Snakeybus drives perfectly across a tightrope of its demanding score attack sensibilities & otherwise inherently hilarious, fun & relaxing side of lo-fi tunes & insane concept. Cheap & brilliant.Hollow Night.

For me, 'simple with great execution' trumps 'ambitious with poor execution' every time. That every review and preview starts to blur into one amorphous mass is a testament to how true this really is for Snakeybus. You can only reiterate 'Crazy Taxi meets Snake' in so many ways.

Here's my stab at it. Taking control of an articulated bus you deliver passengers to destinations - so far so normal. The twists in the tale are, one, that the bus doesn't ever stop (thankfully passengers can embark/disembark in an ethereal manner, lest you be driving a bus in name only!) and, most importantly, two, passengers delivered add sections that extend your bus. Snake was always genius, but there's something about its translation to 3D space here that feels yet more so.

Snakeybus is about getting caught in a web of your own making. Watching hundreds of bus sections trundling behind you occupy every free space in the map is a sight to behold and one for which few games can compare. Eventually, your minimap, which marks your extended presence on the map becomes an incomprehensible mess of squiggles, or worse, an outline of the entire map. Every movement needs to be purposeful, lest you get halted in your tracks or make an ill-judged turn into an abyss - game over. It's all wonderful mind game stuff. You can use time-limited rocket boosters to create openings for yourself to drive under or play the more desperate moment to moment game of panic-cutting across gaps or jumping over yourself. Like the finest score attack games of its kind (e.g. Devil Daggers), finding and breaking the upper limit of your time intact is compulsive.

Paris tourism doesn't seem as busy as usual.

Snakeybus isn't all stress and passengers spilling out of fiery carnage, it's also the nadir of chill-out pleasure thanks to its outstanding presentation. Snakeybus doles out its levels according to the number of level plays (making you give each level its due) and starts off strong with a 'squint and it has a real photorealistic quality,' squashed depiction of Pa-ree. True to its claims, its later levels aren't just visual variation with its 80s Miami, striking cylindrical abstraction, etc, but generate markedly different forms of play too. Paris's cramped roads and hazardous river give way to winding platforms and perhaps worse, open areas and complete freedom. The bus select screen eschews menus for a physical bus swerving around a corner and taking out whatever live, dynamic traffic is there at that time. And the music, the MUSIC - the lo-fi study beats that have become such an internet sensation are a masterstroke here.

It helps the control is pitch perfect. Not content with oversimplifying, Snakeybus gives you the ability to drift, to accelerate, and as mentioned, to rocket-propelled jump which gets cut off for a significant time after depletion. It controls like a dream on a keyboard or now controller. A first-person perspective can be toggled to, but I wouldn't recommend the handicap! Just another dose of fun in a bottle of it.

As with any score attack game and repeat plays, the interesting part comes later into the level when you've got to the length wherein you're impeding yourself. A genre issue, perhaps, that you have to go through the motions on each replay to get to that moment or your personal best. Maybe some kind of toggle-on rewind mechanic is the answer to this? That would compromise the leaderboard purity the game achieves, however. All in all, it's a short space of time to complain about, but it did come to mind.

You've got to hate it when the bus skips your stop.

Snakeybus drives perfectly across a tightrope of its demanding score attack sensibilities and otherwise inherently hilarious, fun and relaxing side of lo-fi tunes and insane concept. With its inspired design and surprising spectacle, it's my favourite kind of game. One that's focused on delivering unique gameplay you couldn't get anywhere in the triple-A space, but not disposable and delivered with the polish and execution regardless. I just can't wait to see how updates proceed for this one. The potential is through the roof. It's cheap (but anything but cheap); it's brilliant; it's Snakeybus.