It doesn't take long to realize that something about Ice Age Online looks a little familiar. Only moments after creating an account and logging in, you'll use your head to bash hard objects to reveal small stashes of rewards and hurl projectile at incoming baddies. After that, you'll leap across pits, stomp on turtles, and complete each stage by running past a green flag. There are a few new tricks in store and a noticeable absence of verdant plumbing pipes, but I could probably end this review right now by calling Ice Age Online a reskin of Super Mario Bros. and you'd know exactly what to expect.
The Ice Age is heating up. The fourth movie in the popular Ice Age franchise, titled "Continental Drift," hits theatres in July (just in time to offer psychological relief to overheated kids slogging through their summer vacation). 20th Century Fox isn't waiting to build up hype for the movie, though. The studio has already teamed up with Gameloft to publish Ice Age Village, a city-building game for iOS, and now it's working with Bigpoint to bring us Ice Age Online, a free-to-play browser-based game.