An arena fighter taking place on the waters of a bathtub, Smash Boats is sort of a last man standing demolition derby of MicroMachine-like toy boats. It is a ridiculous, arcade style experience designed around mindless action.
Controlling a boat, it is your job to ram into enemy ships to sink them. With two forms of frontal attacks on cool down timers, and even a reverse ramming option, each floating vehicle has different abilities. All boats can submerge under the water as a form of evading attacks too. Although only one vessel is available from the start, the player will unlock more in time. With so many boats available, it is tedious that it takes forever to unlock anything new. Since gameplay is so repetitive, it is unlikely players will have the tenacity to grind that much to gain access to all the ships.
Unfortunately, gameplay becomes predictable and routine after ten minutes. Ram the first boat you see, while waiting for your cool down time, kill that other boat with your other attack, and wait for that cool down time. Rinse and repeat until all boats are at the bottom of the pool. Besides the grindy and unchanging gameplay, the camera swing started to make me seasick toward the end of my short stream. That wide swiping camera motion happens often since each stage is quite small and open.
The “Waterlogged Edition” is exclusively designated to the Xbox version in comparison to the original Switch release. Apparently more multiplayer options will be released with this Xbox version at some point in the future. For now, Smash Boats is basically the Monkey Fight mini game found in most Super Monkey Ball titles (some Mario Party mini games too); it is fun for a couple rounds, but you’ll want to play something else once the initial ridiculousness overstays its welcome.
SCORE: 5/10
Not As Good As: Twisted Metal 2 when it first launched
Don’t Forget About: Demolition Derby, Wreckfest, or any MicroMachines game
Wait For It: Crash Drive 4
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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