Jenga World Tour (DS) Review

When it comes to converting board and table games into video game form, there are some games that just shouldn't get further than a suggestion at a brainstorming session. Unfortunately, Jenga: World Tour on the Nintendo DS is one of them...

When it comes to converting board and table games into video game form, there are some games that just shouldn’t get further than a suggestion at a brainstorming session. Unfortunately, Jenga: World Tour on the Nintendo DS is one of them.

For those few people out there that have never come across a real-world Jenga game, let me be the first to tell you, it is awesome. The game is played with 54 rectangular blocks which are stacked three wide and perpendicular to each other to form a square-based tower. Each player then takes turns removing a block and placing it at the top. The person who causes the tower to fall is the loser. Like all great table games, it is simple, quick, and easy to jump straight into.

The main problem with Jenga: World Tour is that the original game relies on a player being able to feel if removing a particular block is going to cause the tower to collapse. While the DS touchscreen has gone a long way towards providing a much better sense of interaction in video games, there is no way for a player to recreate the feel required in a physical game like Jenga. The control scheme provides the player with everything they need to remove and replace blocks, but without any way to recreate the physical interaction with the pieces, it is never anything more than a guessing game whether the tower will collapse or not. This takes away a huge part of the game, as a large element of becoming a good Jenga player is developing that feel for the tower.

Another problem is the graphics, which can often make it difficult to see individual blocks and actually get in the way of making a good block selection. The DS is not exactly a 3D powerhouse and even turned on its side, the screen is a little too small to properly display the tower. I think with better colour selection and a different camera system, the inherent problems of the system could have been overcome.

It is unfortunate that the game just can’t recover from problems this large, because developers, Atomic Planet Entertainment, have done a great job with the rest of the package. The presentation is excellent, if a little cheesey, the music is fantastically tense and helps build the right atmosphere and the different game modes provide some variety for players.

I do have to say though, that with a multiplayer-centric game like Jenga, it is inexcusable that there is no single-card wireless play option available. I don’t understand the reasoning behind excluding this option in DS games, as being able to play a game with friends and family members can add so much fun to an otherwise dull game. It certainly would have helped me to get more enjoymet out of Jenga: World Tour.

For a board game to work as a video game, the game must not differ too much from the original and there must be some benefit that can only be achieved by playing the electronic version. Video game versions of Monopoly work because they streamline a sometimes complex game and take the arguments out of rule interpretations. Scrabble works because the electronic version takes care of scoring, Battleship works because it stops people cheating. Jenga, on the other hand, doesn’t work because it adds no benefit compared to playing the real thing and actually takes away a big element of what makes the original so much fun.

Even though I am a big fan of the original Jenga, it is hard to recommend Jenga: World Tour. The original can be found for half the price and it is much more fun. If you desperately need some video game board games, there are plenty of better options and sadly, I’d go with one of them.

Perhaps the Wii version will provide something more with it’s motion controls.