101-in-1 Explosive Megamix
| 101-in-1 Explosive Megamix | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 This game sure is 101% a recipe for disaster!
| ||||||||||||||
|
101-in-1: Explosive Megamix is a 2008 party game developed and published by Lithuanian developer Nordcurrent (the same developer behind Santa Claus Saves the Earth and Girl Zone) in Europe and Atlus USA in North America for the Nintendo DS. The Wii version was released digitally as WiiWare in 2011.
Gameplay
The game is a party game where the players compete in several mini-games involving the use of the DS' touch screen or the Wii's motion controls. While only 11 of the 101 games are available at first, by earning a sufficient amount of points, the player can earn coins which can be used to purchase more games.
Why It Should Explode
- Perhaps the worst issue with the game is its very bad control scheme. The touch screen is shoehorned in every single mini-game, even in circumstances where it's just a hassle (such as in the archery and air hockey games) or where it's just less convenient and intuitive than using the buttons (like in the skydiving game). Not to mention, in most cases and in both versions, the input is delayed, which makes playing most games a chore.
- The Wii version has even worse controls, which are just a straight copy of the Nintendo DS version (not to mention, just as inaccurate), only altered to fit the Wii's unique features. For this reason, to perform literally any action, you have to hold down the A button (which is supposed to emulate the action of holding the DS' stylus against the touch screen) and then performing the moves instructed to you by the game.
- Despite the title, only 11 games are available right from the start (like in Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade); to unlock more games, the player has to earn a completion score, which will be converted into coins that can be used to buy new games. However, due to the bad controls, actually earning enough points to gain the completion score is very difficult.
- As you go through the game, the cost of new mini-games keeps getting higher, essentially forcing the player to grind for extra coins, which only adds to this game's tedium.
- The initial 11 games are extremely repetitive and boring to sit through, and the other 90 games aren't much better in that regard, as they all ultimately boil down to just trying to perform the actions required to reach the end while dealing with the poor controls. There are no special items or gimmicks that differentiate this game from other party games, like the Mario Party or WarioWare series, and none of the mini-games offer any actual challenge.
- The Wii version of the game is just a straight port of the Nintendo DS version with barely any modifications to adapt it to a home console. For this reason, sprites and button prompts are extremely small, as they were designed with the DS in mind, which makes them more difficult to recognize and execute correctly.
- The Wii version offers the player the ability to change the control scheme to use the buttons instead of motion controls to play the games. However, the button prompts and tutorials don't change accordingly, making this come off as an afterthought to dismiss any potential criticism.
- While there are some decent games, most of them feel broken. In the skydiving mini-game, executing the input to open the parachute is made unnecessarily hard by the poorly designed button prompts; in the archery game, the scene is viewed from an overhead perspective, rendering the target marks unrecognizable, and the elevator mini-game doesn't tell you the rules very clearly, forcing you to perform random actions until you stumble across the solution.
The Only Redeeming Quality
- As previously mentioned, there are some decent mini games.
Reception
101-in-1 Explosive Megamix was poorly reviewed. Critics were especially harsh to the Wii version, which currently holds a score of 16/100 on Metacritic (being the lowest-rated Wii game on the website), pointing out the fact that it was just a straight port of the Nintendo DS version with barely any modifications and criticizing the choice of making most games unavailable to the player. In giving the game a 14% score, Official Nintendo Magazine stated "You'll find it tough to unlock all 101 games. Not that you'd want to bother because they're so abysmal, not even by the standards of your average flash game." Even IGN gave the game a 2.5/10, stating "Keep your cash held back from this "value" option. It's a waste of money no matter how the math works out."