iCARLY 2: iJoin the Click! (Wii) Review

It was pretty interesting diving into a game based off of iCarly, a rather popular children’s television show which is no doubt inspired by the recent shift in our society to utilise the internet and “Web 2.0” applications to get our points across. The original iCarly game was actually quite a good seller on the Wii and was also quite well suited for it’s target audience. However, Activision have commissioned a sequel, iCarly 2: iJoin The Click! to be developed, and despite a rather gimmicky name and a pretty shallow appearance, it’s still a barely passable title. Though we’d like to emphasise the barely right now.

The general concept of iCarly 2: iJOIN THE CLICK! is that a young but precocious teenager, Carly Shay, develops her own web series known as iCarly with her two friends, Sam and Jess. The three of them perform various skits throughout the series to keep people’s interest from waning (which is interesting since mine definitely was throughout). Players step into the shoes of a nameless and silent character who the characters gratingly refer to as the “New Kid” throughout the whole game. One day in class, “New Kid” is noticed by Carly and Sam, so both of them ask the kid to be on their web show. The whole game thus revolves around “New Kid” collecting items, setting up the set for the show and of course, participating in the show.

The graphical presentation of iCarly 2 is pretty sub-standard and is not very indicative of what the Nintendo Wii can do. Character models are caricature style abstractions, who, for the most part, resemble their real life counterparts, although there are some questionable appearances throughout the game. Being a relatively open world game, the city doesn’t really feel alive at any particular point, with very static looking stores throughout emblazoned with what we could only really describe as WordArt inspired banners. Generally speaking, the game is a bit of a mish mash of generic stylings which makes it ultimately quite forgettable. That being said, the choice of style for character models and such are pretty appropriate, although the “stunned mullet” look of some characters during speech is somewhat off putting too. It makes things look a bit too creepy for my liking. You’ll also probably notice that a lot of the game’s presentation, specifically the menus and user interface is very much inspired by the much more popular MySims franchise, with a bit of Animal Crossing thrown in.

Following your brief meeting with Carly and Sam, the player is forced to explore the city for items and objects to help develop the set. Control is, rather intuitively, done completely with the Wii Remote. Pointing the pointer at the screen and holding A makes the player move, while holding both A and B makes the player sprint. It works very well, which surprised me quite a bit, however trying to access the menu by holding the pointer on top of the screen proved problematic. The city itself is pretty well contained and kind of “wraps” around the screen in a similar manner to Animal Crossing. Everything is pretty easy to find although it would be nice to be able to fast travel in some circumstances, but then again, you can’t have everything.

Just like Animal Crossing, players have their own living areas that they can decorate with certain pieces of furniture, as well as other more significant props that will become important in making the iCarly set more and more elaborate. The game does admittedly do a good job of tapping into that element of gameplay that those who enjoyed The Sims-style games or Animal Crossing will also enjoy, although it’s a rather shallow experience. Generally speaking, players run around town, make friends, do some fetch quests or even answer questions through dialogue boxes and other menial tasks to get furniture and set pieces.

Throughout the game, your “New Kid” is equipped with a smartphone which is most probably inspired by Facebook. Players will receive friend requests from people as they complete more and more quests for them and upon accepting will be able to see messages that are being sent around the network. It is, for all intents and purposes, a carbon copy of Facebook minus the pictures, and children will no doubt enjoy this element and parents can also rest easy knowing that their kids can still “socially network” but stay safe. In addition to this, “New Kid” can use his smartphone to purchase items through virtual auctions and also receive messages from the crew at iCarly, which is important throughout the game.

Upon receiving messages from the crew and collecting enough pieces to put on the set, “New Kid” must return to the set to actually film one of the webisodes for iCarly. These segments involve a short mini-game that is usually incredibly vague in its execution and thus pretty frustrating, following by the “editing” of the show. Depending on your editing skills (Read: Putting together a clip of silly activities) you will be rated on performance and how many people tuned into the show. These segments are great ways to break up the rather boring fetch quests throughout the city; however, with no definitive instructions for the player to follow it’s actually quite hard to work out what you’re doing. As such, those who play games a little less intuitively and require more instruction may find playing the game a lot of trouble.

The game features voice acting for the major characters from their respective talents from the show, including series stalwart Miranda Cosgrove, which fans of the show will no doubt appreciate much more. The dialogue, on the other hand, is rather grating on the brain, and with a few rather questionable pieces of dialogue and terrible jokes it’s quite obvious this game isn’t for anyone over the age of 15. Music is pretty bearable with a few tunes you will recognise from the actual show, but outside of that there’s not a lot going on here.

Generally speaking, iCarly 2 is a pretty boring game that doesn’t really do a great job of keeping the player’s attention for too long. There’s quite a bit of stuff to collect around the place, but it’s hard to believe anyone will persevere past that. There’s definitely some appeal in creating and editing together your own iCarly show, especially if you’re a huge fan of the series, however it’s pretty hard to recommend this one to anyone who isn’t a fan. iWouldn’t want to play it again.

Graphics 5.0

Plain artistic direction coupled with some pretty dated designs for a dead feeling city make this game pretty horrible to look at.

Gameplay 5.5

Making your own webisodes and cutting them together is decent fun, but overall the crux of the gameplay is rather boring and repetitive. Mini-games are meant to be the fun part but a lack of clear instructions makes them very unenjoyable.

Sound 6.0

Its nice to see the actual voice work be done by their respective real life talents, particularly when a more popular series like Harry Potter still cant do that right. Dialogue itself is pretty shoddy though, consisting of rather lame jokes.

Tilt 5.5

There is definitely a lot to do here, but its hard to imagine anyone of any age persevering through it all.

Value 3.0

Ive got to be honest; I didnt have a lot of fun playing through iCarly 2. Its definitely not my kind of thing but that being said, its pretty spot on for its target audience… for the most part.