My Meltdown

Ever wondered why food companies don’t make games? Spent hours wondering what a Strooper is? Did you know that in Smarties lore they have a massive factory in space? Me neither, and oh boy was I happy when I didn’t.

In Smarties Meltdown you play as Big Blue, a Smartie hero intent on saving the factory and his sugary friends from the evil Dr Soursweet and his army of Stroopers. It’s an unsavoury blend of third-person shooter, platformer and adventure elements, creating a sickly cacophony of chocolatey mush.

As you parade around unimaginative sci-fi landscapes supposedly saving your Smartie brethren, you encounter hordes of rival sweet enemies ‘Stroopers’ who are intent on not attacking you. It feels like the AI is ripped straight from a training dummy mode in the Mortal Kombat or Tekken series. This is not completely down to their inactivity, but also their extreme levels of endurance and apparent immortality. Unfortunately the only fatality in this game is the fact that someone actually spent time and money making it.

Helping save your Smartie pals seems simple enough of an idea, you find enough of them and you can progress to the next stage in the level. It could’ve worked in a variety of ways, perhaps they’d follow and help you in the vein of Dead Rising, or just say thank you and wander off. Instead they are treated similarly to coins in Mario, in a quick but mildly disturbing moment they disappear from existence, leaving me to assume that the developers must’ve been so delusional due to a sugar rush that they made you cannibalise your colourful friends.

It’s obvious where Dead Space got their idea for an upgradeable super suit as you’re playing through this mess. I’d like to give a special mention to the exo-suit, which allows you to do everything you can do in other games of this genre – yet tries to be a means to explain why a round flattish snack can run, jump and shoot. You can upgrade the suit with such joys as the ‘Half Chocolate Jacket’ which offers you protection against enemy fire, which is a huge waste of time considering the enemies prefer firing at the ceiling than anywhere near your vicinity.

The accuracy of the enemies is not surprising as the aiming in this game pushes it from awful to abysmal. The crosshair is massive and off-centred, even the formidable ‘Choco Ray’ upgrade doesn’t hit target 80% of the time. This combined with the awkward platforming and undecided identity of the game tears a hole in the concept of gaming in general.

However, underneath the crunchy outer layer this game has unprecedented charm. I take pride in being the only person I know to be aware of the evil Stroopers and Chocbots. Sometimes a game might not be great, but it’s all those imperfections that create the guiltiest of pleasures.

Conclusion

‘Games are meant for playing, Smarties Meltdown is the gamers equivalent to a vasectomy’.