Snake Rattle 'n Roll

"Very wierd, very fun, very HARD!"

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Rare has never made a bad game. NEVER. There have been games that were just 'different,' and some of these probably wouldn't be worth repeating, but all were groundbreaking, fun, or unique in their own way. Snake, Rattle, and Roll(SRaR) is all three. It's groundbreaking in its...

GRAPHICS, which are EXTREMELY successful in bringing EFFECTIVE 3-d worlds to the humble NES screen. Sure, they're all tile-based, but with the easy, fluid way your snake moves around on them, you'll harldy notice! More importantly, this is one of the few 3-D games where it's EASY to get a feel for height(very important when timing jumps and catching Nibbly Pibblies-the two most important activities in the game!) The sprites are somewhat sparse, but rather charming in their own way(just looking at that snake's expression brings a smile to my face.) And the sparkling-star intro ain't bad either. Now on to the category of ''fun'' which most applies to the...

MUSIC! Rare hews out another niche in the great musical tradition of Nintendo! From the moment you hear the intro theme, you KNOW how the rest of the game's music is going to go. Whereas too many Nintendo games have music that is either annoyingly-cute-fun,(Bubble Bobble) or fun-but-a-little-too-melancholy,(Bionic Commando) SRaR manages to strike a fine balance between the two extremes. Peppy in some areas, more downbeat in others, and urgent on the last levels, the music fits the theme(two cool snakes eating as much as they can) perfectly. The sound fits with the music, with cool alarms sounding when you get one-ups or continues, and an AWESOME end-of-level SFX. Above all, this game is...

UNIQUE, mostly due to the interesting variety offered in the gameplay. The goal on (most) of the levels is to eat enough Nibbly Pibblys(yes, you can tell that this game has had some British influence...Rare is based in England, you know!) to ring the bell on a scale to open the door to the next level. Problems: You have a time limit, and those Pibblies are hard to catch! And I won't fail to mention the enemies, the platform jumping, the bonus levels, the special items, and(if you can find them) the warps. Oh, and there's a two-player simultaneous mode(that makes those platform sections so much harder) so you and a friend can compete to see who can eat the most before time runs out. And the game is hard enough on the early levels, but it gets darned near IMPOSSIBLE toward the end, where all the platforms are covered with ice! Slip and fall off the edge again and again and again! Oh well, this game definitely deserves to be experienced at least once(see my ''Nintendo Logic'' section)in the emulated zone, and it would probably be worth your while to buy the cart, too, since it would give you a chance to OWN what developers come up with when we don't quash their creativity with SGI supercomputers and FMV!

Nintendo Logic: I'll put it this way: Any game where you kill oversized feet and reanimated toilet lids with your tongue while jumping on things called ''Pibble Lids'' to get power-ups is getting it's logic from someone other than Descartes.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/09/00, Updated 03/09/00