I’m sure the majority of people have played a form of snake at some point, whether it be Rattler Race from Windows 3.11 or one of the many versions that comes standard on almost every mobile phone, Snaker Ace is yet another snake incarnation but with some new gameplay elements.
[singlepic id=497 w=320 h=240 float=center]
The first thing you’ll probably notice about this game will be the size of the game when you go to download it. It is rather tiny coming in at under 5mb, so you can probably imagine that there is not a whole lot to this game, which is partially true.
I recommend as soon as you start the game that you change the control type from Assisted (which is supposed to be easier) to normal, as on assisted the controls act a little chaotically and it is easier to die. I found that changing the speed from the default of 5 to 3 worked better. The setting of 5 is far too fast, especially with a bug in the game when you spit venom, your movement speed increases to the speed of the projectile, which at 3 is approximately the same speed as 5.
[singlepic id=498 w=320 h=240 float=center]
I also recommend you change the camera mode away from Zoom and calibrate the screen to zoom the screen in as far as you can while still keeping it entirely visible. I have found it far easier when you can see the entire screen rather than the small section where you currently occupy on the map.
The gameplay is much the same as any other snake game, you collect an item in this case an “egg” which is merely a coloured sphere with a star on it which increases your size until all have been consumed or destroyed then you move onto the next stage.
There are 4 modes of play, standard, unlocked maze, survival and local multiplayer. On standard you will start off on a free form stage with nothing but a few “eggs” on the screen, after a set time a Spider like enemy will appear at random and move around the area. Shortly afterwards a second snake controlled by the computer is released to get to the “eggs” first.
[singlepic id=499 w=320 h=240 float=center]
Once you complete the free form level you go onto a maze level and complete it by either getting all the eggs or getting to the key tile at the end of the maze. You then alternate to another free form then another maze and so forth.
When you die you can continue on from the last maze level you reached by choosing the unlocked maze mode, this is useful since there’s 200 mazes to unlock. I would guess that you should be able to unlock them within 3 hours of non stop playing, also expect a lot of them to be very similar to others as there is not much variety between the maze levels.
The game just seems to be created by the one person and possibly done in a day or two by the looks of it, the graphics are very basic and not very high quality but they do the job they are supposed to. Audio wise the game has a few basic sounds for when you complete the level and when you die for example, but that’s about it, they all seem to be recorded by the guy who made the game as they are all just one persons voice.
[singlepic id=500 w=320 h=240 float=center]
The AI is rather basic but somewhat accurate in the case of the snake, though it does seem to move as if its bouncing off the walls but does go in the directions it should do the majority of the time. The spiders don’t really do much other than stay in roughly the same area.
Overall the game can be somewhat repetitive but not to the point of all boredom. To me its one of those games you want to rush through to unlock all the levels then just sit back and casually play the odd game to attempt to get the highest score you can. It is a break from the more basic snake games out there, however I wouldn’t say it was worth the 400 :MSPoints: that the game is priced at.
You can find more information as well as the trial and full version of the game on the Marketplace.
Review by CyberAxe.
0
