Review

Written by Sarah Rowland | Edited by Jade Swann

Cannibal Cuisine has great bone structure, but could use more meat. With original characters and new theming, it offers a new twist on the classic delivery game, but suffers from co-op bugs, difficulty imbalances, and physics issues.

Thin on the Bone

Get that Hoochooboo some flesh! Cannibal Cuisine really delivers on its promised name. You are an inhabitant of Cannibal Island and there has been peace between you and the (what I called “lava monsters”) Hoochooboo for centuries. Now, for some reason, they have decided they want more. More what? More human flesh. Let’s call a spade a spade. You knew what you were getting into when you saw the title.

SO HARD YET SO EASY

So, this flesh the monsters crave doesn’t come from sacrificing your own people. No, you must beat and kill the tourists in order to get meat. My question: who would tour Cannibal Island? It says cannibal in its title! I say those tourists had it coming. Don’t misunderstand though, the tourists fight back, and in single-player mode it is very difficult to kill and pick up the meat. You are constantly trying to kill these people. There are at least three other tourists kicking, punching, and straight up trying to kill you back. I died many a time, as it was way too difficult to handle on my own. With co-op, you have more than one cannibal killing the tourists, so it then becomes super easy. There’s no middle ground. It’s either too hard, or too easy.

SPEAKING OF CO-OP

Co-op mode was the hardest part of this game. Single-player mode was a breeze compared to trying to get into co-op mode. It took two and a half hours to figure out how to connect to co-op and we’re not talking about once-a-week players here; all four of us are big gamers and use co-op on other games. Even after all that time, we were still only able to get two out of four players into a game. One of the players who tested the game with me had the game repeatedly crash each and every time he tried to get into co-op. It seemed to be a huge problem.

BARRELS’O’FUN

Let’s talk about another aspect of the game: crossing rivers multiple times to get to the tourists requires something to walk on. Sounds simple, right? Yeah, it’s not simple. There are barrels upon barrels for crossing, but they are terrible. If you want to play a game where you keep falling into the river because the barrels are terrible, this is the game of your dreams. There are just too many problems with the barrels. Half the time I was able to walk across the water, making the barrels obsolete, the other times where I actually used the barrels were nothing special. Why not have one barrel per player in the game? Playing on your own? One barrel to cross the river. Playing co-op with a total of four people? Four barrels for you. It just makes more sense.

PLAYERS SHOULD GET MEAT TOO

So, this game could really be something. There is a lot of bone structure, but the physics feel wrong. Walking on water, getting your ass handed to you on single-player mode, and being way too easy on co-op. Let’s talk about the bones: new twist to the standard delivery type of game, original characters, great graphics, fantastic music and FX... it adds up to a winner, yet falls short when it’s about to cross the finish line. Add the meat! Give me a chance when I’m playing alone. Make me fall into water if I try to walk over it. Take some barrels out! It’s so close, but a little too skinny.

DASH... I MEAN COOK... I MEAN CANNIBAL?

Whether you’re a sometimes gamer, hardcore gamer, cell phone gamer, or even a platform gamer, you’ve played a game similar to this. It’s mission driven, get A from place 1 and deliver to B at place 2, with levels increasing what you need to do and adding additional factors. Close your eyes for a second and think about it. Yeah, you probably thought of one of the big guys in this genre and I don’t blame you. They’ve been around for a good time. This title is different in its own ways, though. I’ve never been a cannibal before, or had to slice and dice tourists either. Both those things (along with the Hoochooboo) make this more of an original idea in the genre.