LOL: Never Party Alone (DS) Review

Posted by Jordan Williams on 07.19.2008

Yes, the name is lame. The sad thing is it actually is quite accurate. Can what is pretty much PictoChat on steroids be any good?

Note: Yes, this review is late but it's a miracle it got up. It seems God really didn't want anyone to upload this review. Also due to the nature and style of the game, it is being reviewed in “DLC" format.

LOL OMG!11 Yeah, that was cheesy but the sad thing is this really does describe Nintendo DS's Multiplayer-Only game, LOL.

LOL is hoping to stand out from the crowd in the sense that the game is completely up to you. It's essentially a really beefed up version of PictoChat that allows for better drawing and screen size. This also means it is completely Multiplayer-Only. As soon as you start up the game you are directly taken to a Local Multiplayer screen to wait for the other players to jump in, no single player at all. The point of the game is that one of the four players acts as a 'host' of a game show. That person takes his time to draw or write a question or puzzle or anything they want and the other three will have to answer/solve it.

For example the host could draw a series of dots and say "Connect the Dots" and the other players would have to complete it. Sounds simple, right?

Well this is where it gets interesting. The amount of questions, answers, rounds, and EVERYTHING is up to you. If you are anything like my friends you could really turn this into a game of "who can draw as many crude and vulgar objects in 60 seconds" and it would go on forever. Scoring is based on the actual players, once they see all of the answers they can all vote for the funniest answer (be it there’s or not) and the person with the most votes wins the round.

It doesn’t sound that exciting, but to be honest the games tagline sums it all up. "If you think this game is boring, you are boring."

The line sums the game up well, but it also makes the game a bit hard to review. If I say the game sucked, then does that mean the game itself sucked or that I just wasn't creative enough to find the fun in it? The truth of the matter is as far as games go, this isn't the best thing ever because honestly with a bit of creativity you could pull the same exact thing off using the standard PictoChat. It's nice that they bundled this all into one neat and tidy package, but it really isn't something you should be forced to pay for. If anything this how the original PictoChat should've worked.

With all of that said I cannot deny that I did have a ton of fun with this, it's painfully subjective to call it a fun game, but it's my review and I'm going on my personal experiences.

The 411

LOL is a bit of an anomaly at times, because it leaves all of the fun up to you and your imagination. I can assure you if you are able to round up enough like minded friends you can have a fun little time with this and even if you don't, it's not that hard to find someone else who will. An online mode would've been sort of cool to have, perhaps in LOL2?

Graphics	6.0	The stuff you don't draw has a very distinctive style that works well for the game. Simple and clean.
Gameplay	6.0	PictoChat on steroids. The stylus drawing does seem a lot smoother than it's build in counter-part and the game does run have a great feel to it.
Sound	4.0	There's a generic laughtrack sound and some zonky gameshow noises, but they aren't very good and are quite annoying.
Lasting Appeal	6.0	It's fun for awhile, but I don't think it's really anything that someone will come back to unless it's a party atmosphere.
Fun Factor	0.0	This is really subjective. Some people will have tons of fun with this while others might not. It makes it really hard to tie to to a number.
Overall	5.5   [ Not So Good ]