What is this yearning to destroy that we, as humans, have even from a young age? The more pessimistic among us would imply a rebellious or evil nature. I would say that, at least in our childhood purity, we are simply curious.

Sure a child may want to knock over a stack of blocks but once they’re down there’s no joy in the haphazard pile. “I don’t wanna clean that up!” The joy is in the brief moment that those blocks tumble in a somewhat predictable yet always chaotic and colorful way.

The prediction is often close but the chaos always takes over, keeping us on our bare little toes in our hypothetical playpen. Every child is actually a tiny little scientist, whether or not they’ll ever admit it.

The Wii’s unique motion controls compelled Steven Spielberg to create a game based on that visceral childhood instinct that most adults never actually lost. That is the heart and soul behind Boom Blox, the fact that it’s fun to make stuff fall over. It’s even fun in a physics simulation of toy blocks. Thankfully, there’s much more to the game’s design than that-but not so much more that we still have to clean up after ourselves.

The concept of melding what is essentially a physics simulation with motion controls is not as prominent as one may think in Boom Blox. The motion controls are more akin to a mouse pointer with the exception of moving the remote in a throwing motion when throwing objects at blocks.

While the in-game throwing does seem to successfully gauge how hard each “throw” is, this is about where the complexity of the controls ends. Fortunately, the game doesn’t suffer from this simplicity and probably even benefits from it. Bad controls can break a game. These controls may be simple but they work.

Aesthetically, Boom Blox has a charming cartoon style much like the kind of world a child might imagine is around his or her toy blocks. The cute block-shaped animals had me smiling and sometimes laughing out loud with their antics and, yes, even storylines.

The music occasionally got repetitive but it was varied and entertaining enough to have me picking favorite tracks. The sound was just sufficient but, believe it or not, the voice work gave me lots of laughs as I’m sure they intended. Have you heard a baby cow moo approvingly before? You will.

Some have compared Boom Blox to the classic block stacking party game Jenga. While there is a gametype in the game like Jenga, it’s just one of several different gametypes. Most of the gametypes are just refreshingly different enough to keep you coming back for more.

There’s more than one way to knock over a pile of blocks, my friends, and this game will purposefully have you trying several methods attempting to do just that. Other times, you’ll actually be trying to avoid that. The important thing is that you’ll be surprised just how much fun it is.

Thanks to the consistency of the in-game physics you’ll be able to use trial and error on the more difficult stages and strategize your way closer and closer to the solution. The presence of new types of blocks that you never had in your toy box as a kid helps keep things fresh. Vanish blocks, chemical blocks, cloud blocks, bomb blocks, etc.-each has unique traits and reactions that make things much more chaotic, interesting and just plain fun to mess with.

In addition to many single player stages of varying objectives, the game includes multiplayer modes so friends can join in on the destruction either cooperatively or competitively. It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, kindergärtner or engineer.

You will find fun in this game, most likely in both singleplayer and multiplayer alike. While I do wish the multiplayer included a bit more reconfigurability as well as four player support for all modes and not just some, the choices available are quite adequate.

Even when playing single player I found it was quite enjoyable to have one person playing while others

expressed what they felt “might work” to complete each stage. As if several gametypes in both single and multiplayer weren’t enough, a complex yet user-friendly edit mode is also included with the game.

Not only can you knock them down but you can build them up. Just don’t try to act like you won’t still want to knock them down again! Boom Blox’s mission is simple but it absolutely succeeds with flying colors and blocks.

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