Jelly Belly: Ballistic Beans! (Wii) - Review by Chris

Introduction

By allowing games developers to use their trademarked goods in games, companies who manufacture products outside the games industry hope to expand their audience and increase the number of people buying their products. And this must have been the reason behind the use of the Jelly Belly license for this puzzle title, developed by Zoo Games.

Gameplay

Jelly Belly Ballistic Beans takes the simple premise set out in the likes of Breakout and twists the concept. While the block breaking present from that title is still present here, it's not the main focus of the title. Instead, block breaking will only aid you in accomplishing your main goals, which consist of 3 objectives that have to be completed on each stage as well as two optional objectives involving beating the time and score records for that respective stage. Stage objectives include placing three of your beans in the holes available on the stage, and you can be asked to fill these with any colour or a specific one making gameplay tough as you try to work out the best way to go about clearing a path to the holes and then sending in the correct coloured bean. You'll also be asked to collect a pair of letters on each stage with the letters coming together after a set of 5 stages to produce the words 'Jelly Belly'. These objectives are never forced and feel natural to your progression on the stages.

The game boils down to 5 modes: 4 of which are virtually the same in terms of what is asked of you, which is to complete the 3 main objectives as quickly as possible (although time is a non-essential objective to beat) before moving on to the next stage, while the fifth stage revolves around collecting as many beans as possible in the time limit. In the majority of the 160 levels available for you to play through, you'll use the Jelly Belly cannon to shoot you beans onto the stage and work your way to the objectives. It feels very much like a pinball title except here the balls aren't round and as a result the game forces you to change your playing style to accommodate for this and you'll need to because the physics of the beans are completely different to that of a pinball and they'll bounce around off of everything at angles you wouldn't think they'd hit. As a result, you'll find yourself losing a lot of your beans, although they can be save by lining up your cannon with the fall of the bean to catch it, and while you're given an ample stock to complete tasks, the way in which the beans move make playing frustrating as does the use of the cannons for firing.

As mentioned, there are around 160 levels to play through, with this number being split into 8 major themes such as Halloween theme and a party theme showing loads of decadent food stuffs. However, the game is strictly single player only and so many people won't stick around long to see all of what are essentially the same stages with a different skin.

Controls

The developers have gone with s simple control set up that works reasonably well, focusing on using the Wii-mote on its own. Tilting the Wii-mote left or right or moving it in those directions will result in your Jelly Belly Cannon moving in those respective directions and the A button is used for firing. This simple set up ensures that anyone can pick up and play the game but the use of motions to move the cannon on its pivot seems a strange choice and at no point feels natural. You'll wish that the game let you play with the Wii-mote on its side, using the d-pad for moving the cannon, because it is so fragile in its movement that getting the right aim is difficult. This isn't helped by the fact that you can only see a small proportion of that screen at one time meaning that the initial shots you take will be misguided as you can see where anything is. A poor choice really as it really falls down in terms of it's enjoyment as a result of this.

Graphics

The game doesn't do anything spectacularly out of the normal in terms of its graphical representation. Everything is presented to a decent quality, with everything being done in 2d. There isn't much need for 3 dimensional work in this kind of puzzle title and as a result the developers have focused on creating a level of detail in 2d that is of a decent standard. Foreground objects in stages are well drawn but it's the backgrounds that really show off the prowess of the graphics in this title, boasting some good visuals, covering several themes that stretch the entire stage, not scrolling with the bean as it does in other similar titles. It's not the best 2d work that has been seen on the console but it's certainly very good.

Sound

Music isn't a huge draw for these kinds of titles but it does help in pulling you into the themed levels. Yet here, what you get doesn't exactly do this. The music never becomes intertwined with the themes on screen and as a result there is no real immersion into it because of the lack of themed music to accompany what is happening on screen. The music that does accompany the action isn't great but at least it's something and the sound effects of the beans bouncing off of the objects in the stages are very much the staple that are expected for use in these types of pinball titles.

Final comments

Jelly Belly Ballistic Beans has set to create a twist on the Breakout and pinball formula and in some respects it has accomplished this amicably. The game provides a large selection of levels to play through and the gameplay is simple enough that anyone can play it. Yet the game is strictly single player and as a result you probably won't stay very long to see all of the stages or what the game has to offer as there are better puzzle titles out there. It's a missed opportunity and Zoo Games can only blame themselves for skimping on the modes which will ultimately hurt sales of the game even though they may have felt getting it out the door would be the better option. As a licensed title, tied to a product, it's not bad but it is severely lacking.

Pro: A large amount of levels to unlock and play through, some decent 2D work
Con: Modes are all very similar with very little variety in the gameplay, no multiplayer
Final score: 4.8

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