Snood
2 is cheap alternative to owning the real "Bust
A Move" game. by
Cole Smith
December
21, 2005 - One
can evade a copyright infringement suit by altering
the original "copied" intellectual property
or design by changing it sometimes by as a low as
ten percent. That would amount to changing the last
two notes in the Smoke on Water riff. Snood 2: On
Vacation for the DS, is a blatant rip-off of Bust-a-Move.
It features faces instead of colored balls so that's
how it gets around the copyright law.
For
ten bucks you can't go wrong if you like puzzle games
and I, like a lot of males, suffer from a slight form
of color blindness. I can't differentiate between
closely shaded colors such as blues and purples and
dark greens and light browns. For this reason the
faces in Snood are much easier to distinguish, which
means I'm not accidentally shooting my Snood at the
wrong target although that does happen from time to
time although that's attributed to lack of skill.
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Snood
as a rip-off, is not a particularly good rip-off.
It doesn't compare to Bust-a-Move in presentation.
Snood was developed by David Dobson as shareware and
it found a cult audience mainly among college students.
You can play the original and variations of it for
free on your PC. The faces themselves have been copyrighted
and are featured on coffee mugs and T-shirts. The
faces which include skulls and various geometric Aztec
symbols are truly bush league-looking sprites but
I guess the appeal lies in the homespun quirkiness.
Snood
2 is not unlike the original Snood. Sure you can play
it for free but if you want a portable version you're
going to have to get this version - not that it will
break your budget at under ten bucks.
I
didn't think these Snoods could look any worse but
they do when they're crowded on the relatively tiny
screen of the DS. Not only am I color blind but now
I need reading glasses - make that a microscope -
to see this game on the DS.
The
object of the game is to clear the screen of these
ugly Snood faces. An entire group of some 60-plus
faces hangs from the top of the screen, slowly descending
to the bottom. Using the Snood cannon, you shoot a
Snood face at a similar Snood face located in the
top group in hopes of having three of them link together.
This will cause them to disappear. Faces that are
hanging underneath a link that you create will also
disappear. You can clear screens faster by trying
to make links as high as possible in the group since
the faces underneath will disappear with the linked
faces. There is a lot of strategy and skill involved
and it heats up when you get into the competition
mode.
You
can move the cannon from left to right and if your
shot is blocked by other faces you can try to bank
it off the sides of the wall. There is definitely
an addicting quality to this style of gameplay but
I always keep in mind that Snood is not the originator
of this gameplay. Nor is Snood even an improved version.
It's those damn faces that people seem to love. As
ugly as they are, they possess more character than
colored balls.
So
how does Snood 2: On Vacation implement the touch
and dual screens? By relegating the lower screen to
a touch-activated pause button. I have to admit the
pause button is a great feature, it allows you to
size up your challenge without the pressure of a time
limit. But why not just allow the player to fire the
Snood cannon whenever he or she wants? Have it so
that it only launches a Snood when you press the button
- and not before. In an effort to offer you more options,
you can move the Pause screen to the top and have
the action take place on the bottom screen. The Pause
screen is no longer touch sensitive at the top. What
the hell is the reason for this?
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For
competitive multi-player competition each player will
require a copy of the game. That's a real drag since
this game is very basic in design and could have certainly
facilitated free multi-player modes to other systems.
There are a decent variety of modes that will help
you build skills in different areas but they're all
just variations on the main theme.
The
music is good. It's techno but it's got some drive
to it with some strange melodies on top. The graphics
are poor but that's part of the charm. I don't think
I want to see what these faces would look like if
they were re-rendered on the Xbox. It might be like
Kiss without their makeup.
Snood
2 is really just an excuse for a cheap, portable puzzle
game. However, it's the kind of game that should be
on a phone and not on a sophisticated system such
as the DS.
By
Cole Smith
CCC
Staff Writer
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