Review: Snowy: Treasure Hunter PSN

 

Excitement and riches untold lie ahead in Africa, the Mayan jungles and the Far East. Snowy will have to pack his wits, however, so he can outsmart the agile gorillas, clever snakes and other new enemies that populate these danger-filled lands. When he’s not dodging adversaries, he’ll be collecting more treasure than ever before! So grab your pick axe and join Snowy as he sets off on an all-new side-scrolling adventure sure to thrill the entire family!

Pros:

• Bright, Colourful graphics.
• Huge tutorial section.
• Offline multiplayer modes: Duel: fight your opponent as you race to collect the most treasure in the time limit. Survival: Work with your partner and avoid the waves of enemies.
• Every level has a timer, With a Gold, Silver and Bronze ratings.
• 100’s of levels to unlock. Spanning across many different lands.
• Any of the first levels in a world can be tackled in any order.
• Collect treasure, avoid enemies and escape. Do this as fast as you can and high scores will be yours.
• Get traps/weapons to aid you. Cages to capture enemies and pumpkin bombs are  few examples.
• Completing a level is satisfying.
• Huge speed running mentality for multiple play throughs.
• Every level is a huge puzzle with secret passages,hidden areas and bonus items.
• Some great looking backdrops complete with weather like rain and snow.
• Cartoon animations with each enemy moving in a unique way.
• Has a one more go mentality that will keep you playing for many nights.
• Online leaderboards which can be filtered by friends/worldwide. You can even view multiplayer scores to see how you rate against the world.

Cons:

• Really hard throughout. The game is littered with huge pad breaking, swear word creating, wall punching difficulty spikes.
• You can break blocks but you have only but seconds to make use of it as they spawn back. If you happen to be in the space of the broken block, Then a respawn block will kill you.
• No jump button but this is more a personal beef.
• Enemies respawn really quickly just like the blocks.
• Beaking blocks is not fluid and instead rely on nearly pixel perfect precision. Not something easily achieved when being chased.
• No help or tips in game, So you can literally be stuck on a level for hours. It wouldnt hurt the game at all if we could have just a bit of guidance or even markers.
• Timer keeps going for a few brief seconds when you hit the exit door. When a game rewards you for time completion, Having this is not cool at all.
• Music is annoying and grinds on you very quickly. Each world has its own tune but it constantly looping, has you reaching for the mute button. or turning the music off, depends how much effort you want to put in.
• No online modes which is a huge shame.
• Enemies have an insane line of sight, Most of the time they dont even need to see you. As soon as you step onto their level, They are on you. They move fast and always go straight for you. No sneaky last minute dodges in this one I’m afraid.

In summary, The game has a chance to survive on the store. Yes it is balls hard pretty much all the time, That you can accept in time. But the non responsive nature of movement and actions is not. With a high asking price, Players can easily just go online and play the browser version for free. Its always hard to justify a game that has a free to play game already in place. Fans of games Like Spelunker will get more from the game than an average player as they have the discipline to deal with the game mechanics. All though at times I did find myself really liking the game once I got into it. Completing a level really is satisfying and the co op does work very well. If the game comes up in a sale then its defiantly worth a look. But if you can easily get wound up by a game then I would avoid otherwise it could get messy.