Review: Cookie Rush - Perilous Puff Pastry Of Pure Power!

Overview

Cookie Rush is an odd game to say the least. A massive cookie is inexplicably destroying everything in sight by rolling over it and it's your job to save  the local villagers from a horrible death at the hands of baked goods.

Features

Cookie Rush is quite simple in the features department, including just the main game, some cute graphics, local high scores and in game achievements. Both the scores and achievements are part of the game and it does not support Gamer Center or OpenFeint.

The Good

Cookie Rush is the epitome of simplicity. A huge cookie is inexplicably rolling along, destroying everything and crushing anyone it touches. Your job is to save people attempting to run from it by placing trampolines. You simply tap anywhere on the screen and a small orange circle will appear that makes potential victims jump when they touch it, so you can cause them to jump on platforms, build a bridge of trampolines over water, or get villagers over walls. If you manage to keep some of the people alive for a  minute or so, they will start yelling for help and a hot air balloon will appear. You then have to bounce the villagers into the basket to save them and score. Of course its not as easy as that. Animals randomly appear in the villager's path and will stop anyone that hits them, although if you get everyone over the animal so it attacks no one, it will slow down the giant cookie a little, giving you a bit more breathing room. There are also cages full of prisoners that you can tap to open. If you open them you have more people to save and thus can score more points, but if you ignore them, they hit the cookie and slow it down. Sometimes the cookie will glow red and become immune to being slowed down, so its important to slow it whenever you can. Lastly there are nasty guys with mustaches that you'll want to avoid. If you save them they will fly the balloon away by themselves, abandoning everyone else to a grisly fate. Cookie Rush lacks level as such. When you reach the end of the world you're in you reach a big ocean that you must cross by bouncing your remaining people in the air with your trampolines until you reach the next island. Every time you lose you go all the way back to the start of the first land, which is very irritating, but the game is randomized so you'll encounter hazards in different places each game, giving it a little longevity. Graphically the game is nice enough. The cookie looks every bit as goofy as you'd imagine, villagers are varied and the colors are strong and vibrant. The game's sound is pretty average. The music is appropriately frantic and suits the game's style but there is no yells and screams from the villagers or sound from the cookie except for a"snarl" when it becomes invincible.

The Bad

Cookie Rush as stated above has a very harsh game over system where you'll never have any of your progress saved. Its very annoying to last 15 or 20 minutes and then make a few bad mistakes and lose all your progress. This is not helped by a confusing game over mechanic. Seemingly at random the words " Too Fast!" will appear on screen and you'll instantly get a game over, regardless if you have any people remaining or not. The reason for this is unclear. It's not mentioned anywhere in the brief tutorial messages and its incredibly annoying to arbitrarily lose when the game feels like you're "too fast". It appears with no rhyme or reason either; you can get people squashed constantly and have it not appear, or save just about every villager and suddenly lose. It seems the only reason this happens is if you don't slow down the cookie enough by dodging animals or cages and thus everyone gets run over by the now blazing fast cookie. If this is the case, it would be much better to simply have the cookie slowly gain speed and roll over your villagers until it reaches the point where they spawn, not a  sudden, disheartening message when you can clearly see people still running for their lives, maybe 1/4 of the screen ahead of the cookie. The gameplay is also very simple and after a few games you'll have seen all the game has to offer; the unforgiving game over mechanic compounds this problem, as it makes the game quite repetitive. If other items were implemented or more kinds of obstacles were included the game might have been compelling for longer spells.

The Verdict

Cookie Rush is an average game that's fine for a few minutes, but it fails to stand out form the huge collection of superior games available on iOS Devices. There is a nasty game over mechanic and combined with the simple gameplay aren't enough to carry the game for any  great length of time. Still it's a goofy, cute game and for short bursts it can be fun.

Related articles