The sequel to the unofficial sequel to Fruit Ninja.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewmini/32879/cake-ninja-2-nintendo-ds
Cake Ninja 2 is a masterpiece; never in my life have I seen such an egregious and obvious effort to duplicate a successful game while still managing to get it all wrong. I imagine the pitch meeting included someone nonchalantly suggesting "replace dicing fruit with dicing cake and I think they can't sue us." All this, despite the fact that this is their second go at it and the game it is duplicating is freely available on pretty much any device with a touch screen, assuming that device isn't a Nintendo system. And that, of course, is the rub. Cake Ninja 2 is Fruit Ninja for the DSiWare service.
Already a thin gameplay conceit, Cake Ninja 2 has been sterilized of any of the charm that has made Fruit Ninja successful. The visuals are ugly and grainy, and oddly enough the titular cakes don't look the part. The simplistic gameplay is even more tiring than its inspiration by relegating any and all strategy into simply thrashing the stylus around the touch screen without significant regard for watermelons, which oddly (in what I like to think is a sarcastic nod to their “inspiration”) injure you. In fact, there is little point in being tactical as some of the power-ups will, unavoidably, manage to hit these hazards for you. The sequel adds additional gameplay modes that, while scored somewhat differently from one another, feel largely indistinguishable. All you do is flail at cakes, mode be damned. Sometimes you can only flail at specific cakes, but you're still flailing at cakes.
The cheap, copycat, mentality of Cake Ninja 2 leaves it the most cynically designed game I've ever played. It is utterly bereft of fun, challenge, or creativity. The only reason one should play this game is if they're working on a cease and desist order on behalf of Halfbrick Studios. Even then, you certainly wouldn't enjoy the experience.
Topic: Cake Ninja 2 Review Mini (Read 3287 times)
