfies the needs of all demographics at once. It's far, far more difficult than one would think to rope in that kind of pool of players, but it's been Sony's goal with the aging PlayStation 2 for the better part of a year now, helped primarily by the release of games with specialized controllers, be it mics with the SingStar games or the little game show-like controllers that shipped with Buzz!. It helps that both series are actually some of the best to hit the system, but Sony's approach with Buzz is two-pronged.
One side is the game show format that has absolutely captivated us across two games now (and made for some absolutely killer office drinking games), but when it comes to entertaining the younger crowd, the first Buzz! Jr. outing was decent, but clearly targeted only kids. With Buzz! Jr. Robo Jam, however, the game scales quite a bit better to handle older players, which means that pretty much anyone can jump in and enjoy themselves with almost 25 different games.
Some, like the mini-game where you whack colored boxes that pile up in an effort to get through the whole bunch before everyone else, are a direct copy of stuff seen in Jungle Party, but they've often been augmented a little (in the case of the Robo Jam crate game, you have to hit the red buzzer to lock down crates that are about to explode). By and large, too, the games are mostly new, ranging from taking control of a rocket that can be detonated near asteroids to garner points to simply tapping the buzzer to jump over a rolling sequence of lasers.
Like the other Buzz! games, you can play short, medium or marathon games, or create your own tourney cobbled together from a list of all the different modes out there. Character customization is light, certainly, allowing only for mixing and matching of different heads, legs and torsos, but at least there's some variety in place.
The game isn't half bad as a visual product either. All of the characters are well-animated, sport plenty of variety to their moves, and often end up coming off as cute without feeling forced. The sheer variety of locales (if not the events themselves) maintains the bright, colorful, smooth theme of far-flung futuristic robots going through boot camp, but definitely mixes things up from time to time. That's helped by the fact that the audio as a whole is far less grating and "kiddie" than Jungle Party was, leading to a feeling that the host (in this case a semi-gruff military commander overseeing the new robo-recruits) is talking to the players instead of down to them.
I've often felt that a really good game will succeed regardless of the actual target demographic. Sure, Robo Jam is aimed at kids, that much is evident right from the start, but its in the way it easily accommodates older players with tougher AI and some decent challenge that the game that will keep just about anyone happy. And that, friends, is why it's definitely worth busting out at your next party, regardless of what age the partygoers actually are.
One side is the game show format that has absolutely captivated us across two games now (and made for some absolutely killer office drinking games), but when it comes to entertaining the younger crowd, the first Buzz! Jr. outing was decent, but clearly targeted only kids. With Buzz! Jr. Robo Jam, however, the game scales quite a bit better to handle older players, which means that pretty much anyone can jump in and enjoy themselves with almost 25 different games.
Some, like the mini-game where you whack colored boxes that pile up in an effort to get through the whole bunch before everyone else, are a direct copy of stuff seen in Jungle Party, but they've often been augmented a little (in the case of the Robo Jam crate game, you have to hit the red buzzer to lock down crates that are about to explode). By and large, too, the games are mostly new, ranging from taking control of a rocket that can be detonated near asteroids to garner points to simply tapping the buzzer to jump over a rolling sequence of lasers.
Like the other Buzz! games, you can play short, medium or marathon games, or create your own tourney cobbled together from a list of all the different modes out there. Character customization is light, certainly, allowing only for mixing and matching of different heads, legs and torsos, but at least there's some variety in place.
The game isn't half bad as a visual product either. All of the characters are well-animated, sport plenty of variety to their moves, and often end up coming off as cute without feeling forced. The sheer variety of locales (if not the events themselves) maintains the bright, colorful, smooth theme of far-flung futuristic robots going through boot camp, but definitely mixes things up from time to time. That's helped by the fact that the audio as a whole is far less grating and "kiddie" than Jungle Party was, leading to a feeling that the host (in this case a semi-gruff military commander overseeing the new robo-recruits) is talking to the players instead of down to them.
I've often felt that a really good game will succeed regardless of the actual target demographic. Sure, Robo Jam is aimed at kids, that much is evident right from the start, but its in the way it easily accommodates older players with tougher AI and some decent challenge that the game that will keep just about anyone happy. And that, friends, is why it's definitely worth busting out at your next party, regardless of what age the partygoers actually are.
