Shovelware is a term gaining some prominence in the gaming industry, particularly with the dearth of Wii games being released upon a willing public. Literally, it means games that are simply shoveled out of development houses at a remarkable rate, forgoing fancy concepts such as quality assurance and creativity to put a game on the shelf.
In case it isn't obvious, Game Party 2 is shovelware. And it's not even a full shovel.
Game Party 2 consists of 11 minigames ranging from skee ball (inexplicably retitled "Skill Ball") to Trivia to something called Ping Cup, which is essentially one player beer pong except without, you know, the actual drinking.
Each of the games features a uniquely bland environment to play in: You'll play Darts in a bland pub, you'll play Shuffleboard in a bland arcade, you'll play Trivia against a gradient background that took someone all of three seconds to produce in Photoshop. Each environment will do wonders to quell the effects of insomnia. In fact, the $30 purchase price of Game Party 2 is worlds cheaper than a prescription of Ambien, so maybe this should be looked at as an investment.
But, the environments shouldn't be what matters in a game, the actual gameplay should be the focus. Hate to let you down on this, but the games don't fare a lot better than the environments. Each of the games features Wii motion control, but every game relies on essentially two motions: swinging your arm up or swinging your arm down. Yeah. That's it. Skill Ball is played with the same motion as Shuffleboard, which is played with the same motion as Horseshoes, and so on.
The physics in the game are also all wrong. Every object in the game feels like you're playing with a stone other than the Ping Cup ball, which actually behaves somewhat realistically. In a game that relies entirely on throwing objects at other things, physics are integrally important, but obviously not that important to the developers of Game Party 2. The end product is inaccurate control and wholly unsatisfying, like trying to throw a leaden football to a 2-inch wide target while your hands are covered in automotive grease.
Also, something that should be called into question about Game Party 2 is whether or not is should actually exist, since it is essentially Game Party 1.
There's really only one difference between Game Party and Game Party 2: 4 new games. Game Party 2 has 11 games to Game Party's 7. The new games are Horseshoes, Bean Bags and Lawn Darts ... oh boy, I'm falling asleep just thinking about them.
New gamesGame Party 2 has 11 games. The new games are Horseshoes, Bean Bags and Lawn Darts.
End productThe end product is inaccurate control and wholly unsatisfying, like trying to throw a leaden football to a 2-inch wide target while your hands are covered in automotive grease.
AdviceMy advice: Take your $30 and go to a real arcade with your friends. You'll have a much better time, and you won't have to pay for that graphic designer's salary.
Sean May is a senior telecommunications major and writes "Bytes and Pages" for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
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