2K Play's Carnival Games is a kid-friendly collection of themed minigames that goes for quantity over quality. It does offer one truly addictive attraction, but the rest of its sideshows aren't worth this game's very high price. As a carny might say, only a "mark" (sucker) would pay for it, but even a "sharpie" (skilled player) could have some fun.
Frog flipping is this carnival's main attraction.
To begin, you create an avatar out of a small assortment of customizable features, with many more to choose from once you've won the tokens to pay for them. Then you enter the carnival, which looks like a poor man's Animal Crossing. You use the stylus to guide your little guy or gal about the grounds, and a map on the top screen shows you where all the games are. The whole experience consists of wandering from game to game, winning tickets and then cashing them in for weird accessories, such as angel wings or a monkey mouth.
The games themselves can be grouped into three categories: trash, junk food, and pure sugar. Only Frog Leap qualifies for the last group. In this hopelessly addictive game, lily pads, birds' nests, and boats travel down two top-screen canals in opposite directions. The bottom screen features a little wood catapult with either a frog, a duck, or a cannonball in it. The idea is to pull back on the catapult and launch frogs at lily pads, ducks at nests, and cannonballs at boats. At first, you'll have trouble hitting anything, but after a few hours of compulsive play, you'll develop a deft touch and an incurable addiction.
The junk food games include Going Nuts (Pachinko with squirrels), Wild West Showdown (a carnival-style shooting gallery), Clown Splash (build pressure, then shoot water into a clown's mouth), Hoops (tap three buttons then a target), Clown Bonk (Whack-A-Mole), RC Raceway (race a car around three tracks), and Bubble Gum Battle (Red Light, Green Light, but with blowing). Most of these are dumb but vaguely playable, if just to beat your high score. Others, like RC Raceway, are fun but frustrating. Finally, Hoops and Wild West Showdown are borderline habit-forming; both are fun tests of your stylus speed and accuracy.
