Super Cosmic Word Snake for iPad Review

Super Cosmic Word Snake takes a simple concept and renders it with such flair, style and creativity that it's hard to resist. The combination of old-school charm and sophisticated iOS design makes it stand out in the way, way, way overcrowded iOS games category.

Once loaded, the game resembles an 80s-era two player tabletop video game, complete with coin slots. In fact, Super Cosmic Word Snake seems ideally created for two players, head-to-head, so the metaphor of the game works well throughout. One player "controls" the snake (more on that later) and the other controls a small ship trying to destroy all of the pieces of the snake - a la Centipede/Millipede. Each segment of the snake is made up a letter of a larger word. The player controlling the snake must use a set of randomly-generated letters to form 3-4 letter words. Each time a new word is formed and submitted (and accepted by the computer's AI), the snake adds as many new segments as the word has letters. The goal for the snake, then, is to survive long enough to reach the other player and destroy his ship.

Super Cosmic Word Snake offers a tremendous variety of gameplay, since one player gets an arcade-style shooter while the other is essentially playing a fast-paced word game. Credit has to be given to the developers for creating such an innovative, fascinating mash-up of genres and play styles. The fact that it works marvelously, and is visually pleasing, is just icing on the proverbial cake.

For those itching to play, but lacking another person to play against (sadly there's no online multiplayer - yet - maybe it will come in an update?), there is a one player variant of the game. In this version, players are the snake and the computer controls the ship attempting to destroy it. The computer AI is pretty good, so fast typing skills are needed to defeat it.

Super Cosmic Word Snake is a simple, yet addictive game that's best played with two players. How often can that be said about an arcade game on iOS?