Parents' Guide to

Neighborhood Games

By Chad Sapieha, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 6+

Eclectic party game looks good but has shoddy controls.

Game Nintendo Wii 2009
Neighborhood Games Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

Community Reviews

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age 8+

Based on 1 parent review

WiiPlayer49
WiiPlayer49 Adult
January 21, 2009
age 8+

Neighbhorhood games, I liked it, found the controls very accurate

I really enjoyed this game. The CommonSense review was pretty good but I disagree with the comment about the unresponsive controls. I found them to be very accurate. Perhaps they're not "dumbed down" enough for small children but once you get the hang of it you can place the darts and such very well. I was able to play through till the last level in Water darts for instance, a game where you have to throw darts at targets in a pool, some of them add points, some subtract. Every 40 or so seconds the pattern changes, the good targets get smaller and closer to the bad ones and you have to get more points to pass to the next level. Once you get down the differences in throw effort needed to place the darts it becomes second nature. Overall I really enjoyed the variety in this game and theres alot of fun to be had. What was suprising for a game that seems to be geared towards kids is how much real gameplay was here and the appeal for regular gamers. This is one you'll want to play with your kids, and maybe even when they're not around with your own friends. This game definitly shines best in multiplayer with 3 or 4 players. Its also very reasonably priced, hard to go wrong with this one.
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What’s It About?

NEIGHBORHOOD GAMES is a collection of 24 quick and simple activities with roots in real-world backyard pastimes. The single-player mode features five categories of games, including lawn darts, bocce ball, basketball, horseshoes, and shuffleboard. Beat the computer in any game and you'll unlock a new variation (win in horseshoes, for example, and you'll be able to play battle horseshoes and, eventually, horseshoe herding). With each victory, players take home new clothes for their customizable avatars. Defeat the computer three times and you'll be declared a \"Master\" of that activity.

The five classic backyard games featured in solo play are also available in multiplayer, along with nine others: golf, tennis, football, water gun fights, remote control truck races, remote control plane flying, a slingshot challenge, a batting game, and a digital version of the branded backyard game Ladder Golf, which involves tossing balls connected by a rope at a three-rung ladder. Up to four players can take part in most of the games, with tournaments organized as either best-of-three matches or winner-moves-on competitions.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1):
Kids say (2):

The Wii has no shortage of backyard game compilations, but most of them are mediocre at best. At first glance, Neighborhood Games looks to stand out from the pack, offering a large and highly diverse collection of activities. What's more, it has a pleasant aesthetic targeted directly at children. The neighborhood settings are detailed and realistic (you can occasionally hear car alarms going off in the background and see moving vans driving along the street behind play areas), and the customizable, big-headed kid avatars animate and emote nicely.

Alas, the experience is scuttled by unresponsive motion controls -- an unfortunately common issue among Wii party games. The majority of games (lawn darts, bocce ball, horseshoes, Ladder Golf, and all of their variations) make use of an underhand tossing motion, but the software has a tendency to register wildly varying levels of movement; make what feels like three identical tossing motions and you'll likely wind up with three very different results. It can be extremely frustrating. Thankfully, some of the other activities -- including the slingshot challenge, water gun fights, and the batting game -- feature less irksome interfaces.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the diversity of games featured in this particular collection. Which stand out as your favorite and least favorite? Can you detect a pattern in the ones you like? Do you tend to gravitate toward games in which you excel, or that have accessible controls? Did your opinion of the real-world versions of these games affect how much you enjoyed their digital reproductions?

Game Details

  • Platform: Nintendo Wii
  • Available online?: Not available online
  • Publisher: THQ
  • Release date: January 12, 2009
  • Genre: Party
  • ESRB rating: E for Mild Cartoon Violence
  • Last updated: November 4, 2015

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