Snood Review

Who can resist a game filled with disembodied cartoon heads? Certainly not us. This is part of the reason we like Snood, EA’s latest Match-3 title, so very much.

Snood has been around for over ten years, and has been available on PC, Mac and Game Boy Advance. A game this good is always in danger of being copied, and Snood has definitely had its share of knockoffs made, including South Park Snood for Mac. This graphically enhanced official version comes to us from EA.

So what exactly is a snood? Snoods are cute little disembodied cartoon heads that like to be together. In this version, they live on a planet in the snoodverse, from which the wicked numbskulls (less adorable disembodied cartoon heads) are slowly but surely evicting them. It is up to you, the Snood Savior, to transport the snoods back to their planet and defeat the evil numbskulls.

Each level begins with a group of snoods amassed at the top of the screen. You are given a cannon that shoots snoods, which you must use to make chains of three or more of the same color. When you make a chain or cluster of like-colored snoods, they are transported back to their home planet. Every shot raises the danger meter in the lower-right corner of the screen. Once it fills up, the snoods get pushed down the screen a little bit by a big silver machine. To win, you must clear the screen before the mass of snoods reaches the bottom.

The controls in this port are a little difficult to get used to. While you can touch anywhere on the screen to aim the cannon, you must tap the cannon itself to fire. This makes it very difficult to hit what you’re aiming at. Aiming by touching the cannon itself is difficult since your fingertip obscures the entire cannon and makes it impossible to aim properly. The ability to tap anywhere to fire, or use some kind of guide that shows you where your snoods will land, would have been nice.

If you can master the controls, there are many different levels and difficulties you can beat. There are four single-player modes: story, classic, puzzle and time attack. The gameplay is the same in each mode, and in each you must clear the screen. Unfortunately, if you go back and forth between modes, you will lose your progress. This can be very frustrating when 13 levels into story mode you play a round of puzzle snood and end up having to restart story mode from the beginning.

There is also a two player mode that allows you to play against your Facebook friends. You both play a round, and whoever gets the highest score is declared the winner. Unfortunately, you must have Facebook to compete, and you can't just play against random people. If none of your friends are into Snood, or those who are do not have Facebook, you must settle for beating your own high scores in single-player mode.

Though this port does have its problems, and in some ways is not quite as wonderful as the original, we were still very impressed with the fun gameplay and cute characters. Snood is one of the most unique puzzlers out there, and we encourage our readers to give it a shot.