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Posted by: jkdmedia

Six Flags Fun Park by Ubisoft looks to recreate the rush of a child thrown into the midst of a Six Flags theme park. With tons of mini-games, tons of prizes, and tons of items to collect, it comes close to success, but it could have used more fine-tuning to make it a quality title.

Six Flags Fun Park offers two gameplay modes, a multiplayer mode, and a somewhat unexpected single-player "adventure" mode. The multiplayer mode is quite simply a collection of mini-games that you can queue up to play with up to three friends. The games themselves aren't very deep, unfortunately, and many of them are basically the same game with a different skin. For example, you'll notice a common control scheme throughout a number of the games where you first need to press a direction on the D-pad, then press a button to shoot/smash/attack a given object. So even though the game claims to (and does) have over 40 games, a good deal of them end up feeling repetitive. There are a few standouts, such as the basketball shootout. I liked the control scheme in this game, because as the hoop moves back a little more oomph is required for your Wii-mote "toss" motion. This was one case where the controls were responsive and pretty accurate, but a number of the other games could have used a little tweaking. Many of the games involving aiming some sort of projectile had faulty controls and were difficult to aim.

The adventure mode on the other hand, is a bit more ambitious. In this mode, you're first asked to create a character. You'll choose a boy or girl, choose some clothing, colors, etc. It's not the deepest character creation system, but it is a nice touch of customization. Once you've created your avatar you'll enter the Six Flags Fun Park, where at first, your goal appears to be to earn coins and tickets to try out all the games. But you'll soon find out that there is more to this adventure, as you'll begin to unlock some simple quests. These quests usually revolve around collecting a number of items, or talking to a certain person, or even delivering packages to important people scattered around the park. Some of the quests are cute, and some of them are a total bore. Even so, it can be strangely addicting, and there is a steady flow of new quests to hold your attention. The only real reward for completing the quests is that doing so advances the storyline, which revolves around the park's Mayor and the history of the park. The Mayor is an interesting character who seems to have become more bitter and detached with age, and to figure out why, you'll have to learn more about him by advancing the storyline.

Of course if the storyline doesn't interest you, there are plenty of other things to do in the Six Flags Fun Park. There are tons of games to try out, tons of collectible items and prizes to win, and plenty of interesting characters to converse with. Character customization can continue as you find new articles of clothing and apparel, such as sunglasses, funky hats, pirate shirts, and who knows what else. But the fun here doesn't last long. As I said before, the games feel repetitive, and the prizes and collectibles seem somewhat pointless if you can look past your obsessive collector's instinct.

One thing that I absolutely loved about Six Flags Fun Park was the quirky character design. The aforementioned Mayor is a red-striped shirt-wearing french-fry-shaped character with a handlebar mustache. Other characters are just as funky and unusual. And adding to the quirkiness, the game uses jarbled-speech rather than actual speech for the voice acting. And it works brilliantly. Listening to the strange sounds coming out of the characters' mouths in hilarious accents was a treat. But if you have no sense of humor, or are just a grinch, the game does include an option to turn off the garbled speech. I recommend leaving it on though. It really brings the characters to life in a unique way.

I was pleasantly surprised that Six Flags Fun Park was not simply a grouping of mini-games, and that the developers made an effort to give it some depth. They were successful in certain areas, but as a whole, the game failed to hold my attention or make me really want to keep playing. Things might be different if I was part of the target audience: young children. I can imagine that group having fun with the mini-games and collectibles - and likely getting a good laugh out of the character design. But for anyone else, the story is too shallow, the games are not engaging and interesting enough, and the adventure mode tasks are too repetitive to really hold anyone's interest. On the other hand, the game includes one Kids Admission to a REAL Six Flags Theme Park. So if you're planning on attending the actual park this summer, picking up a copy of this game might not be a bad idea.

Gameplay: 5.0
Shaky gameplay in many of the mini-games. Navigating through the park generally works well, but I often found myself clicking on things accidentally, as the park is literally littered with clickable items.

Graphics: 5.6
The graphics are really nothing special, but I boosted the score here because of art style and character design. This game would really be hurting if it didn't have so much personality from it's quirky style and design.

Sound: 6.2
The music is mediocre, but the voice-acting is brilliant .. if you like the garbled speech and funky accents as much as I did.

Difficulty: Easy
There's not much challenge, as most of the games are easy to play. And this is understandable, as the game is clearly targeted towards the younger crowd. Mastering some of the games, however, (along with mastering the faulty controls) is not an easy task.

Concept: 5.3 
Well it's not the most unique concept, but what saves Six Flags Fun Park is the adventure mode. I thought this was a unique take, and I appreciate that the developers attempted something more ambitious than a mini-game collection.

Multiplayer: 4.4
The multiplayer was really a disappointment in what I expected to be the game's strongpoint. This is largely due to uninspired mini-game design and poor controls. You and your friends should expect more grimaces than laughs out of this game's multiplayer.

Overall: 5.3
Six Flags Fun Park is not a terrible game, but it's not really a good game either. I'm not going to play it again, unless I really have to. Then again, I'm not a child, and I can imagine a child enjoying it more thoroughly. If you're a parent, this is a cheap, family friendly, decently fun game targeted towards kids. And you get a free Kids ticket to Six Flags included, so maybe you want to consider it. For everyone else, I'd suggest looking elsewhere (ever hear of Mario Party?) for your mini-game fix.