by:	December 24, 2005

The first thing you will notice about this title is that it definitely has its own brand of funkiness. The presentation has the feel of something you might see in Oddworld, and the gameplay is a side scrolling puzzle title with a complete emphasis on puzzles. The game is definitely strange, and is one of those games that you hate at first simply because of the way it looks, but you eventually will get into it.

The game has quite a few levels and pretty candidly walks you through in a good fashion so that you get the hang of the gameplay. You travel on 2D levels, going from level to level. Basically you have to catch grubs with your tongue, and spit them at a purple sloth creature. The best part about the grub-fetching is when you have to get to higher up places you latch on to something with your tongue and swing over there. I don’t know why, but that part just really seemed really cool. As you collect the grubs and spit them at the sloth, they are counted and when you reach the right number you advance onward. As you advance the sloth gets faster so you have to slow him down to throw the grubs, and bugs which will hurt you. These bugs might have a special way to be defeated and it becomes another puzzle in itself to figure that portion out as well. I know you are reading this and thinking, “What the hell?” Now if you are one of those people who are into totally weird titles like Seaman or have a particular affinity for the Oddworld series of games you will probably like this. Otherwise, even if you are a fan of the puzzle genre you probably would want to pass this one. I love weird games, but I even found myself thinking to myself how stupid or bizarre it got at times.

Visually as I said it is similar to the Oddworld series of games if you are counting back when they were on the first PlayStation. The visuals can get pretty stale at times, but it is definitely a good looking game in comparison to a lot of the stuff that is out on Live Arcade right now. The sound itself isn’t really all that fantastic, and in fact it is pretty stale most of the time, and puzzle games really shouldn’t have stale music, but then again it fits with the style of the title. The game also allows for some multiplayer action offline, but chances that you are going to find some friends or family that would actually sit down for more than ten minutes and seriously play the game is pretty slim.

Other than the fact that it is an Xbox Live Arcade title, you do of course have leaderboards. There are plenty of achievements as well, and if that is your thing then the game is probably for you. It isn’t quite the best puzzle game out there, but if you want something completely different then it might be right up your alley.

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Unlike a lot of the better Xbox Live Arcade titles, unless you are a person who cares about the Xbox 360 Achievements, you probably won’t see any fun or goal out of the game. With what is out in Xbox Live Arcade right now in terms of action puzzles, particularly Zuma. The game is only ten bucks though and for that price, you still get a pretty good experience.

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