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Carnival Games: Monkey See, Monkey Do Review (X360)

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Carnival Games: Monkey See, Monkey Do Review (X360)2K Play
Carnival Games: Monkey See, Monkey Do is the Xbox 360 Kinect debut of the best-selling series of Wii and DS games. Now you can enjoy your favorite carnival games from the comfort of your own home without the fear of creepy carnies, rigged games, and awful food. The Kinect controls work just fine for most of the 20+ mini-games here, but that doesn't mean the games are actually any fun. We break it down here in our full review.
Game Details

  • Kinect Required
  • Publisher: 2K Play
  • Developer: Cat Daddy Games
  • ESRB Rating: “E" For Everyone
  • Genre: Party
  • Pros: More than 20 minigames; Kinect controls work well
  • Cons: Most of the games aren't fun; winning virtual prizes isn't very satisfying

Carnival Games: Monkey See, Monkey Do features more than twenty mini-games similar to those you'd find on a carnival midway. Just like in real life, you earn tickets by performing well in each game and can then spend those tickets on prizes. It has to be said, though, that winning virtual prizes isn't exactly satisfying. You do open up some nifty Avatar outfits and stuff, but you can only use them in Carnival Games and not actually equip them on your Avatar outside of the game that everyone else gets to see.

Gameplay

The game features more than 20 mini-games, and the Kinect controls work quite well for most of them. I won't cover all of them, but just some of the high and low lights.

Knockout Punch is sort of a "Simon Says" boxing game where you have to throw left and right punches and duck as the commands appear. It works well, and is definitely one of our favorites. Gold Rush Mountain has you riding a mine cart while raising your arms to collect gold coins. It is fast paced and worked well. Crash Test Dummy has you matching poses with your body to smash specific bricks on a wall to earn points. And The Amazing Wodin is a fortune-telling, riddle-asking automaton that works with voice commands and is actually a much more interesting way to spend your tickets than buying prizes. And that is it for the highlights.

The rest of the mini-games are either bad, or boring, or stupid, or all three. The main problem is that most carnival games kind of suck in the real world and, big surprise, they are still super lame in videogame form. Try your hand at a cheap and difficult ring toss. Play a remarkably inconsistent version of skee ball where no two throws (no matter how hard you try) will ever be the same. Shoot basketballs in Court King, but end up laying more bricks than your cousin who "Worked hard and done got his GED". Catch falling funnel cakes and try to balance them all on one platter. Race a pig around a track where you smack it on the butt to go faster and lean left and right to steer. Try (and fail) to match the game's mascot, Monkey Barker, best dance moves and poses. This isn't all of the mini-games, but you get the gist.

A main problem is that a lot of the games rely both on you actually nailing the movement controls pretty much perfectly, but also have a lot of luck involved. It is beyond frustrating to do something seemingly perfect but still fail due to bad luck. A lot of the par scores the game expects you to hit in order to earn a decent amount of tickets are also surprisingly high and difficult, but because the games aren't all that fun, and the rewards not really worth it (unless you're hunting Achievements), you'll likely be sick of the games after playing them only once or twice.

With that said, kids will still have a good time. And parents playing with their kids will have fun. But I can't picture a group of adults getting much out of it.

Graphics and Sound

Visually, Carnival Games: MSMD is an okay looking game. Everything is nice and clean and easy to see, and other than some creepy character designs (seriously, the monkey is horrifying), things look good.

The sound is similarly decent. It definitely sounds like a carnival. The Amazing Wodin's voice work is also pretty good.

Bottom Line

In the end, Carnival Games: Monkey See, Monkey Do suffers from the same problems the other Kinect mini-game collections have had, and that is the fact that most of the mini-games just aren't very good. Three or four good mini-games and fifteen or twenty cruddy ones doesn't really add up to a $50 game. And it must be noted - the Kinect controls are not the problem here. The problem is the concept from the ground up just isn't all that fun. Families with younger kids who haven't outgrown carnivals will get some fun out of it, but most adults and especially hardcore gamers will get bored pretty quickly. In either case, if you are interested I'd recommend a rental over a purchase.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.

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