Spongebob Boating Bash

I bought this game for my 8 year old nephew. He loves Mario Cart and Madagascar Escape 2 Africa. He was not impressed with this Spongebob game at all. It's not very clear in the directions what the objectives are and what controls you are supposed to use. Needless to say, he's only played in one time since I bought it for him.

Bought this game for my 5 yr old. Was fun at first, but the game is fairly basic in design. I would highly recommend Mario Kart or Sonic All-Star Racing as an alternative if you don't already have them.

I purchased this game on sale because my family are Spongebob fans. I have a three year old that loves playing Wii games, and I thought this would be a good family game for us to play. This is a fun game, at least for awhile. I first sat down to play this and unlock some boats and characters and within two hours had the entire game beat/unlocked. This isn't overly difficult but there seems to be enough to keep you entertained for awhile. Once I got a lot of the characters, boats and courses unlocked, we were able to play the group mode as a family and have fun. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy as well as the Invisible Boat Mobile are available for use within the game. You can also unlock Mr. Krabs and Plankton.

There are variations on the games you can play but ultimately it comes down to smashing other boats. It can be a little tricky to go back and collect the parts after you smash but that's part of the game. My daughter got a little bored with this after 20 minutes, and I would say it didn't take me too much longer. Overall it's a fun, not very deep game. I think as long as you don't pay more than $30 for it, it's worth having for the family if you are Spongebob fans. I will give them credit for not trying to make this like so many other "racing" games...it's unique and different.

We're still unlocking characters, boats, and tracks, but so far this seems pretty mediocre.

When you begin you're limited to a pitifully small selection of tracks. And of those the level design is uninspired. A small circle, a small circle with a hole in the middle, an oval... And last generation graphics, think original Xbox or PS2. And when multiple people are playing the game doesn't seem to do a very good job of rendering a useful viewpoint. I found myself driving away and then turning around just so I could see what was going on. Hopefully there's better stuff to unlock.

The feel of the cars is OK, and there are a decent number of boats to choose from. But I haven't found any real strengths or weaknesses to them. The small boats are faster, bigger boats slower. But when they collide wouldn't you expect the bigger boat to do a lot more damage? Or sustain more damage? If it does it's not by much. Or the bigger car to have more mass and be able to push the little cars more? Negligible if at all. Strategy basically boils down to "Hit the other cars". As your car takes damage you want to protect the damaged areas. No health packs or upgrades to vary game play or strategy, that's it.

And get ready to constantly see a silly graphic and the word "Loading...". Honestly, if you want to change cars on the same track, 30-45 seconds just to get back to that menu, and then another 30-45 seconds to get back into the game. Mario Kart tracks are probably 20x the size and complexity of these and I've never once been cognoscente of the game reading from the disc.

The voiceovers are a strength, but I suspect they'll get old fast. And the designers apparently agree, there's an option to turn them off.

Anyway, we're enjoying the game but it's been a let down. And I suspect it'll be collecting dust within a few weeks while we're play Mario Kart for the nth time. In fact my six year old just turned it off and went into the other room...

Bought this game for my seven yr old son - was quite skeptical about buying anything with Spongebob in the title after the PS2 games I have bought. This game is both demo derby and racing, up to four players, with different combinations of derby/racing and is relatively challenging for even myself. Overall very very fun.Spongebob Boating Bash