The 'production secret' of 'Bi-Fi Roll' (greasy 'meatbar' imported from BSE-infected countries, hidden in a bread container), a single sheet of paper, has disappeared. Instead of taking the usual route of calling the lawyers to sue everybody in sight, Bifi can depend on volunteers who scout their cities for free, because they're aware that without constant supply of their drug, they won't survive for long.

One of these junkies is 'Lukas'. Lukas lives in a nameless town on the Rio Grande. Because he can't imagine a life without Bifi, he decides to investigate the whereabouts of the 'production secret'. Logical places to start are the city's main streets, a disco, his favourite pub, a gas station etc. Fortunately, he quickly discovers the right track which leads him - with the help of a magical subway ticket - directly into the future...

Mostly, Snackzone is a simple Adventure. Lukas walks around the city and he has to solve a few puzzles. Creativity isn't a strong point with those. Instead, the old collect-trade-use scheme is used. The number of locations is fittingly small.

To solve the game, a few arcade/puzzle challenges have to be beaten as well. The barman for example will only help you if you beat his highscore in the Pacman-lookalike 'Painter'. A dangerous gang of ghetto kids has to be beaten in a highly illegal road race on rollerskates.

The promoted product is always kept in focus by the inclusion of 'energy', 'snack' and 'emotion' ratings. The latter is increased by solving puzzles, but the first two can only be improved by the consumption of sweet snacks. As an educational measure, 'funny' 'spoofs' of competeting products are included in the game as well, but they of course turn out to be useless.

In the area of promotial games, Snackzone ranks relatively high. The graphics are adaequate, and the game isn't unnecessarily complicated and confusing. Adventure and action parts are balanced out well, so that it never gets too tiresome. In addition, the game seems to have at least a little ironic distance to its own product.

On the whole, Snackzone is of course still 'just' a very easy and short promotial game which can't measure up to commercial competitors. However, nobody would expect that anyway.

Sidenote for those who speak German: Try to get your hands on the review of this game written for the old print magazine 'Amiga Games' by 'Lutz Mahle'. Laugh-out-loud funny!


««« Back to listing