Let me spoil this review by saying that LOL for the Nintendo DS has been dubbed the official new favorite video game of the Hooksexup staff. Still with me after that? Okay, here we go...
Amidst an interesting array of reviews, some very good, some very bad, and an awareness that the game was designed by the Kenichi Nishi, the genius behind Chibi-Robo, I ordered myself a copy of the online-only and multiplayer-only LOL not knowing at all what to expect. As there is absolutely no single-player capability in the game, I had to wait until a few friends with DSes were around to test it out. Such an occasion occurred not too long ago here in the Hooksexup office when 61FPS mastermind John Constantine, Hooksexup Editor-in-Chief Will Doig, and myself all sat down with a couple of drinks and a DS for each of us. What followed was pure social gaming magic.
The actual game LOL is not too dissimilar from my favorite board game, Wise And Otherwise, in which a game leader reads the beginning of an arcane proverb and the players each write down their conclusion to the proverb, after which all are read aloud anonymously and everyone votes for their favorite. The main difference here is that the leader can pose anything they want for the players to respond to: a question, a drawing, a written commercial jingle, what have you, and the players are free to reply however they wish as well. Sure, you can always vote for your own response (as one player who joined us after a while did, thinking they were oh so clever) but as the game doesn't keep a score and the real sense of accomplishment comes from making the other players fall down laughing at your own answer, such "cheating" is ultimately pointless.
Here's an example of one of our play sessions: John poses a question to the group: "What is Sean Connery wearing RIGHT NOW?" We all start scribbling on our screens and muffled chuckles are heard around the room as we plot our wacky responses. Time to see the fruits of our twisted minds: John has drawn something completely indecipherable with the caption "An entire live moose as a hat." The sheer absurdity of the concept has us chortling. Will has crudely drawn a skinny guy stretched out on the ground in tighty-whities, mimicking a nearby American Apparel billboard. The mental image of Sean Connery in one of those vaguely pornographic advertisements has caused us all to slide out of our seats in disbelief. I have filled my screen in black and used the eraser to remove the words "The skin of Shia LaBouef." The use of negative space has added an extra level of creepiness to the answer, generating an uproarious response in my coworkers.
Riding on a LOLlercoaster...yeah
This continued, passing the DSes to our colleagues so we all got to enjoy the game and taking breaks to drink some more, until we realized that we'd been playing for over two hours and all had places to go. We've come back to the game a couple of times since then and its still just as much fun, enough so that we've declared LOL to be Hooksexup's official new favorite video game, with Will even pondering several times investing in a DS for every desk in the office for group brainstorm session via LOL. That said, it is still not a perfect game. The game is limited to 2-4 players but sometimes it would be great to have just a few more. 6 participants would be ideal, I think. My second-favorite multiplayer game, Metroid Prime Pinball, is a much more complicated game, I'm sure, and supports up to 8 players off of one game card. Also, the fact that the host has to mark a check box next to each of the answers before revealing them to the other players is a needless slow-down to an otherwise lively play session.
Those few complaints aside, LOL can be an excellent game. If you have amusing friends and access to three or four DSes, we strongly reccomend securing a copy, especially as its rarity now is sure to make it somewhat of a collector's item in the future. Break it out when the party hasn't quite started up yet or when it's dying down and you're almost guaranteed a great time. Kenichi Nishi has described the game as a comedy trainer and we can not argue. On a system increasingly full of self-help "games" and overwrought RPGs, comedy is a delightful breath of fresh air.
Grade: B+
Previous 61FPS Reviews:
Dragon Quest IV
Metal Gear Solid IV
Ninja Gaiden 2
Grand Theft Auto IV
Wii Fit