Cut the Rope

Summary

Who can resist sweets (or candy for all you North Americans out there)? The little green monster that stars in Cut the Rope most certainly can't! And – kind and virtuous Android user that you are – it's up to you to supply Om Nom with sweet treats.

Read on to find out whether we rate Cut the Rope as a delicious box of fine chocolates or a bag full of snot flavoured Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans!

As mentioned in the teaser, Cut the Rope is all about Om Nom, a sweet little monster that happens to be a sugar addict—and you're his supplier! Sweets/candy are suspended from ropes that have to be cut (by swiping across the display with your finger). Life is never easy, and so there are a bunch of obstacles to look out for, including:

• Spikes: Don't let them touch the candy—the level is over if you do.
• Bubbles: These make the sweets float away.
• Bellows: Admittedly these objects look quite a bit like whoopee cushions, but let's just refer to them as bellows. They're powerful enough to blow the sweets away.
• Spiders: These creepy crawlies slowly manoeuvre their way along certain ropes and if the manage to get their eight paws on some candy they will make off with it with an evil cackle.
• Electric sparks: They appear at set time intervals and, like the spikes, will cause a level to terminate if they come into contact with the candy.

There are tons more obstacles to look forward to—the developers certainly let their imaginations run wild when to it came to coming up with them. Some levels really do call for good timing and skill in order to score all three stars. Your final score at the end of each level can also be influenced by how much time it took you to get through a level. This means that the more often you repeat a level the higher your score is likely to be, seeing as by repeating a level your performance and timing will improve. Whether you're the type of gamer who will play one level over and over in order to reap the highest possible score is for you to know.

There are currently 10 level boxes available, each of them containing 25 levels meaning that there are a total of 250 levels to get through. The boxes are activated as you play and score stars. Each box brings new obstacles and challenges with it that increase as you play through a box's levels, meaning that there's a learning curve.

Compare your scores with other players via Scoreloop. The Scoreloop menu can be accessed via the main menu where you will also find a link to the official Cut the Rope and ZeptoLab (the game's developers') Facebook pages. An official YouTube channel can also be accessed via a sort of screen that you pull down from the top right corner of the display. Go to settings in order to de/activated music and FX sounds or to delete the game history. The settings – much like the rest of the application – have a very nice and tidy overall look to them.

Bottom line:
Cut the Rope is a great game and very effective time killer which can at times prove to be a real challenge and is thus never dull. If you enjoy challenging yourself you won't be disappointed as the game does incite to continuously top one's own best score. So there's action, there's a bit of a challenge, great graphics and there's a cute Om Nom monster to keep you entertained: an overall good combo and a sure crowd favourite with both younger and older players.

Playing Cut the Rope feels fairly intuitive and easy. New objects always come with a brief explanation so that there's never any confusion. The game's design is also very nicely done—Om Nom himself has quite a stage presence, so to speak.

Cut the Rope ran very smoothly throughout our test runs. Great overall performance!

Cut the Rope can be downloaded for EUR 0,68 from the Android Market which is a very fair price.