Ice Cream Surfer [Xbox]
Dolores Entertainment’s Ice Cream Surfer is a wacky side scrolling shmup that sees you play as one of five members of the Cream Team; with Ace being their glorified leader, either alone or with a friend via local co-op. Our daughter joined in and was in complete hysterics at the enemy designs and the overall look, she was having a ball right off the bat! The evil Broccoli - filled with hatred over the fact that kids aren’t too keen on veggies and would much rather have an Ice Cream - has recruited himself an army of vegetables to destroy the flavour galaxy and put an end to this, so you’ll need to take him down! So is this a sweet treat? Or will it leave a bad taste in our mouths? Let’s find out!
There are six different food-styled planets that make up the levels that will see you surfing on an ice cream snack (hence the title) to wipe out enemies and reach the boss. Enemy types are tied to the world you’re currently in, with a decent variety ranging from the ramen planet’s chopsticks and ramen bowls, to the sun’s monocled lightbulbs. There are five characters to choose from, with each having their own flying ice lolly or ice cream, shooting pattern as well as unique special move, which gives benefits to trying them all out - however they all sadly have the exact same ending, which is a bit of a letdown - we were hoping to have a different ending for each character to give further incentive to going back in for each of the five playthroughs as opposed to just replaying the final level (since that will pop the achievements, too).
The pixel art is nicely done, with bright levels filled with simple but well designed enemies - and fantastically creepy, verging on grotesque Bosses that really came as a bit of a surprise. Who would have though a giant vegetable could look so horrifying!? It can get a bit crowded on screen at times, and with some enemies popping up from the edges giving you very little time to react, and enemy projectiles frequently being hidden by gems that you’re actively trying to collect you’ll quickly grow frustrated from repeated deaths. The soundtrack consists of an upbeat, looping track that is actually quite pleasant to listen to despite it going on for the majority of the game.
You can collect power-ups along the way to the bosses, to upgrade your character’s attack - but will lose this immediately upon death. Each popsicle you pick up will improve your attack, adding more projectiles and giving you a wider area of attack. These are different for each character too, expanding upon their unique attacks, such as the knock-off Superman’s laser beams shooting out in different directions the more you collect. This is Allan’s favourite of the characters whereas mine is the bootleg Sailor Moon on a Twister lolly! You can also come across different coloured spoons which give you a little buddy on your journey, adding different buffs in the form of gem-magnets, a shield or additional firepower.
The game doesn’t take very long to complete, however it does have achievements tied to playing through the full game as each of the five available characters, which will get you going back for more if you want to nab them all. Likewise, there are three difficulty achievements for you to unlock, but even playing on the hardest mode isn’t too much of a challenge until the final level where it has a bit of a sharp incline - so whipping that one out first means you’ll get that out of the way so you can play as one other character on medium and the rest on easy to blast through it quickly since doing it on hard doesn’t clear the lower difficulty achievements simultaneously.
You’ve got classic, retro collectibles in the form of letters being scattered throughout the levels to spell out ‘ICE CREAM’ and there’s also a Gallery with a lot of art to look through, as well as a pretty lengthy two-part Comic that tells some backstory, which was actually a pretty good read with some great artwork. There’s not a lot of replayability on offer, despite the achievements forcing you to go back for multiple runs - it’s quite lacking in content, even adding a few more levels would have sufficed. But for the short play time it offers, we had fun. So if this sounds sweet enough for you, then you can get it for £6.69 on the Xbox Store.
In the end, we decided to give Ice Cream Surfer the Collecting Asylum rating of 6.5/10.
Have you played Ice Cream Surfer yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Dolores Entertainments for the Ice Cream Surfer Xbox review code!
