Sick Bricks
By Neilie Johnson,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Fun action-adventure tied to collectible toys.
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Sick Bricks
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What’s It About?
SICK BRICKS is about a diverse collection of heroes living in a colorful, fun place called Sick City. A dastardly villain named Overlord Omega has attacked Sick City and is trying to make it "normal" -- less diverse -- and it's up to the Sick Bricks (hero players) to defeat him. Sick Bricks is chock-full of robots, monsters, ninjas, firemen, and superheroes, and all of them have different looks and abilities. Heroes can be rented temporarily for a fee, but you can only keep them if you buy the corresponding real-world action figures. Kids can beam purchased toys into the game, in the Disney Infinity style, and use easy-to-learn touchscreen gestures to fight using various characters in multiple Sick City locations. Players are confronted with ads upon loading the game, and the game frequently suggests purchase of additional heroes and play sets.
Is It Any Good?
In many ways Sick Bricks is a bid to get kids to buy toys, but its goofy, frenetic fun might just be worth the money it'll cost. The core of Sick Bricks is fighting and rebuilding, and this back-and-forth formula would probably be a bit too repetitive if not for the game's variety of playable characters. Toys are scanned into the game using your tablet's built-in camera, and it's mostly easy to do. (One hero, Hiro Thunderbutt, wouldn't scan, and other users report similar problems). Props and vehicles also can be scanned, so after you've had the real-world fun of building the models, you can have fun with them again in-game. There's also a very subtle embedded message about diversity, as the villain is trying to make everyone the same and the city less "weird." The biggest drawback is the mismatch between the target age and the requirement that a parent provide personal information for kids under 13 to play. Parents will want to consider the privacy implications and set expectations about purchases before downloading. After that, they're almost sure to have fun.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the importance of diversity. Why is it good for a city to have different kinds of people?
Discuss the idea of rebuilding. Have you seen or heard of a place (a house, neighborhood, or city) that was damaged and had to be rebuilt? What happened?
Think about the kind of city you would build. If you could build one with any theme you want (space, monsters, flowers), what would it look like?
Discuss how games and toys interact. Why do companies have toys, games, books, and shows that focus on particular characters? Do you need the toy to play the game?
App Details
- Devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android
- Pricing structure: Free (In-app purchases: currency called "bricks" as well as the heavily-encouraged option to buy real-life toys to scan into the game. Toys priced at $2.50 to $79.99.)
- Release date: March 12, 2015
- Category: Action Games
- Topics: Sports and Martial Arts, Adventures, Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires, Space and Aliens
- Publisher: Spin Master
- Version: 1.66
- Minimum software requirements: 6.0 or higher; Android 4.0 or up
- Last updated: July 28, 2016
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