Start the Party, Save the World!

by Lori Cunningham

Start the Party, Save the World, now that’s a mouthful for a game title!  Start the Party, Save the World is a fun new family game available by download only for the PS3.  It’s the second iteration for the Start the Party series and utilizes the PlayStation Move camera and controllers to put yourself in the action.

The premise of the Start the Party, Save the World game is to “save the world” from Dr. Terrible who pops up in different places reeking havoc and turmoil wherever he goes.  Your mission is to save people, fish, patients, robots, and more from Dr. Terrible’s mischievous deeds.  You are the hero as you undo the terror and confusion Dr. Terrible dishes out.

My kids and I have had a lot of fun trying out the 20 games.  There are all sorts of challenges that make competing with a friend or playing by yourself fun.

You begin the game by choosing a Hero.  Then you take a picture so that your face replaces one of the faces above.

Here’s my sailor suit Hero, after completing a task.  The personalization of faces makes the game more engaging and fun.

This is one of my favorite games where you hold a fishing pole with a magnet at the end and you need to save the people in metal diving suits at the bottom of the ocean.  Obstacles make it hard to pull your divers up on the boat.

Here’s another fishing type game where you get a grappling hook and you need to catch the fish Dr. Terrible has turned into evil fish.  If you look carefully you can see my camera as I took this shot!

The geek in me loved this game where you put on missing parts on a robot assembly line.  As the game progresses, the production line speeds up making it a challenging game but one of accomplishment seeing all the robots you’ve helped put back together.

In this game, you’re on a train ride and you need to knock off these varmints that keep attacking the train.  They’re pretty fast so you need to have a fast response time.

In this game, patients fly from the sky and you need to catch them in your big hand that extends from the vehicle.  Your goal is to keep them steady and safe until you reach the end.  If you drop a patient, more will fall down from the sky.  You simply adjust your motion controllers slightly to keep patients safe.

This is a nerve-wrecking game in which you need to save people from rooftops away from this vicious monster by flying your helicopter to them so they can jump onto your ladder.  If you don’t get to a person in time, the monster picks up the little person and drops him into his mouth.  This game does seem to make my 9-year-old daughter anxious.

Start the Party, Save the World is rated E 10+.  It is rated 10+ due to Cosmic Mischief and Mild Cartoon Violence.   The game above where the monster eats people you don’t save in time would definitely follow under Cartoon Violence as well as shooting at Aliens.

My kids (ages 6 and 9) and I liked the challenges.  Some were easy, some were tougher, taking a longer time to master.  One of the things I didn’t like about the game is that only one player can play at a time.  The other player needs to wait for their turn.  Nonetheless, many of the games include a feature where the person waiting for their turn can control one of the targets…to either help or hinder their  fellow player.  This makes it more fun as you are waiting out your turn.  We all loved seeing our face on the screen as well as our family room as a part of the backdrop.

Start the Party, Save the World is available by download only from the PlayStation Network for $29.99.  I think the game is overpriced, but it does provide a lot of fun entertainment.

*  I was given a free download of Start the Party, Save the World in exchange for my honest opinion as a part of  the PlayStation Family.