In general, I don’t believe in factoring price into an evaluation of a game’s quality. The artistic and entertainment value of a game is completely separate from its, you know, value. But there was basically never a point during my time with FlingSmash that I wasn’t thinking about how it was about right at $10 — which, if you take out the $40 that a Wii Remote Plus would cost on its own, is its effective cost.

In my defense, Nintendo must have looked at it the same way, since it is only selling the game in bundles with controllers, despite all indication that it was originally conceived as a “normal” retail game (it’s been in development at least since October of 2008, when it was announced at Nintendo’s media summit, and the E3-era box art showed it being sold separately from the MotionPlus). The production values are nice, but it bears the design hallmarks you’d expect from a budget game: it’s extremely brief (like three hours), it’s shallow, and it’s built around one reasonably insane idea. Luckily, FlingSmash falls on the “stupid fun” side of the superficiality continuum I’ve just invented.

Continue reading FlingSmash review: Just a fling

JoystiqFlingSmash review: Just a fling originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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