Cold Storage Review

The Yeti. The Abominable Snowman. Helper of Rudolph in the Christmas special classic. And now… gymnast?! Yep, there’s nothing that cute, monstrous ball of white fur can’t accomplish. In Cold Storage, he puts his mind to vaulting up caverns to save his friends. And he does it pretty well.

By
Share this
  • Share this on Facebook
  • Share this on Twitter

The Yeti. The Abominable Snowman. Helper of Rudolph in the Christmas special classic. And now… gymnast?! Yep, there’s nothing that cute, monstrous ball of white fur can’t accomplish. In Cold Storage, he puts his mind to vaulting up caverns to save his friends. And he does it pretty well.

From the minds at Nitrome comes a new chapter in the Siberian legend. Trapped at the bottom of a long, cold vault with nothing but poles to swing around to launch him higher, our abominable hero much collect as many of his friends trapped in ice bubbles on his way out as possible. Along the 16-level journey, he will encounter numerous obstacles and enemies, hindering his progress.

Controlling the game is pretty simple, using either the arrow keys or the W, A, S and D keys to guide him. As Yeti swings around a pole, timing the launch upward can vary his leaps from small hops to long lifts. As Yeti falls, you can guide him sideways in order to get him into a better position for the next leap. He can bounce off of walls and on top of safe surfaces as well, but watch out for spikes!

Cold Storage

There is a wide variety of poles, from standard metal ones to iced poles (that are harder to grip but make Yeti spin faster) to rusty poles (that disintegrate if you stay on too long) to striped super-launching poles. Level layouts often result in multiple pathways to the top, which is a lot of fun. Do you collect more of your friends to get a higher score? Or simply get to the top safely?

Hindering you is a small batch of baddies that fly around, shoot projectiles, fall on you or share your poles – all of them trying to deplete your precious three-heart energy gauge. If you leap from a striped launching pole, Yeti will be able to attack those foes. Should you get hit, you can damage enemies as well while Yeti is flashing.

Graphically, Cold Storage is cartoony fun. Yeti himself is smoothly animated, with lots of bright colors and fun sound effects. (For something quite funny, launch Yeti then let him fall into the ground. His little feet will dangle for a couple of seconds, followed by an indignant grunt.) There is only one music track that plays during the game. However, it doesn’t annoy or loop too quickly. Its quirky techno eight-bit style is infectious, and sticks in your head.

Not all is perfect for Yeti. Sometimes, when making a particularly long leap, you’ll swear that Yeti was right over the pole you wanted him to grab – often spinning right over it – yet failing to grasp it. Controlling Yeti is also sometimes tough. The controls aren’t very responsive, particularly moving side to side. Other times – though very rarely – you’ll be mashing the release button (up arrow or W) and Yeti just keeps on spinning. Granted, this only happened on angled poles if you want to do a quick leap through them, but when you really want Yeti to motor through a short section, he won’t necessarily do it. Finally, you’ll find when you reach level 13, the levels suddenly get a lot harder for the final four.

Overall, though, Cold Storage is a fun Flash diversion with serious quality. Nitrome knows how to make good Flash games, and it shows here. Take Yeti for a spin, and give Cold Storage a whirl. But be careful how you land!

The good

    The bad

      70 out of 100