If you ever wanted a game of Snake where multiple people can play at once, Snake vs. Snake seems to have you covered. This classic formula is seldom reused for future generations to experience but any opportunity to give it some spice is welcome. I was willing to give Snake vs. Snake a shot with some friends with this in mind.
Graphics
I get that Snake is not a visually demanding game, but Snake vs. Snake‘s graphics seem too basic for their own good. It doesn’t follow any guidelines set by 8-Bit hardware so it isn’t as if it is trying to be retro. It’s just a very bland-looking game. The empty space surrounding every level in the game doesn’t help matters.
Audio
The sound effects match up with what’s going on but not with the primitive visuals. There are no chiptunes present, rather there are electronic music tracks that might have been royalty free. The songs themselves aren’t bad, of course. They just seem a tad out of place given how there isn’t as much energy coming out of the acoustics.
Gameplay
Snake vs. Snake is primarily a multiplayer game, but it does have some single-player to offer as well. There’s a mode that’s just Snake, and another where you conquer a series of levels that lasts a total of 13 minutes. Yeah, these aren’t that special. There are no obstacles aside from the still walls (with brief exceptions of slow moving ones), which makes the campaign a cakewalk if you have the snake’s movement handled fine. Thankfully, the multiplayer modes do have a little more to provide. Kind of.
They’re almost all variations on the same mode. What this mode does, however, is have you and up to three other players duke it out in an arena. The apples provide Mario Kart-style items for you to take advantage of, which does make things interesting. Unfortunately, it only goes so far; once you’re all just moving around and away from attacks, you’re left with a shallow-ish game of cat and mouse. There is another mode where the snakes continuously extend and you must rely on that for victory a la Tron light cycle chases, but the snakes move too slow for it to really get that fun.
Verdict
While it can give groups a bit of a laugh when you and your friends trying to kill each other in-game, Snake vs. Snake leaves an amount to be desired. I suppose it’s okay for the $3.99 price when you have friends to play with. It’s just that in the grand scheme of things, I feel it fails to leave a more everlasting impression. It doesn’t even let you see the campaign’s online leaderboards without playing through it first, let alone play against people over the Internet.
Review copy provided by Casual Games
