Ice Cream Surfer Review

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• French toast
• Men and children on floating tricycles
• A polar bear on a flaming soda can flying through the sky.

These are some of Ice Cream Surfer‘s enemies.  This game’s really weird and nonsensical, but it has a certain charm to it. It’s rough around the edges with a steep price tag, but Ice Cream Surfer may hold something interesting for niche gamers that like to play cute-em-ups.

Getting Started

Its idea is a cute concept. Ice Cream Surfer plays on the idea that kids hate vegetables; especially the main villain, Broccoli. It realizes that kids hate vegetables and love ice cream, devising a plan to destroy the flavor galaxy. The Ice Cream Surfer (Ace) and four friends join together to prevent the galaxy from being taken over.

Playing The Game

Despite its cute appearance, the game can be pretty difficult (perhaps not intentionally). Cute animals, vegetables, and desserts (which makes no sense because aren’t they trying to save them from being destroyed?) shoot lasers at Ace and friends in this horizontal cute-em-up. If you’re hit once, you lose a life. The levels are basic with all sorts of enemies thrown at you such as screwdrivers, kids on bikes, and penguins. They provide a challenge on the two harder difficulties, but the gameplay feels cookie-cutter with a few interesting abilities that are thrown in.

The problem with the game stems from unclear bullets that are fired at you. Many are hard to notice as they blend in with the background or the rewards dropped by enemies. Some are unclear as to whether or not they give you damage (a heart being fired from a polar bear boss). What makes this worse is playing a bigger character because of their significantly larger hit boxes. Bullets can be very hard to avoid, and you might get frustrated, but checkpoints are fair enough, allowing you get back into a boss fight as soon as you die (as long as you have lives).

Passion

The PlayStation Store’s level of quality has reduced significantly recently. Luckily, this wasn’t sloppily put together and placed on the store. It seems the creator has a lot of passion for the project. The bosses are elaborately designed in a somewhat disturbing fashion. The art style, while basic, works well with the concept. It’s a silly game through and through, and Delores Entertainment relishes in it.

I do wish they focused more on the music, however. It plays an annoying chiptune loop on every level, which drained from my concentration and drove me stir crazy. I had to mute my tv so I could play through the game.

Conclusion

Ice Cream Surfer can be fun in spots, especially if you consider the ridiculous concept of the game. It gives a good challenge, but the bullets that blend in the background will hit you time and time again, and the music is frankly awful. The concept of food attacking you is funny, and there are some downright insane moments, but the levels are too simple to keep you engaged enough for another scoop of gameplay.

Disclaimer: Review code provided by Hidden Trap

Ice Cream Surfer

4.99

4.5

Score

4.5/10

Pros

• The cute art style
• The concept is funny
• Each character has different abilities

Cons

• The level design is too simple
• Bullets are hard to see
• The music is awful