Mr. Potato Head’s career is a long and illustrious one. He’s been around since the early ’50s, was the first toy to be advertised on TV, appeared in Toy Story and recently came out in Star Wars and Spider-Man variants. Will this family friendly collection from EA be something to mark up on his CV, or something to hide? Like when the original Mr. Potato Head was criticised for being a waste of a good potato.
Six games feature, with Boggle the best of the bunch by a country mile. You get to shake the word cube by waving the Wii remote (take that PlayStation 2 version!) and at the end of each round you can view a load of possible words. There’s also a word search mode thrown in for good measure.
Battleships isn’t bad either, providing you can trust the other player to look away when you’re placing your armada. The way the ships bob up and down on the water is pleasing, and there’s also a version with super weapons. Boom!
Less good is Yahtzee, which boils down to shaking some dice and hoping for the best. That’ll be the easily confused grandparent’s part of the family night sorted, then. Sorry and Sorry Sliders are a bit of shambles. They may be colourful but they’re very dull and seemingly random.
That just leaves Connect 4, which is oddly addictive, but not exactly what you bought your Wii for, is it? And it’s kind of annoying that your rival’s cursor doesn’t automatically vanish when your taking your turn as it obscures the view.
The presentation is generally good though. Loading times are non-existent and Mr. Potato Head watches over the games, cooing with excitement and pulling funny faces. The game room can be done out in a choice of four themes, with new items unlocked for meeting criteria and beating targets on each of the six games.
So no complaints there, but what has really stifled this collection is EA’s lack of generosity and imagination. Kerplunk would have worked brilliantly with the Wii Remote, as would have Operation. Cluedo or Trivial Pursuit would have been more welcome than Sorry, although chances are EA are saving those for standalone releases. Still, for £20-odd this isn’t a bad little budget game.