Every year, there’s always a company that released a game just for Christmas. The last couple of years it has been Synseal. Their games were good, if not a little addictive and got quite a few of us over-competitive! This time round however, digital specialists MotionLab have come up with their very own app game, called Chuck Save Christmas. It’s available on all major platforms, and it’s very festive!
The game
Once you have downloaded the app from Google’s Play Store or Apple’s equivalent, you open it up and you’re taken through a short video intro. Once that has passed, you’re taken to the home screen of the game. From there, it’s straightforward to start playing the game. Tap on the screen and you’re away.
From there, you start Chuck’s journey to save Christmas. Your task is to throw snowballs at the evil snowmen spoiling things for the little world you’re playing in. Chuck has a nifty little gadget strapped to his back which catapults the snowballs towards the snowmen. You have to hit a number of snowmen in each level to progress. It starts off easy, then as you would expect, gets harder as you progress through the world.
The graphics and level of detail are really good. Accurate and easy to look at.
This is the map you use to navigate your way round the levels. The fewer snowballs you use to complete each level, the higher the number of stars you get when you complete a level. You can unlock extras along the way if you get maximum stars.
As you progress through the levels, extra features are added to make smooshing those snowmen a little harder. I’ve only had time to get to level 12 so far, but I’ve had evil snow blocks, evil ice blocks, crystals, a sneaky wind throwing my snowballs off course and the odd snowman that moves around. Some of the levels take a few attempts to pass, so they’ve not made it so easy that it gets boring!
Some niggly bits
There are just a couple of things that are worth pointing out. Firstly, there is an advert that pops up after every couple of levels passed. If you’re used to YouTube or app games, then this won’t bother you. It hasn’t bothered me. Plus, it will help the developers make a few quid too. But perhaps the one thing that really bugs me is how sensitive the action of throwing the ball is.
During the game, you need to swipe left to right on the screen to explore the level you’re on. But the snowball throwing machine is so sensitive, the slight drag back then release on the screen will release the ball, often when you’re not in a position to fire.
Other than that though, the game is pretty good. Addictive enough, without getting too bad and distracting you from work. The graphics work is good without lag. Although the game is 30MB+, it’s definitely worth a download. If I was to give it a score, I’d give it a festive 8 out of 10!
