Recent reviews by Lange

I play the game Spark the 2. It is a good. You are robot boy. Robot boy runs woosh and does destroy. Look like pez dispense. World has silly roads and many christmas mountains. I like purple place and techno town. Story is of ant people androids. Antroids. They are mean and never listen to Spark 2 the robot boy. So he does them a murder. Villain is air conditioner. Spark 2 pebble in my shoe. I give it thumb.

Snake Pass is certainly a new and unique kind of platformer. I was skeptical of the controls, but this is what compelled me to play it. I found this to be an immediately charming quality; I couldn't get any sense of it by seeing it, I simply had to play it and experience what it's like.
The game stars Noodle, a lazy orange striped snake and his energetic hummingbird friend Doodle. It begins with a cutscene setting up a basic premise to motivate the protagonists into action, and within moments has the player going through the first level introducing the game's common tasks and controls.

It plays more intuitively than I imagined. Noodle's movement is managed by a button for forward movement, a button to point him straight up, and the joystick for lateral steering. The game has no modesty about giving you the complete snake experience through its mechanics, in which Noodle moves most efficiently by winding left and right across surfaces. Unlike other platformers, Noodle has no means to jump. You are expected to make liberal use of the environment and depend upon your traction against the ground, walls, and bamboo shoots which commonly provide Noodle with means to traverse the level. Noodle behaves like a neatly defined ragdoll rope with locomotive power. It is as forgiving as it is unforgiving. Noodle has a lot of leeway in being able to crawl over surfaces. Often if you can get Noodle's head on a platform, he may be able to shimmy the rest of the way up. You can coil him around bamboo to extend your grasp, and gravity is a bit weak giving Noodle greater horizontal air and easier reaction time. However, Noodle can just as easily become a victim of physical forces to the player's misfortune. His body has distributed weight, and one small slip can cause Noodle's body to begin spilling off of a surface and accumulate weight until he's dragged off completely by the merciless force of gravity. While maneuvering Noodle is about as intuitive as it can be, it can be very challenging to juggle his unusual movement actions to get him to behave how you want, from climbing to coiling to just trying not to fall. There are two other actions, which have Noodle gripping a surface and summoning Doodle to lift up Noodle's tail. While the game frequently reminded me of the grip action early on, I found it to be marginally useful and could not tell when was best to use it. The tail lift had more uses, such as allowing Noodle to climb platforms more easily since the rear weight is diminished, but even then it was hard to find many useful situations for it. Regardless, the controls are fairly good and the player can well improve with practice.

The gameplay does not have exact solutions for most situations, and this is where a lot of the fun comes in. Noodle's loose, quirky, physics based movement and the openness of the environment let the player work out everything their own way. There are many ways to scale even the simplest arrangements, and you're expected to figure out how to maneuver Noodle on your own to get from point A to B. Sometimes you can cheat and scale odd sections of the environment, and the game pays no mind. You're given carefully constructed worlds, and the correct answer for anything you encounter is "whatever works".
Levels are isolated worlds like a classic arcade style 3D game. The goal of each level is to find three keystones that open the end gate. The arrangement of the levels vary from linear courses with the gate at the very end, to nonlinear maps where the gate is central with the keystones scattered around. The levels are composed of floating islets suspended in the abyss, and should Noodle fall off, he must respawn at one of the checkpoints placed around. Naturally, Noodle is often required to navigate perilous arrangements of platforms and bamboo across gaps and traps, which is the game's primary challenge. Each level is filled with secondary collectibles, a couple dozen blue pickups called wisps and five golden coins for the player to gather for completion's sake, and often require the player to, both figuratively and literally, stick their neck out to collect. These can be hard to gather even in the earlier levels, and will truly test your snake savvy. The common wisps are easy to take for granted early on, but as the levels become more elaborate, they become sacred collectibles and intensely demanding of the player's tenacity.

Trying to be hasty and rush through a level is certain failure. This game demands careful steps and patience, and you will become intimate with the most trivial segments, most especially when attempting to collect the extra items. Be prepared for lots of failures and retries, even when you take your time. Just when you think you got Noodle positioned just right, it's easy to make one wrong move and send Noodle plummeting to his doom, or not notice when he uncoils too much and slips off. Even when you've finally nabbed that item you struggled so much for, you discover that getting back to safe land is the second half of the challenge. This game can get very frustrating, and some may see this as a negative. The controls and mechanics aren't perfect. Noodle's collision is sometimes too finicky and his head can clunk around hitting himself and other elements as you're trying to position him, even for a basic coil maneuver. His collision is so good that it can actually be a detriment; being able to push Noodle's body against itself can make Noodle his own obstacle and put him into tricky situations if he's in a small space. Possibly the worst aspect of gameplay I found was the camera. It has scripted positions in parts of levels and usually it works well, but it can also fight against the player's interests. It sometimes has strange behavior and clings to walls. Given Noodle's trifecta movement control scheme versus the arrangement of level elements, you may sometimes find that you need the camera in two places at once, and finding the right angle is difficult. This can lead to difficulty judging Noodle's aim and positioning and making a bad move you didn't intend, sending Noodle to his demise.

The game's presentation is superb. The art and graphics are lush and beautifully done, and work together with the famous dulcet tones of David Wise to create a cohesive and lovely entrancing atmosphere. It reminds me very much of a late 3D platformer era gem, and I could easily see it having existed as a PS1 or PS2 classic. The game is light on world and story. There are occasional short cutscenes that line the game with a faint narrative. It can be considered one step above an excuse plot. It's mild and merely sets the game's purpose, but there's just enough established that it could be expanded upon for something more interesting (I'd sure like a sequel that goes further with it). Despite his slothful demeanor, Noodle is quite expressive, showing a range of emotions based on his situation. He relishes collecting items and panics upon falling from heights. Impressively, Noodle can sense if he's losing grip on bamboo and expresses fright if he begins to fall, giving the player feedback of Noodle's traction. And of course, he occasionally sticks out his tongue and hisses just as a snake should.
There are 15 levels across 4 differently themed worlds. The themes aren't too diverse, but each are very nice in their own way and introduce relevant gimmicks and hazards that add to the game as it progresses. 15 levels might seem small, but given the game's demand of patience and how large and complex they get, you may end up glad that there's only 15 to contend with given all of the highly challenging collectibles in each. Don't feel too obligated to collect everything on the first go either; clearing the main game will give you something to aid your item hunting. The game may suffer in terms of replay value, but a single full completion may keep you busy for quite a while. Overall I've very much enjoyed the game and recommend it.