POSTED 19/5/10


FEEDING FRENZY 2: SHIPWRECK SHOWDOWN

Popcap
PS3/PSN (also on Xbox 360/XBLA, PC)

PopCap games: drugs with a level of addictiveness akin to a cocktail of smack, crack and gak.

OK, that would likely kill you (Disclaimer: drugs are bad, m’kay? Etc…), but their games are generally VERY addictive.

Feeding Frenzy 2 is their latest on the PSN, and it’s basically an eat ’em up. It melds Ecco the Dolphin with inspiration from arcade classic Defender and… well, it’s more a second hand smoke ‘high’ than any kind of awesome buzz.

Rather than slurping you into a ‘just one more game’ vortex due to aceness – see Peggle, Zuma, Bejeweled - FF2 does have a replay factor, but only because you don’t want that goddamnedmotherfeckingbastich console to beat you with its cheating.

Yes cheating, dagnabbit! You try to control various overly-inertiafied piscine entities (or 'fish', to be less wanky) throughout 60 levels. You follow the laws of the food chain by only getting munchy on those smaller than yourself, gradually growing bigger so you can chow down on serious sea-dwelling size queens - sharks, whales and such. You’ve about two scrolly screens of space to paddle about in and therein lies the problem; things that kill you regularly hurtle onscreen with such zip that they make Mr Loaf’s ‘Bat Out of Hell’ look more like a gnat stuck in gel. So, unless you carefully inhabit a postage stamp area of screen, you’re gonna get got. Unfairly.

FF2 is deftly presented (as always), has a great simplified mode for kids, local multiplayer stuff and looks quite purty – yet is missing the glaringly obvious in a video aquarium mode – but it just doesn’t have the hook (bazinga!) we expect from PopCap. Glub.

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