Reviewed: April 27, 2007
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Microsoft Games Studios

Developer
Klei Entertainment Inc.

Released: April 25, 2007
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1-4
ESRB: Everyone

9
9
5
8
8.7

Supported Features:

Some of you may have heard of Eets. He already made an appearance on the PC in 2006 and was heralded as one of the top indie games of the year. Now Xbox gamers can share in the strategy and fun of helping this poor little fellow chow down on as many marshmallows as you can find in more than 120 crafty levels redesigned for high-definition and console gameplay.

There are 123 levels, each one a puzzle ranging from simple and straightforward to pulling-your-hair-out difficult. These are divided into six worlds, each with a theme and visual flair of their own. The interesting thing about Eets is the way you play. Nothing happens until you tell it to. When each puzzle starts time is suspended and you are allowed to analyze where you are starting, where you need to end up, and the complicated path between those two points.

Eets is all about emotion and rules. Your character can be scared, happy, or angry and will perform differently based on his current mindset. You can affect his attitude by feeding him certain items to anger or calm him down. For instance, chocolate chips will calm Eets down and even make him happy, but if you hit him with the chips he will get angry.

Each puzzle consists of numerous ledges, often blocked with items that need to be removed. Eets is normally cautious and won’t walk off any ledge, but if you make him happy he will do a short hop and if he is mad he will do a much longer jump. You need to monitor and change his attitude to make the various jumps across the gaps in the level. You might need to feed him something to scare him if you need to keep him on a ledge or reverse his direction.

Prankster Whales are one of the more useful tools in Eets. These suck up Eets and anything else in their intake and spit it up and out in a nice arc. This is a great way to get Eets up to new elevations or possibly relocate a food item to a new ledge. The Ginseng are great for blowing up explosives to create a path or even angering Eets or pushing him where you want him to go, but like most items in Eets, you can only fire in one direction.

Most levels start off with a few items already in place. These cannot be moved or changed, only activated when the time is right. Prior to starting the level you can access a menu wheel of pre-selected items and place them within the world. This includes putting them somewhere in the level as well as facing them in the desired direction. Not all available items are required, and there are even special rewards for not using everything in your starting inventory to complete a puzzle.

Obviously, there is a lot of trial and error experimentation to be had and you will continually be going back to try different strategies. Each level has two par goals; one for time and one for score and it is often extremely difficult to get both in the same round. Getting the highest score doesn’t always mean taking the fastest route. You’ll want to collect as many Gift Boxes as you can before reaching the glowing puzzle piece.

There are numerous ways you could get Eets to the end of each level. There is always an “official solution” that you can view from the Pause menu, and you can always request a hint that will show you where to put a key puzzle piece. If you come up with some truly ingenious solution on your own you can save the replay to dazzle your friends. It’s a shame you can’t share your replays on Xbox Live.

Again, nothing happens until you squeeze the right trigger to start the action. You can control the speed of Eets with the left trigger. Obviously, to get the record time you want him moving at the fastest speed possible, but you also need to be able to synch his movements with your own button presses to activate key puzzle pieces at just the right moment. Believe me – it makes a lot more sense to actually do it. Download the trial copy and see what I am trying to say.

One of the main reasons I like this game so much more than Lemmings is that it is not in real-time, so there is no anxiety of digging a hole or building some stairs to keep your Lemmings from falling off a cliff. In Eets you can take all the time you want, place a piece, activate Eets, see where your plan falls apart, and replace or move a piece. Sometimes a solution can fail if a piece is just a few pixels out of alignment. With this design it is no big deal to modify and restart. Admittedly, this takes a lot of tension and even interaction out of the gameplay, but keep in mind you still have to activate key puzzle components and synch them with Eets’ progress. This interaction get much more complex in later worlds and levels.

The menus are excellent and there is a nice level select screen that shows where you are within the current world and a preview image of the world you are about to start. The circular puzzle piece menu is also clever and easy to use. Placing items within the level is extremely easy, and icons tell you which button you need to press to activate that piece of the puzzle.

The rest of the sounds are pretty creative and tie in with the theme of the game and the animation. You have a windy sound when the whale is sucking and blowing and explosions go BOOM and chocolate chips click as they pile up in recessed areas. Considering each level lasts usually less than a minute of real-time, there isn’t much of an opportunity for interactive sound. Most of the game is played in the planning stage.

There is also an offline multiplayer game for up to four players. This is a clever mode that has you pushing sequences of buttons to zap enemies as they swarm toward the center of the screen. The deeper you go in this mode the harder the enemies and the more complicated the sequence of button presses. It would have been nice to have this available online, but oh well.

The PC version had a level editor, which is sorely missed on the Xbox version. This would have given the game unlimited gameplay potential, but I suppose there is a whole can of worms you have to open and deal with when trying to release user-generated content over Xbox Live.

For what you get and the time you will spend and the enjoyment you will undoubtedly have playing Eets, this is certainly worth the 800 points. There are also 200 Achievement points you can strive to earn by completing entire worlds, finishing puzzles without using all your pieces, and completing other tricky challenges. Some of these are easy and others are quite difficult.

I love puzzles games, especially when they give you the time to think and plan and retry various solutions without penalty and lengthy replays. Eets: Chowdown is one of those games that will delight and challenge kids, parents, and even grandparents. It’s a delight for the entire family and I highly recommend it.