First Impressions: Snake Pass

I was going to do a snake joke but I thought that would be sssssily...

Snake Pass first came onto my radar when I saw a couple of YouTubers playing it. I've regained my appetite for bright, colourful 3D platformers in recent months and it looked excellent. I was torn between getting it on the Sssswitch or PC (as with any indie game these days). However, my choice was made for me when I was given the code by Martin (of blog fame) from the Humble Monthly for PC.

Loading it up, I noticed two things immediately. Firsssstly, the ssscreen was flickering like crazy. I searched online and this happened to quite a few people - a sssimple reload fixed the problem. Ssssssecondly, the game is made for controller use and by that I mean it can't be played at all with mouse and keyboard, so be sure to have a controller handy if playing on PC. You quickly realise that this is a needed restriction for the gameplay, but still it's a bit of a frustration.

Once I got on the game, I noticed another two things. Firsssstly, the graphics are lovely, with colours popping out of the screen and vibrant environments. Sssssecondly, how intuitive the controls actually are. You see, you play as a sssssnake. And move like a sssssnake. While just holding RT can allow you to move, if you sssssslither you move much faster and it just feels right. Quite quickly I was moving around like a snake, coiling around and climbing as much as possible.

Being a puzzle platformer, the aim of the game is to work out how to climb to reach your destination. In this case, the keystones are your objective, with coins and orbs being ssssssecondary collectables. You raise your head with A and can tighten your grip with LT, otherwise its just a case of working out your weight limit and inching your way to the top. From the first couple of levels I've played, it's not too challenging, although certainly has scope to be. I've found approaching the puzzles from the outside and working it out before trying less successful than intuitively moving your sssssnake around the obstacles.

In terms of story, it ssssseems to be that sssssomething is dropping the keystones from the gates, taking the colour from the world as it does sssso. Sssso far, sssso platformer, and I'm OK with that. It's a nice game to just play, sssslowly completing the levels and enjoying the world. You can change the expression of your ssssnake as well, which is fun to play around with.

Conclusion: overall, the game is a joy to play, especially in a world and gaming ssssscene which is more concerned with fast paces and hard decisions. Sssssometimes you just want to collect coins as a ssssnake.

Thanks for reading, Ssssatmer.