Of the seven new Wii games we got this christmas which one did I pick up and play first? I didn’t grab Super Mario Galaxy. I didn’t DDR my fat ass across the floor. I didn’t even go for the silly fun of Raving Rabbids 2. Nope. I jumped on Thrillville. I suppose that’s a testament to the coaster geekdom embedded in my soul (if I had one) at this point.

First things first – this is not a good game. The catch is, I’m a sucker for a bad game. Hell, I seem to prefer lame games. Not only does it suck, but it’s short. There’s an in-game timer and you can see exactly how long you’ve played. Total time invested from initially opening the box and inserting the disc into the Wii until I got the ‘Game Complete’ message and the credits rolled? Would you believe 11 hours, 32 minutes and 23 seconds? Yeah, It’s that short. If you just completed the bare minimum to get through the game and did it quickly, I’d bet it could be done end-to-end in about 8 hours.

So what is it all about. It’s a bunch of mini-games tying together the storyline of someone trying to sabotage your park(s) set on the backdrop of a stripped down, more arcade feeling (as opposed to sim feeling) RCT3.

I hear you groaning already, but somehow it worked for me – as a timekiller, at least. I’m to the point where I like my games light, airy, dumbed down and over-easy. Thrillville delivers all of that.

Ride choices are limited and building the park is pre-structured to a large degree. In fact the only reason for building/maintaining the park is to open new missions (mostly mini-games) to push the story along.

Nothing about the game is realistic (sorry, coaster dorks) and as I said, is has much more of an ‘arcade’ gameplay feel than a ‘sim’ gameplay feel. It really takes not thought or effort to maintain a parks and the rides in it – in fact, unfinished coasters that wreck are encouraged in some cases. There’s no different kinds of coaster pieces (lift hills, brakes, etc) – just build track skyward and anywhere the coaster would stall becomes a lift. The bit of track before the station becomes a brake-run. It’s all automatic and dumbed down for the masses and small children…and of course you can ride your creations.

The one thing I did kinda like was the way you build coasters. Twisting, turning and angling the wiimote changes the track as expected. Need a swooping turn down and to the left? Tilt the remote forward and to the left – voila! Want to bank it? Lean the nunchuck to the side and it becomes and swooping banked curve. Really intuitive stuff. A full-blown park sim using that build system would be accessible to all and fun to use.

The mini-games are all based on what you build in the park. Build a pool-hall and play pool. Build a go-kart track and race park patrons. Build a mini-golf course and try to beat par.

I hated the “play/ride” what you build angle in RCT3, but for some reason found it tolerable in Thrillville (and you kind of have to – it’s the entire basis of the game). But I think it goes back to intent. RCT3 sort of sold itself as an amusement park simulation game – more Sim City than not. (hint: that’s exactly why the first two worked so well)

Thrillville doesn’t really sell itself as anything more than an over-the-top, simplified, arcade-style game…and that’s what it delivers.

Would I buy it again in hindsight? For me, no. But the kids dig it and I did play through the whole damn thing. Which kind of leads me back to the beginning of this whole this. It’s not a good game by most traditional standards – it’s short, stupid, easy and quite frankly, lame.

But that’s exactly why I played though it.