SpongeBob’s Boating Bash Review
09.10.2022
SpongeBob – surely everyone's heard of him. The animated series has enjoyed huge success in the long years of their existence, and like with most other popular TV shows, that success lead to the creation of an entire merchandise, including over a dozen video games of all genres (and qualities). SpongeBob's Boating Bash is yet another game in the SpongeBob line, this time featuring a racing theme.
Gameplay
In SpongeBob's Boating Bash, you get to play as nine different characters from the series, including Patrick, Sandy, Squidward, and of course SpongeBob himself. There's even a simple backstory to the game, involving SpongeBob attempting to get his driver's license, but ultimately failing as he picked the wrong school. All of the characters have been represented true to their originals, and each comes with its own uniquely-designed car.
The game is very hectic and fast-paced, with traditional elements from arcade racing games. The AI has been developed especially well, always offering you a challenge even on the easier modes of play (which we're not sure is that good of a thing, actually). If you're playing on the Wii, you can use the Steering Wheel controller with SpongeBob's Boating Bash, as it's fully supported and compatible.
Graphics and System Requirements
We wouldn't call SpongeBob's Boating Bash exactly spectacular in its graphics – it's a common problem for games designed after cartoon shows to look odd and slightly distorted, as animated characters never truly fit in a 3D environment, no matter how much the developers may try. This is valid for this title as well, though it's also evident that the devs have been sweating hard over bringing the characters as close as possible to the originals.
The Nintendo DS version has been reported for having some odd issues such as long loading times, but nothing game-breaking or too serious, so it shouldn't deter you from trying it out in any case. The artistic style of the levels is varied enough and each can be instantly recognized if you've played the game for a few times.
Other
There's a multiplayer component to SpongeBob's Boating Bash, but at the beginning you won't have access to absolutely everything – you'll have to complete the singleplayer campaign fully before every option is made available to you for online play. It shouldn't take you that long though, and if you're having problems with the AI you can always “cheat” and turn down the difficulty (which, as we mentioned above, does surprisingly little in this game, but the difference is still noticeable).
Conclusion
Fans of SpongeBob will either love this, or choose to ignore it given the abundance of SpongeBob-branded games in recent times. Even if you're not a follower of the franchise though, the game should still give you a few entertaining hours as a racer title.