61 Frames Per Second

Over the weekend, I spent half an hour tying my body around a cloud.

I’m not really sure why I did it, and I’m not particularly convinced I enjoyed it. Something inside me told me to do it, and after a fashion I succeeded.

And then I played Noby Noby Boy for a few more hours. And when I put down the controller I came to a realization: this is not something that can actually be reviewed, at least certainly not with the ease of other games.

Let me be clear: I am not the sort of person that believes that reviews should not have scores or grades at the end. I believe that most games are built with specific goals in mind, and that the value of those goals and how successful the game was in achieving those goals can be measured in a relatively standard way. It’s not objective, and there are exceptional games that bring trouble to the grading system, which is why you see so much hand wringing about review scores (note: that hand wringing is also valuable—it keeps scoring models contemporary and reviewers on their toes). It’s the same thing that happens at almost any school.

Noby Noby Boy is one of those exceptional outliers. There's little like it and almost nothing to compare it to. There’s also no implied contract here: you’re not trading $60 for the promise of a solid genre entry that meets all the bullet points and marketing hype. Noby Noby is $5, with the marketing hype being that it is “inexplicable” and the bullet points being “relax” and “have fun”. Without any expectations, it can’t be said that Noby Noby Boy is a failure. But can it also be said that it is a success?

As I am passing judgment here, I have to say that I don’t think it can. As it turns out the flashes of wonder I described in Part One of this review didn’t snowball into gloriousness—instead, they twinkled like stars in a vast emptiness. Noby Noby Boy feels like a toddler’s busy box, where all you do is see how things fit together. It has a sort of witless charm about it, but each time I was done fiddling with it (“fiddling” being the appropriate way to describe anything a player does with Noby Noby Boy) I didn’t feel like I had gotten anything valuable or even experienced anything notable. It just felt like mucking about with an unassuming toy that had an aesthetic similar to but not as well realized as Katamari Damacy. And I thought Katamari Damacy was brilliant even with the timers and size goals disabled.

Noby Noby Boy’s issue isn’t that it’s aimless. It just doesn’t give you the proper tools to let making the aims you create seem worthwhile. I’m going to give it a C, because five dollars does get you a certain amount of endearing cuteness and it does come through with its promise of “relax”. “Have fun” is rather more dubious, however.

I now expect much hand wringing.

Rating: C