Cookie & Cream review

You’d think that controlling two candy-colored rabbits simultaneously through obstacles and puzzles was exactly what the DS was built for. Unfortunately, the god-awful truth is that unlike its much-better/much-cuter PS2 predecessor, Cookie & Cream falls short due to its lazy controls and what-the-hell puzzles.

Rather than two players maneuvering through short levels and tackling puzzles to disarm traps in order to proceed like the PS2 version (sounds good, huh?), Story mode lets only one rabbit bound distressingly slow through Point A-to-Point B stages. Hop on a button and then the maraca-shaking rabbit on the bottom screen must “solve” a puzzle to clear a pathway that lets the top-screen rabbit continue onwards.

Levels take about two minutes to complete and are as complicated as making a cheese sandwich. The only controls you really need to worry about are the d-pad - making diagonal movement a living hell - and jump. Like many platformers these days, jumping once is almost entirely useless, so play it safe and make it a double-jump, which will help when you try to land on a platform that requires absolute precision. Good thing the camera’s so damn far away that you’ll have to rely on your eagle-eye to spot the microscopic shadow where you’re aiming to land.

The touch screen-puzzles feel like a bastardized version of Wario Ware’s microgames; you get a set time to complete them - failing them does nothing but waste time - and you often have no clue what to do. Some are intuitive like “sawing” the screen to cut three pieces of rope, or going blue in the face, using the Mic to blow at a pinwheel. Others, however, could have used more focus testing like the one where you simply press a button… or the one where you grope the DS by holding the jump button so you can clumsily free your other hand to awkwardly grip the stylus and slash at the screen.