Cut the Rope

Written Review

Cost: 500 points / $5
Gameplay: 9/10
Replay Value: 7/10
Graphics: 8/10
Sounds: 9/10
Price: 6/10

Cut the Rope is a game that made it's original debut on the iPhone and has since expanded to Android and most recently the Nintendo DSi. It's a physics-based puzzle game with a very simple goal: you must somehow get a piece of candy to a cute, green creature called "Om-Nom". As well as transporting the candy, you must also collect stars in order to unlock more levels. As its name would suggest, you move the candy by cutting ropes.

Throughout the game's 125 levels, many different mechanics and techiques are employed. The levels start out very simply with only ropes for you to cut, and you must figure out the proper order (and sometimes timing) to cut them. As the game progresses, though, you see many new mecahnics such as bubbles (which make the candy float upwards), automatic ropes (which cast out a rope to the candy as soon as it is within range), spiders (which try to steal your candy), and many more. Sometimes levels are as simple as figuring out what you need to do and in what order, but sometimes you need to time cuts properly to preserve momentum. All in all, it leads to some very interesting level design and involves reflexes as much as brain-power.

Overall, Cut the Rope is just as good a game as it was on the iPod. Obviously the graphics had to be downgraded, but they still look nice, and the sounds are the same. My complaint, though, is the price. The iPhone and Android versions both cost merely a dollar, while this one costs $5. While it's still a great game, it's a bit disappointing to realize that a version with nicer graphics and more levels (the other version receives updates regularly) costs so much less than this one. Additionally, I collected 3 stars in every level from the first 4 boxes in less than 2 and 1/2 hours, and then lost motivation to 3-star the levels in the final box. While I like that Cut the Rope is a game that you can pick up and play for literally only 5 minutes, I still found it to be a bit disappointingly short for its price.