ChuChu Rocket! (Game Boy Advance)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.4 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Greg Kasavin
• Reviewed on: 06/11/2001
• Released on: 06/10/2001
• Originally published on GameSpot: ChuChu Rocket! (Game Boy Advance) Review

In light of the discontinuation of the Dreamcast, ChuChu Rocket--one of the first games available for the Game Boy Advance--is the first result of Sega's decision to focus on developing and publishing software for other platforms. It's a fairly unassuming puzzle game and, as such, perhaps not what you'd expect from Sega's first venture onto a Nintendo console. Nevertheless, even though it's basically a direct port of the original game for the Dreamcast, ChuChu Rocket is actually very well suited for the Game Boy Advance--it's the closest thing to Tetris that's currently available in the US. It'll take you a little while to get used to the controls, but once you do, you'll find that ChuChu Rocket offers a lot of value and a lot of fun for moments or hours at a time, for one to four players.

Essentially, in ChuChu Rocket, your goal is to help guide packs of mice to escape a level as quickly as possible before patrolling cats can gobble them up. It's a simple premise, and the game has simple but appealing graphics to match. You view the action from above, which is an ideal perspective for planning how to best approach each stage. Mice move in predictably linear patterns and won't head for stage exits on their own. To assist them, your job is to place tiles that make the mice change direction. These tiles can also be used to foil the cats, which are slower than mice but follow the same patterns.

This basic set of rules is used for two distinctly different modes of play in ChuChu Rocket: the single-player puzzle mode, as well as the action-packed battle mode, which can be played by up to four human players and with four linked Game Boy Advance units--but just one game cartridge. The puzzle mode is challenging and features more than 2,000 different puzzles of varying difficulty, many of which were designed by fans of ChuChu Rocket for the Dreamcast. Each puzzle gives you a limited allocation of directional tiles that you'll have to drop precisely to let the mice escape. You can easily reset a puzzle so that the tougher ones invariably boil down to a process of trial and error. Still, they're fun to figure out, and if you get stuck on one, you can usually just skip over to another. There's no shortage of puzzles in the game--there's a stage challenge mode that offers some variations on the basic rules, and there's even an option to build your own with a simple set of building blocks. You can then exchange these puzzles with your friends.

Continue reading

Where to buy

ChuChu Rocket! (Game Boy Advance): $34.95

store	price	in stock?	rating
eBay	$34.95	Yes

see prices from 1 store

Compare prices for ChuChu Rocket!

eBay

$34.95