One of a handful of original games available on the PlayStation Network for PS3 users, Toy Home is a cute little trifle of a racer. The basic premise is that you’re a toy car driving around a series of household environments (kid’s room, kitchen, etc), and the object is to pick up coins, special medals, and wreck as much shit as possible while time ticks down.
Controls are simple and sharp — you accelerate and break with buttons and steer with the Sixaxis. And like many modest Japanese games, there’s a welcome amount of goofball zaniness involved. The game’s overall visual style is sort of Katamari meets Matchbox, and the huge, bright color palette looks stunning in HD.
But as with most PSN originals, Toy Home feels just a little too slight. When you start, there’s great promise of an addictive, easy-to-play 8 or 16-bit era game, but there’s just not a whole lot that keeps you playing after a few days. The game is short, the levels small, the sense of discovery and overall fun is fleeting, and the promised online play (not that it matters too much) seems to be essentially nonexistent.
As with every PSN original I’ve downloaded — about 5 or 6 at this point — there’s just an overall feeling like there’s something lacking. It’s not that the games are underdeveloped. On the contrary, as is the case with Toy Home, they’re exceptionally well designed. There just isn’t a lot of real content or depth to them, I guess. For example, you “get” Toy Home in its entirety after playing it for 5-10 minutes.
Maybe I’m expecting too much? It’s not like the job of these PSN games is to strive for epic greatness and innovation. It’s meant to be just a small and simple game you buy, dl, and play without a hassle — a return to the simpler gaming days of yore, which I fully appreciate. But if that’s the whole point, then why am I always a little bit disappointed…?
Grade: B-
Pics after the jump.
