GENRE
	Miscellaneous
	DEVELOPER
	7 Studios
	PUBLISHER
	Brash Entertainment
	LOCAL WIRELESS MULTI-PLAY
	Yes
	Wi-Fi/GLOBAL ONLINE MULTI-PLAY
	No
	MICROPHONE
	No
	BUY NOW AT

There's been a lot of fun things to come out of Texas: Fritos, Dr Pepper, George Strait, Taco Bell, and the Texas Double Whopper, just to name a few. But no doubt some of the most fun Texas creations are the Six Flags theme parks, which, of course, are no longer limited to Texas but have spread nationwide. In Six Flags Fun Park, developer 7 Studios brings areas based on real Six Flags setting to the twin DS screens.

visuals

The best word to describe the visual style in Six Flags Fun Park is... squishy. The squat character designs in particular illustrate this fact, but even the 3D-rendered backgrounds seem molded and squashed into place like pastel-colored modeling clay. Each separate area of the theme park is based around a particular theme, such as sports or outer space, and also has an individual character within the aforementioned squishy style.

audio

The characters in Six Flags Fun Park use a squeaky gibberish to speak their lines, much like in Chibi Robo or Star Fox. Whether this is cute or annoying is ultimately up to the player, but it tends to fall on the side of annoying. It might have been best to leave the text boxes as-is without the additional noise. The background music for each area of the park is unique, but is hardly noticeable except for the fact that it is changing.

gameplay

The basic premise of Six Flags Fun Park revolves around the player visiting a Six Flags park and enjoying the attractions there. The quest involves both the main character interacting with people around the park and completing quests for them while also engaging in mini-games by visiting booths and working odd jobs. While some quests revolve around finding people or things within the park, a great many necessitate playing the mini-games to win prizes or achieve objectives. This wouldn't be such a problem if the mini-games weren't frustrating and poorly designed.

While the packaging promises forty unique mini-games, the truth is that there are only about four or five separate types of games, and the rest are variations on these themes. All are touch-based, but the interface has not been used very creatively or intuitively. Every shooting-based game in the fictional Six Flags park is saddled with both inverted Y and X axes for aiming, which, as anyone who's played Metroid Prime Hunters or Star Fox Command can attest, is a highly confusing and needlessly complicated way to aim with the stylus. This can be changed from the main menu, but the settings cannot be saved, meaning that they will have to be changed each time the game starts up. Touch control for games that revolve around tapping or throwing items is equally unreliable, and the swinging for a baseball-based mini-game is so random it renders the event unplayable.

So, the real question becomes whether the quest mode is rewarding enough to justify the continued play of the mini-games. Since most non-competitive quests that involve finding a random person or picking up trash, the answer would seem to be "no." Also, the almost complete lack of thrill rides leaves the accuracy of the park re-creation in question, but this can be forgiven, as what rides there are in the game are a passive experience, devoid of interactivity.

multiplayer

Four players can compete in the mini-games via local wireless connectivity, but each will have to have a copy of the game. Honestly, most of the mini-games are so simple that the lack of single-card download seems like an intentional oversight.

overall

While Six Flags Fun Park does have a good sense of humor, with various pop-culture gags and characters spouting absurdly funny lines, that's literally the only positive thing the game has going for it. Players would be better off taping episodes of How I Met Your Mother, Family Guy, and Saturday Night Live and watching them back to back to enjoy the same experience without the punishingly unnatural controls and nap-inducing repetition. There are some fun things that come from Texas, but this isn't one of them. Stick to George Strait and the Texas Double Whopper.

2.3/10