It seems that the magical kingdom of Far, Far Away is throwing a grand carnival and you're invited. As any relatively intelligent individual might surmise, however, this is not a normal carnival. No, this carnival is actually a thinly veiled competition for the honor of wearing the apparently worthwhile carnival crown. This "narrative" will be shoved in the player's face several times throughout Carnival Craze's story mode but it's largely unnecessary. Really, the only thing you need to know is that this is yet another mini-game compilation for the Nintendo DS.
Choose from one of four classic Shrek characters – Shrek, Fiona, Donkey or Puss in Boots – to vie for the crown by competing against Prince Charming in 28 "different" (I use that term loosely) mini-game challenges. The mini-games are organized into six different movie-based locations including The Poison Apple, Shrek's Swamp and others. The necessity behind splitting the mini-games up in this way is questionable at best, save for another manner in which the game can justify its Shrek license. Some of the challenges don't even fit with their theme. Why, for instance is the Crazy Cookie Dance mini-game located in Pinocchio Park and not Gingyland, the world based on the Gingerbread Man character? These little issues don't affect the actual gameplay whatsoever, but they're certainly indicative of the general lack of thought put into Carnival Craze's design as a whole.
The game is controlled exclusively with the stylus, which wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that there are only so many ways you can swipe that plastic pointer before actions start repeating themselves. Officially, the game offers 28 mini-games to choose from, but many of them essentially require the same exact actions with a different graphical skin. In the end I'll concede that there are at least 28 uniquely titled mini-games, but the amount that offer a distinct gameplay experience is much, much lower.
What's more, the few unique challenges offered can rarely be described as anything nearing the realm of "fun." One of them in particular, a bike race mini-game titled "Three-Wheeled Thrills," was so hard on my wrist that I had to stop playing for a few hours. I took a quick peak at the marketing bullet points on the back of the box and carpal tunnel syndrome isn't one of the game's listed features – just consider it an added bonus.
Debilitating medical conditions aside, Carnival Craze's stylus controls just don't work very well. Many of the mini-games are made much more frustrating than they should be simply because the title fails to recognize player input. I lost count of how many times I had to retry a challenge simply because the game wouldn't do what I was telling it to do.
When Carnival Craze is recognizing input as it should, the mini-games can usually be completed on the first attempt and you'll rarely want to go back to try them again. What's more, there aren't any different difficulty levels or tiered rewards. You either meet the mini-game's point requirement or you don't. There's absolutely no incentive to play any of these challenges again unless you actually enjoy playing them – and if my experience is anything like yours, you probably won't.
Another issue with Carnival Craze is its absurdly short length. I've hinted at it throughout this review, but the game's brevity deserves special mention simply because you'll have seen everything Carnival Craze has to offer in less time than it would take to watch one of the Shrek movies. 28 mini-games may seem like a lot on paper, but when an overwhelming majority of them take less than a minute to complete you realize just how lacking in content Carnival Craze really is.
Verdict
The Nintendo DS already has a seemingly endless supply of mini-game compilations to choose from and Shrek's Carnival Craze Party Games fails to match up even to the mediocre ones. There's absolutely nothing new offered here, and what is offered has been done better many times before. At best boring and at worst unplayable, the included 28 mini-games fail to inspire player enjoyment of any sort. Not even Shrek's charmingly antisocial brand of humor can save the game from the mire of bad gameplay and uninspired visuals. I'd say that the only people who should even consider purchasing Shrek's Carnival Craze are diehard fans of the franchise – but frankly I wouldn't recommend it to them, either.
