Snowy blasts off!

Snowy: Space Trip
Game Category: Casual - Kids, Platformer
Developer / Distributor: Aliasworlds Entertainment / Alawar Entertainment
Release Date: 12 Oct 2004
Rating: ESRB - Rating Pending

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Introduction
Today's review will be a brief one - it's about a certain animal bearing the family name of Ursus Maritimus - whose common name is known as the Polar Bear.

This particular polar bear is an adventurer of sorts, he has been on two earlier adventures and this is his third. His name is none other than Snowy the Bear, a cute polar bear created by the developers at Aliasworlds Entertainment.

We were first introduced to Snowy the bear in Snowy: The Bear's Adventure - a platformer game. Our spunky little bear was then spotted in the adventure puzzle - Snowy: Puzzle Islands. Now, Snowy returns to his platformer roots and braces himself for a trip into outer space to rescue his green friends from deadly monsters. Once rescued, Snowy must lead his friends to a rocket ship to help them escape.

Here we go on a Space Trip...

Game Play
Snowy: Space Trip is a single player only game with three difficulty settings - Easy, Normal, and Hard. The Easy Game gives you 99 lives and fewer monsters while playing through the 80 levels of the game. At the other end of the spectrum, Hard Game starts you off with only 10 precious lives and quite many monsters will spawn into your levels to give you a platforming nightmare.

The game is simple to pick up

The monsters are of two types:

a yellow fellow that looks like a portable barbecue pit come to life.
a smarter turquoise crab like critter who tends to follow you wherever you go.

The game play in Snowy: Space Trip is very simple. You move Snowy around the level with your cursor keys and use the space bar to jump. You will find trolley items that can be pushed around in the level and can use the CTRL key to kick them. Doing this sends the trolley whizzing off like a weapon which will take out the monsters. There are also crates lying around, kicking these will reveal bonuses that Snowy can pick up.

Where do you want to go today?

Your main objective in the game is to rescue the green aliens found in the levels. You do this by moving Snowy over them. Once you touch an alien, he will mimic Snowy's movement. If you touch several aliens at a go, they form a train behind Snowy. If any alien touches a monster, he will break off from the train and wander around that spot until picked up by Snowy again. Lead all the aliens to the big rocket ship to help them escape. If you succeed, you win the level and move on to the next one.

Let's begin

Every 20 levels, the scenery changes - so at first you are playing through a place that looks like the inside of a space ship, after which you wind up somewhere that looks like an outer space city of sorts, and then you head on to a bright fiery orange planet. Your journey ends at another planet, but that you will have to find out for yourself, won't you?

Along the way, you will find jump pads that will launch you to high places, icy platform areas that make it difficult for Snowy to walk over, and weapon emplacements that periodically shoot a missile in a fixed direction. There are also power-ups that can be collected: an extra life, rocket fuel that increases Snowy's speed, a monster cleaner that kills all monsters, a power-up that keeps you safe from the monsters for a short while, and a power that lets you eliminates monsters with a touch!

Follow Snowy home guys!

Graphics
The graphics in Snowy: Space Trip is very colorful and light-hearted with smooth animations of Snowy the Bear, the monsters, and the aliens. I found the level artwork to be pretty varied, but if you notice carefully, its just an application of another graphical tileset with Snowy, the aliens, and the monsters all looking the same.

Watch them guns

Audio
The music is rocking and fun, but you may start noticing that it repeats itself after a while. The sound effects are cute, so you know very well which age group this game is targeted at.

Pros and Cons:
If you ask me, this game is great for kids. Show them the game and they won't leave from your PC for hours. It's that addictive. I had some fun myself, but after a while, I found the game to be repetitive and frustrating at times (you really need to be precise in some of the levels). Moreover, the icy floors and unforgiving weapon emplacements make the game rather hard. The harder difficulty settings also grow exponentially difficult and will need a kid with superhuman reflexes to complete the levels.

Watch out for them nasty monsters

Conclusion
Snowy: Space Trip is one great game for kids. It's a fun platformer, simple to play, has colorful graphics, nice sound effects, and many varied levels. Moreover, it features Snowy the Bear, a cute little furry white animal that can be suggestive of your child's teddy bear. I will definitely introduce this game to my daughter when she grows old enough to play such games, I suggest you seriously consider doing likewise.