Game Review: Happy Action Theater

We got a new XBLA (XBox Live Arcade) game today called Happy Action Theater (by Double Fine, the company who also made the excellent Costume Quest game that I liked so much). In a nutshell, HAT (as I will be referring to it from here on out) is a bunch of mini "games" that you can play with up to six people. 

 

It's strangely satisfying to swat helicopters out of the air as you stop on buildings.

I use the term "games" for lack of a better word; they aren't really games, but they are fun. There's one where you are surrounded by lava, and one where you can shake your hands to dispense seeds to grow flowers around you, and one where you are stuck in jello, and one where you are like Godzilla destroying all the buildings and aircraft around you... yeah. They're goofy scenarios that do some pretty cool stuff with the Kinect technology.

LAVA MONSTERS UNITE!

Playing it with just the two of us was pretty fun (though we cycled from one thing to the next after a couple minutes on each one), but let me tell you: this game is perfect for kids. I cannot wait to have the upstairs horde of children down to play with it because I think they'll have a blast and it will be highly entertaining to watch. I may even have to take pictures.

In short, I think it was well worth the $5 price tag (on sale) if only for the entertainment value it provides my nieces and nephews. Plus it's the sort of game that gets more hilarious the more people are there, so it bodes well that I enjoyed it even with just the two of us.