Monday 19 Oct 2009

Critter Crunch makes an extraordinary impression right from the get-go, boasting bold, Studio Ghibli-esque animations, character designs and backgrounds, with a presentation style and quality that rivals most triple-A titles, wrapped up in a humorous story of adventure and discovery told through brief animated cutscenes peppered in-between sections of addictive, fast-paced and challenging puzzle-based gameplay.

Playing as Biggs, a large, furry creature with a long, sticky, chameleon-like tongue, your main goal is to move back and forth below columns of vines containing ever-advancing rows of critters, and gain access to said critters’ delicious, jewel-encrusted insides to fill up a progress (hunger) bar. How do you do that?

Well, in order to get those jewels, you need to pop the critters, and to pop the critters, you need to grab critters off of the vines with your tongue, and force-feed them to other critters – feed two tiny critters to a medium-sized critter and it will explode. Feed two medium-sized critters to a large critter and it will explode, both resulting in a nice, bounteous meal of precious stones to fill up the hunger bar and complete the level.

This simple principle is constantly expanded upon and modified with the introduction of new types of critters, different abilities, combos and chains, and the need to feed your son with a fountain of rainbow-coloured vomit, making eating critters a deliciously enjoyable, frantic and brain-teasing activity. These new rules constantly keep the game fresh, just allowing you to get to grips with a new ability before turning the rules upside-down, relentlessly building on your understanding of newly introduced game mechanics.

Controlling Biggs is wonderfully responsive, as he darts back and forth across the bottom of the screen, ensnaring critters with his tongue before spitting them out at the columns above, with sharp, clear and striking animations driving visuals that are a joy to behold (yes, that’s right – a joy!). Creating chains of popping critters, grabbing a falling jewel in mid-air and then lining up your next group of targets in a frenzy of split-second decisions provides a certain level of satisfaction that a lot of puzzle games simply don’t deliver – Critter Crunch is definitely a fast-paced game (even fitting the description of an ‘action puzzler’), but the rules are so easy to grasp that you’ll be performing handfuls of actions per second in no time.

To add a bit of longevity to the game, Critter Crunch contains both extra Puzzle and Challenge modes, which give players new sets of levels that will definitely test your puzzle solving abilities, as well as challenge you to complete levels by going against the rules that you’re usually accustomed to. These extra modes are included over and above the adventure mode (which also contains puzzle and challenge levels), which see you visiting areas of Biggs’ island to discover new, beautifully drawn background environments, and new critters to feast upon.

Two-player multiplayer is also available in Critter Crunch, with cooperative (local connection) and versus (local and internet) modes to either work together with a friend and clear a stage, or play against one another and see who can eat and pop the most critters fastest.

If there are any criticisms to level against Critter Crunch, they’re pretty inconsequential, such as later levels suddenly ramping up in difficulty, or the fact that depth of play is uncovered so quickly and worn out a little too fast, but that’s mainly a result of the conditions of a review, having to binge on a single title for extended play sessions until you’ve seen everything there is to see.

If you play Critter Crunch like a normal human being, however, and include family and friends in your puzzle solving and multiplayer exploits, then you’ll get more than your money’s worth from this fantastic, gorgeous, brain-teasing PlayStation Network title.

Critter Crunch is now available on the US PlayStation Store for $6.99, and will be arriving on the European PlayStation Store soon.

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Contributor:	Oliver

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