Avatar V-Game “Review” – Wizards of Waverly Place

Do you often plan to do things and then sort of half do them and come back to them later, in their unfinished state, and wonder why you didn’t bother to finish them in the first place?

Such is the case for me and my review of ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’, another Nintendo DS game that my brother and nieces decided to inflict upon me. I must have originally done my thirty minutes of playing in July because I took some photos at the time. I was clearly gearing up for a post with the details and then nothing; I didn’t write anything else other than some hastily scribbled notes on a random bit of paper from my work bag.

For the uninitiated, ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ is an American sitcom shown on the Disney Channel about a teenage wizard who undertakes training to be some kind of better wizard alongside her two brothers. It features one now famous person (Selena Gomez who, at the time in my subconscious, I referred to as “that rapping chipmunk”) and lots of people I’ve never heard of. The premise sounds a lot like ‘Sabrina: the Teenage Witch’ but with a family of magic people instead. It ran from 2007 to 2012 but according to Wikipedia will be coming back again soon in a sort of semi-sequel of sorts. Keep an eye out for that everyone.

I am sure that whatever kids were watching this at the time loved every second and begged and pleaded to their parents to buy the tie-in video game so they could continue the, I don’t know, wizarding. It’s the successful formula of young people acting like adults mixed with comedy that Disney has been churning out for the last few decades that will make anyone over the age of 21 throw up in their hands but works because children will watch anything.

Enough of that. Back to me, consider me! The notes that I wrote are as follows:

  • Picking up coins – why?
  • Let’s head to the lair?
  • Sandwiches
  • Keep skipping dialogue
  • Floating sarnies – catch game
  • Bottle on a podium
  • Smaller than me
  • Make a *can’t make out what this is, could be cake* – end

As you can see, I was my usual in-depth and very thorough self, going through the majority of the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the gameplay, graphics, history of development and everything else. Ahem. This is why you should never start a job unless you intend to finish it. I get that now.

I am at the point where I don’t have time, not even a mere thirty minutes, to go back to understand this nonsense. I must therefore move forward and count this sham as my attempt at a game review.

After re-reading the notes, I do remember a mini game where you had to assemble sandwiches to serve to customer. When a magic spell goes awry, you have to try and wrangle the sandwiches back into a bag, or a hat, or a bin. It was a fairly average video game, much like the previous one I did, with nothing too bad and it seemed to fit with the property. Not that I’ve ever seen ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ or know anything about it. If you were to ask me in passing, I would tell you it’s about a teenage girl who goes around collecting coins to stash in her lair so that she can afford to make sandwiches and sell them. Surely some kind of philosopher’s stone would eradicate the need for some of this but whadda I know?

Apparently Selena Gomez has an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion and is the most followed woman on Instagram. Not bad for a rapping chipmunk.

One comment on “V-Game “Review” – Wizards of Waverly Place”

  • A lot of effort obviously went into this post, back in July, and yet you’ve really turned it around to produce something that feels very low effort indeed. It’s like a metaphor for the game itself.

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