Purrs and Grrs
Last Friday, Joanne left a PS2 game with us entitled "The Adventures of Cookie and Cream", which deserves an A+ for effort. It's a game designed from the ground up as a two player game. If you play it one-player, you control both characters, which is helpful in about two situations, but for the rest of the game probably awkward. In other words, you want to play this as a two player cooperative game.
The plot is forgettable, so we won't go into it--though it's admitedly better than most puzzle games out there. Each player controls a rabbit who can move, jump, double-jump, and grab/hold-onto things. Each stage is split up the middle into two sections, one for each bunny, and the objective is to get both of them to the goal within the time limit. Stop watches littered about add 20 or 50 seconds to the clock; being injured by one of the many hazards in the level takes away 20 seconds.
It's not simply a race to the finish line, though: about 80% of the roadblocks each bunny faces must be solved by the other bunny, often by pushing buttons, pulling switches, ropes, and any number of other things. They did a pretty good job of pulling out the stops and making each problem feel fresh--and some of them are hard! Sadly, not every problem is obvious, even though an exclamation-point appears above a bunny's head whenever they approach something they can manipulate. Fortunately, most of the obstacles have a hint nearby in the form of a helpul, wordy chicken. After every four stages, there is a boss fight, which are all clever and usually requires creative cooperation from both bunnies to succeed.
The game art and theme is "kiddy" "for all ages"--no blood, etc--but the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly and requires quite a bit of skill and coordination. It would probably be annoying to play the game with players of vastly unequal skill level, because each player needs the constant help of the other to advance. There are only 32 stages, but like most puzzle games, there's always room for improvement in the form of finishing more quickly, with fewer mistakes, etc.
The game has a few problems, but no more than your average brand-new-idea title. The camera is static, so a couple of jumps are particularly difficult due to different elevations--especially when you are trying to collect out-of-the-way stopwatches. There is also a multiplayer VS mode that we haven't tried yet.
Anyone who pines away for more cooperative gaming needs to check out this title. It's a 2001 title and might be hard to find, but it's really creative and clever.
Stephie and I both give it two thumbs up.
The weekend was good. Today has sucked. I knew it would just as soon as I saw on the whiteboard that Todd wasn't around and that we'd be "sent home" if we were caught slacking off today, and that our least favorite staff member "will need some help". So of course, the person who is my biggest ray of sunshine is feeling really inadequite because her biggest friends are really biting into her self-esteem. I feel so helpless when I see tears in her eyes. I just hold her and hope she won't send me away.
The plot is forgettable, so we won't go into it--though it's admitedly better than most puzzle games out there. Each player controls a rabbit who can move, jump, double-jump, and grab/hold-onto things. Each stage is split up the middle into two sections, one for each bunny, and the objective is to get both of them to the goal within the time limit. Stop watches littered about add 20 or 50 seconds to the clock; being injured by one of the many hazards in the level takes away 20 seconds.
It's not simply a race to the finish line, though: about 80% of the roadblocks each bunny faces must be solved by the other bunny, often by pushing buttons, pulling switches, ropes, and any number of other things. They did a pretty good job of pulling out the stops and making each problem feel fresh--and some of them are hard! Sadly, not every problem is obvious, even though an exclamation-point appears above a bunny's head whenever they approach something they can manipulate. Fortunately, most of the obstacles have a hint nearby in the form of a helpul, wordy chicken. After every four stages, there is a boss fight, which are all clever and usually requires creative cooperation from both bunnies to succeed.
The game art and theme is "kiddy" "for all ages"--no blood, etc--but the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly and requires quite a bit of skill and coordination. It would probably be annoying to play the game with players of vastly unequal skill level, because each player needs the constant help of the other to advance. There are only 32 stages, but like most puzzle games, there's always room for improvement in the form of finishing more quickly, with fewer mistakes, etc.
The game has a few problems, but no more than your average brand-new-idea title. The camera is static, so a couple of jumps are particularly difficult due to different elevations--especially when you are trying to collect out-of-the-way stopwatches. There is also a multiplayer VS mode that we haven't tried yet.
Anyone who pines away for more cooperative gaming needs to check out this title. It's a 2001 title and might be hard to find, but it's really creative and clever.
Stephie and I both give it two thumbs up.
The weekend was good. Today has sucked. I knew it would just as soon as I saw on the whiteboard that Todd wasn't around and that we'd be "sent home" if we were caught slacking off today, and that our least favorite staff member "will need some help". So of course, the person who is my biggest ray of sunshine is feeling really inadequite because her biggest friends are really biting into her self-esteem. I feel so helpless when I see tears in her eyes. I just hold her and hope she won't send me away.