"Reminds me of Bubble Bobble"

How many of you out there have heard of Bubble Bobble? I'm sure you're all saying yes right now. Now how many of you have heard of Snow Bros.? I'm sure some of you are saying yes, but some aren't. Snow Bros. is a very Bubble Bobble-esque game, that didn't seem to be as fun as Bubble Bobble is...

The object of Snow Bros. is to clear out every level of enemies. You play the role of the little guy that has to get rid of the bad guys. The way you to this is to shoot them with snow until they turn into a snowball. Once they're a snowball, you can push them to their doom, and if the pushed snowball runs into any other baddies, they're defeated too. There are also powerups to be collected which do things such as make you shoot snow faster, or better. Every ten levels you have to face a boss character, which, of course, can't be shot with snow and turned into a snowball. The way you defeat the boss is by shooting all the little baddies into snowballs and pushing them into the boss. There's also a two player mode available which makes the game even more fun...but it still doesn't capture the magic of Bubble Bobble.

The graphics of this game are ok...if not too simple. The characters all look pretty cartoony, which is good, but there doesn't seem to be any originality about them...and the sound is pretty generic, nothing really sticks out in my mind. Just your average sound I guess.

If you're into puzzle-action games like Bubble Bobble, you'll probably dig Snow Bros., even though it's inferior to Bubble Bobble. If you can't stand Bubble Bobble, you probably will hate Snow Bros. If you kinda like Bubble Bobble but not really, you probably won't like Snow Bros. However, Snow Bros. is by no means a bad game, and everybody should probably play it at least once in their life. If you see this one in an Arcade, drop in a quarter. It's not excellent, but it's still pretty good.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 08/07/01