Nintendo
Go Play Lumberjack
By Euric Fusilier
Aug 4, 2009, 7 :40 am

I’ve never fancied myself the lumberjack type, but going by Majesco and Panic Button’s Go Play Lumberjack (Lumberjack), I was born to cut up wood. As a Ninja. With a samurai sword.

Using either the wii remote or a combination of the remote and balance board, you and up to three friends compete in a variety of woodcutting events. With free play and tournament modes, Lumberjack encourages replaying its 15 different games to not only earn top score, but to also unlock events and new characters. How much you will want to play the 15 events, a count that rests comfortably in technicalities, is dependent on your tolerance for redundant mini games.

The events, as with most games of this type, have their hits and misses. While never bad, Lumberjack never goes beyond average, either. It doesn’t help that the events are highly derivative of one another and the balance board is – ignore the pun, please – unbalanced. If you don’t enjoy one event, then there’s a good chance you won’t enjoy several. None of the events, however, are so poor that you will skip them altogether.

Events are broken down into one of five categories: sawing, axe throwing, chopping, water events, and climbing. Each can be experienced in one of the four levels of tournament mode – acorn, sapling, oak, and redwood – with each level gradually increases the event count by introducing new games. Unlike similar titles, however, the events aren’t unlocked for single play whenever you win the tournaments, as free play mode requires that a majority of events still be unlocked to play. That is an odd move, but it does exactly what it’s intended to – fluff out the longevity.

Sawing includes solo cross, kick n cut, hot saw, and limb climb. While the names are the same, they are all very similar. To be clear, the events will need to be somewhat similar in each category, otherwise categories wouldn’t be needed, but the differences are often minimal. For instance, in solo cross and kick n cut, you cut by shaking the remote or leaning left and right on the board, with the only difference being that you can press “A” before solo cross for a speed boost and you have to give a few extra shakes during kick n cut to kick the cut piece of wood away from you. As you’ll note, there are differences, but only the slightest. Hot saw requires that you balance, with the remote or board, a cursor into a green area and away from red and yellow portions, with the speed increasing the longer the icon is within green. While hot saw is trickier with the balance board, accuracy being more difficult than with the remote, solo cross and kick n cut are so much easier with the board that it seems like cheating. Limb cut is probably the best of the lot, with a tree falling down and pegs on either side or the center needing to be cut, with successive cuts going towards a combo and chopping off red limbs resulting in a penalty. The template of event types is similar with all categories, with several being nearly identical and at least one that is a little different.

Axe throwing involves, as you might have guessed, you trying to hit targets with an axe. The events consist of you trying to reach 1,000 points first, accumulating the highest score in 60 seconds, and going after your opponents’ targets. While the first to 1,000 features targets with character icons on them that net additional points for you and negative points for those whose targets are hit, which is a nice twist, the time limit event has nothing of the sort – it’s a straightforward rush for the highest points in 60 seconds. Color chaos has an approach similar to first to 1,000 in that hitting a target of an opponent subtracts points from their score, but now it’s based on colors instead of icons: you hitting your color saves you from a subtracting and also nets a few points as well while hitting an opponent’s subtracts from their score. Axe throwing is so chaotic that it will take a few tries to get the hang of it all. The slow release of the axe causes every throw to feel iffy while effects and targeting lines making the screen is so busy you can’t follow through to see if you scored a hit, but the back-and-forth style makes for some wild multiplayer.

Chopping events follow a similar pattern to axe throwing in that two of three events are very similar. Underhand involves hitting a sequence of button combinations on the remote, or buttons on the remote and motions on the board, to build up power while a swipe of the remote swings the axe. Springboard is the exact same thing, only with the addition of moving a piece of wood with the remote to the indention made in the log, which your character jumps on to continue the sequence. The main positive here is that this is the best implementation of the combination of remote and balance board, each playing well off one another and the board feeling accurate while not offering any specific advantage or disadvantage. Log split is by far the easiest event of the category, with you simply hitting a button while a cursor is within a shrinking green section and moving the remote to make the character chop; hitting the button while not in the green will cause your axe to go into the stump and must be wiggled free. While log split is the most unique, it doesn’t really offer much of anything.

The template approach continues with the water events, where one of three events isn’t strikingly similar to another. Survivor and coin grab have each character run towards the top of the screen while logs pass underneath them. While survivor simply requires that you jump over gaps in the logs and stumps long enough to outlast your opponents, coin grab simply adds gold and silver coins for you to snatch up. The twist in coin grab is that gold coins aren’t taken but split up into numerous silver coins, which are lost at roughly a fourth of your total whenever you fall into the water. These events aren’t bad; it’s good fun using the pattern of the floating logs to force opponents into tricky spots, and hearing them groan as they lose life and coin. Log roll requires balancing with the remote or board by keeping a cursor within a green area, with each moment inside the green area adding to a darker green meter. While the outer (lighter) meter determines your character’s balance, the inner (darker) meter allows you to shake the remote to make your character jump and create ripples in the water; the effect is that your opponents’ green zone will move erratically. All of these events are simple but effective.

The smallest category is climbing. By shaking the remote or leaning left and right on the balance board, you character scampers up a tree while using the directional pad to avoid falling water balloons. Pole climb is just that, climbing up while avoiding balloons, while treetop just adds a few extra leans or shakes as your character cuts the top off of the tree. Again, it feels like cheating when using the balance board because it’s so easy, but it’s also almost a must because it’s very irritating having to shake the remote like crazy and then try to hit the right direction on the pad to avoid the balloons. Climbing wasn’t terribly impressive.

While the tournament is fine, the real meat of the game is in free play. Free play unlocks not only other events for single play, but also one of the over dozen characters. The characters don’t have any particular attributes, but their exaggerated cartoon-like appearances offer some variety and will be a hit with younger players. Characters such as Lance the Knight, with his giant Fleur de Lef-stamped sword, will join the original four characters - Bart the Pirate, Jack the Lumberjack, Jill the Lumbergal, and Nozawa the Ninja – in the competition. Little touches help to bring out their character, such as Nozawa using a samurai sword and Bart having any number of blades, from cutlasses to axes, attached to his hook hand. You can eventually unlock your own Mii for use. Having unique attributes aside from animations and models would’ve gone a long way in adding some longevity.

The events might be trying on the arm, but the game is suitably lighthearted enough for players of all ages to enjoy. The template is a little limited, with basic textures and the heavy reuse of assets, but the bold colors and large character does a good job in picking up the slack. The sound effects are generic, but there is some really weird music in there – did I hear a techno-influenced “Cotton-Eyed Joe”? As long as you manage to not cuss while stuck with the remote during a shake-to-cut event, Lumberjack could do a one-shot service on a family night.

Overall: 5/10
Go Play Lumberjack is a by-the-numbers mini game collection that hits a pretty even tone. The core five or six games are decent, though the lack of variation is ultimately a hindrance, convenient for development or not, because the similarities cause one event’s deficiencies to affect others. There are far better mini game collections out there for this to be anything more than a rental.