Key Features
- Review Price: £59.99
Available April 27 on Nintendo Switch
I was utterly besotted with Nintendo Labo after I first played it. Completely won over by Nintendo’s latest demonstration of a unique ability to redefine gaming. Creating incredible pieces of technology using a material used to store your old clothes and Christmas trees, the Japanese company unlocked children’s curiosity to learn, and adult’s child-like curiosity.
However, in the weeks following, I started to question Labo’s longevity. The games, particularly those in the Variety Pack, appeared fleeting, throwaway, and forgettable. Once the magic of building the contraptions was over, is there really enough in the fishing, the motorbike racing and robo-smashing to keep players of all ages interested in what lies beyond the build?
Getting the chance to test the kit once more, my fears were put to rest, as I found myself once again lost in Nintendo’s magic.
Nintendo Labo is very much a child’s toy. This is a piece of kit aimed at kids and families to build, decorate and enjoy together. Much of Labo’s appeal comes in experiences outside of the Switch itself, and what you do beyond the tools Nintendo puts forward.
For example, the RC car. This is an experience which on its own can appear very boring. You build the small kit, slide in the Joy-Con, then can drive it around using controls displayed on the Switch’s screen. Two RC Cars come in one piece of flat pack, meaning siblings and parents can join in for some battles and races. Looking at that in itself, you’d think there’s a maximum of 30 minutes of fun to be had before the cardboard car goes into a bigger cardboard box never to be seen again. But if you get creative, there are more tools hidden within to allow for many more games for kids to enjoy.
Tapping a button on the screen unlocks an “under the hood” mode, which shows the frequency at which both controllers are vibrating – changing this will allow you to create a more steady car which can drive better – as well as viewing the Joy-Con’s infra-red sensor, which the Joy-Con can follow on its own, as long as there is a white object in front of it. At the event I set up a series of targets for the Joy-Con to follow, and at the close of the day we played a game with the cars hidden under a giant box, using only the sensors to guide us toward the goal, which in this instance was an amiibo.
Again in the home, kids can come up with their own games, and feeding this creativity is a huge part of Labo’s appeal. The greatest demonstration of this came with the piano.
I can’t play the piano. I don’t know a high-C from vitamin C. During my first hands-on with Labo, I stopped playing with the Toy Piano and Studio software, inhibited by my own lack of musical knowledge, but this time, seeing exactly what Studio can do, it was like a steady unlocking of doors that revealed the true potential of Labo, and I saw just how wonderful it can be for people of all ages.
There are two pieces of software for the piano: Toy Piano allows you to simply press the keys and alter sounds into various fun noises, like cats. You can also alter pitch and reverb using various cardboard dials you can insert into the piano and twist. It’s a surface level entertainment app that’ll entertain younger children, but for those who want significantly more depth, there’s studio.
Studio allows you to make your own music, compose it using various sound variations, waveforms, tempos and can record different layers of music on top of one another to create one complete piece. Again, I don’t know a single piano chord or key, so at first began hitting random keys, hitting the record button, deleting the awful racket I made, changing the pitch and reverb, not exactly knowing what they did, before finally getting annoyed that Studio hadn’t turned me into Jools Holland within five minutes.
I yearned for some instruction, guidance on how to actually play the piano, even one with just a few keys. Heading into the tutorials, I discovered an extensive amount of instructions which walk you through each facet of both hardware and software.
It doesn’t actually teach you how to play piano – of course it doesn’t, this isn’t a full piano – but it teaches even idiots like me how to make music and unlock the tools provided to make something to be proud of.
It’s here that I appreciated just how brilliant Labo is, and how much thought has gone into every part of the kit. Behind the compartment where the Switch itself sits is a small slot, inside which you can slot thin pieces of paper and card. I previously had no idea what this was for, until the tutorials told me that cutting and curve into a piece of card and sticking it in will create a new waveform, changing the sound of every key I press.
Also in the box comes a rectangular piece of card with rows of hole-punched gaps, which you can place and remove card as appropriate to make a drum beat to go beneath the piano you play. One row is the bass, one the snare drum, one the hi-hat, another the symbol. Learning how to place the holes to create a pleasant-sounding rhythm to go with the music was captivating, and more rewarding than what you can experience in most games, because it was something I was learning and immediately putting into action.
Learning through discovery creates one of the most satisfying experiences, and for children this is the sort of app that feeds into their curiosity. I sat with this piano clueless, but persisted to suddenly become the only thing I wanted to do. I wanted to, and suddenly became able to make music that wasn’t rubbish.
It seems ridiculous to feel proud of myself for learning how cardboard works, but that’s exactly how I felt. Watching other people sit down at the piano for just a few minutes, then get up and try something else only made me feel even more smug. I ‘got it’, I saw beneath the surface, and was richly rewarded for it. I can only imagine watching a child’s face light up as they learn what I learned in the previous 30 minutes, and would just love to watch their little head explode.
The day ended with another demonstration of the Garage Mode – the shining jewel in an already fabulous package – where kids can get a simplified look at coding and program the cardboard to do different things, changing the inputs and outputs.
In the demonstration, we saw the RC car be driven by the fishing rod, the Toy-Con blaster (included in the variety pack, but doesn’t have dedicated software) used to shoot down a little cardboard man. These tools are very reminiscent to LittleBig Planet’s level design modes: I can’t wait to see what people do, but personally probably lack the creativity to do much with the tools. Again, though, this is for children, and having these functions in the kit is an incredible thing to continue to cater to wherever their whimsy takes them.
Latest Impressions
During my first hands-on with Nintendo Labo, I fell in love with the hardware, and all the potential that came with it, but left sceptical of the games that came in the box. A second swing has given me a chance to fall for the software too, and see how much depth is hidden within what at first may seem like trivial, throwaway games.
If the rest of the games in the Variety Pack, and the more expensive Robot Pack, can deliver the depth offered by the RC car and especially the Piano, Nintendo has created something that every child will love. And also something that every child will learn something from.
Source: trustedreviews.com