It’s hard not to love Critter Crunch straight off the bat. It is definitely one of the cutest and most addictive puzzle games that exists on any format.
Critter Crunch is a PSN adaptation of the iPhone puzzler that put Toronto-based developer Capybara Games on the development map. For anyone without an iPhone or iPod Touch this is an eye-opener and for those who do it is an extra special treat.
The premise is pretty simple take your exceedingly cute Bigg and feed him. In adventure mode you have to eat your way around the Bigg’s home island of Krunchatoa. The Bigg feeds on crystals that exist inside the bodies of the other various critters that live on Krunchatoa. These critters come in several sizes and you need to feed the smaller ones to the larger ones until they burst in order to get those tasty crystals that nourish your Bigg.
These critters live in the hanging vines that live all over the island and the Bigg has to make sure that he gets fed before the other critters get the chance to climb down the vines and gang up on him.
This has been implemented with loving care by the team at Capybara and the results are nothing short of spectacular. The vines form columns and the Bigg can use his long sticky tongue to catch the critters in his mouth and move them around in order to get at the juicy crystals that lie inside them. As you progress with the game you learn how to line up the critters to get the most food out of them and therefore the highest score. If you score a particularly large combo one of your young offspring turn up begging to be fed and you can earn bonus points for satisfying their hunger by barfing your rainbow vomit into their hungry mouths.
Power-ups in the form of power foods like watermelon (which gives you a limited number of projectiles in the form on its seeds) and garlic (which allows you to repel the oncoming critters back up a step) and some added challenges get thrown at you to keep you on your toes such as toxic critters that can take points off you if you ingest any of their poison.
These features blend smoothly together, especially with the exquisitely rendered HD graphics and an entertaining Sir David Attenborough-style zoologist-cum-narrator (who should be voiced by Eric Idle for maximum effect) who guides you through the various twists that the adventure mode throws at you.
Adventure mode is exceptionally playable you will learn everything that you need to play Critter Crunch in a gentle and surprisingly unpatronizing way; a balance that few games get right but Critter Crunch nails effortlessly. It is a carefully stepped feed of challenges which test the speed of your reflexes a well as they test your quickness of thought without ever becoming overly frustrating. Furthermore, Critter Crunch is insanely addictive and at points it is possible to be disappointed that you have beaten a level because the gameplay is just so pleasing.
Once you’ve played through the story mode a bit you unlock the other ways to play which include, puzzle, challenge and survival modes giving Critter Crunch some considerable re-play value. Puzzle mode presents you with a series of different scenarios with not time limit, gives you an aim like, ‘clear the screen in 3 moves’ as a simple example, and you score well for completing and even exceeding the objectives. Challenge mode is similar to Puzzle mode but is a series of timed puzzles designed to test your reflexes as much as you grey matter. Finally, Survival mode is an extension to the main levels in Adventure mode where you just play until you get overcome by a horde of angry critters who don’t want to be eaten.
This isn’t all though. Critter Crunch also offers multiplayer in versus and co-op modes either over PSN or locally if you are lucky enough to have an extra pad and friends who visit. Online you can host games, find one of your added friends to play with or just jump straight in to a quick game with a random stranger. Versus mode allows you to see who can survive the longest and can turn into a frantic head-to-head. With co-op, survival is the name of the game again but this time you work together to feed and keep the critters at bay.
Critter Crunch on PSN has got a lot to live up to but thankfully it retains the same core of addictive puzzle action that served the iPhone version so well. Cranked up to 720p, the visuals rival PixeJunk Eden in sharpness and originality. There is one thing that helps Critter Crunch stand out for me though. No matter how bad a day you’ve had or how frustrated you’ve been, turn on Critter Crunch and munch your way around Krunchatoa for a short while and I guarantee you that you will have forgotten all your troubles within minutes.
Disturbingly cute, fiendishly addictive and reassuringly re-playable, Critter Crunch should be a fixture on everyone’s PS3 hard drive. This is definitely a candidate for PSN game of the year and one of the finest example of the sort of game that Sony need to have available on PSN if they are to compete with Xbox Live Arcade.
