Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up and join the circus! Playmobil, the international toy line of playsets and figures that encourages imaginative role-play, now lets your family pretend they’re in a circus on the Nintendo Wii.

Playmobil Circus is a collection of motion controlled mini-games with circus acts and themes. You can practice each act separately in Circus School, and when you’re ready to put on a show, head to the big top to perform consecutive games in front of an audience. By completing games and getting high scores, you’ll be able to unlock more circus acts and more challenging Pro versions of those games.

There are more than a dozen circus act games in all. Thrust the remote toward and away from the screen to tame a lion by trying to put a lollipop in his open mouth without him biting it. Or wave the remote and nunchuck up and down to help a clown juggle eggs. Some games even let you use the Wii Balance Board. Go for a solo act in Single Player mode or try circus acts with your whole family in competitive and co-operative multiplayer modes. Play control on most games is fairly decent, but there are a few challenges where the motion controls aren’t as responsive.

While Playmobil Circus is yet another Wii mini-game collection, there are a lot of nice details like different scenery and movies for Circus School and the main show. And a whole audience full of Playmobil figures hooting and hollering under the big top.

Kid Factor:

Playmobil Circus is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Comic Mischief. There are multiple difficulty levels, so players of all ages will find a challenge. But some of the mini-games are harder to figure out than others. Reading skill is helpful for the text instructions, but there are picture cues to show you how to hold and move the remote. It’s decent fun, but a bit short to really hold a young gamer’s interest for very long.

Tags: Game Reviews