Penguins Arena: Sedna’s World – Review
Climate change has always been a hot topic and while some people seem to understand the seriousness of it and try to help, others just keep on living their life and forget the topic even exists. Developer FroGames chose to take the second approach by creating a funny game in which we see the results of climate change in a very different way. The studio decided not to see this topic through the eyes of human beings, but chose penguins instead. Indeed, penguins!
Story
The world was warned that one day our climate would change because we decided not to help. In Penguins Arena the world has already changed because of global warming and pollution. Not only did it effect the entire world population but animals also suffered because of our fault. Penguins were hit the hardest as the ice started to melt and all fish went away. The penguins were starving until one day the penguin goddess Sedna appeared in front of them.
The goddess told the penguins that only one tribe could survive or they would die from starvation. The penguins began to think on how they could solve the problem when an idea hit them. They decided to fight in an arena, namely the Penguins Arena, a place where penguin tribes come together to fight for their survival.
Graphics
Penguins Arena was released in 2008, so don’t expect very realistic looking graphics. The fun part of the game are the funny looking things that even a child of seven years old could make with a little bit of drawing skills. The penguins all have a different color and look like they all ate a little bit too much fish. Even the maps look like a really simplistic drawing, the sea and sky look like a blue colored background, the ice is just a layer of white colors and the only thing that looks a bit realistic are the geysers that can shoot you in the air.
Sound
Once you start the game a cinematic starts to play, explaining how Penguins Arena was founded. During this cinematic you’ll hear music that makes you feel a little sad, but then the main menu pops-up and you’ll immediately get overloaded with joyful music which you can also hear while playing in an arena.
Gameplay
Penguins Arena is an action shooter game that has three different modes you can play: Teams, Duels and Unlimited. In each mode it’s your task to push your enemies in the water by throwing snowballs at them. Each penguin has a couple of lives and every time you get pushed into the water you’ll lose one. When all penguins have lost their lives you’re the winner and get some points depending on your remaining lives. You get two points if you win and an extra point per life. The maximum score for each round is 5 points but you’ll have to make sure that you don’t fall in the water even once to reach the max amount of points.
In Teams you play (as the name would suggest) in a team. There are four teams with three players in it, each player has one life and every time a player lands in the water your team loses one point. The first team that manages to eliminate all other penguins will be crowned as the winner.
We couldn’t really play the Duels game mode because of the very limited servers. It’s one of the main problems this game has. You could create your own server but then again it’s almost impossible to find other player that are willing to play. Since the game is almost eight years old it’s not completely incomprehensible that players already lost their interest to play this game.
In Unlimited mode you can play as long as you want. There are four players with each three lives, once every opposing penguin has lost all of their lives you win. The score keeps on stacking until eventually you stop playing.
Every time somebody wins you’ll play on another map which is also filled with power-ups that help you push your enemies a little bit easier into the water or you won’t get knocked back so easily. There are 5 different power ups: Sedna’s Egg (which protects you from any hits), Dynamite Fish (a bomb that knocks back enemies with its blast radius), Gust of Clownfishes (makes you shoot clownfishes very fast instead of snowballs), Big Bomb (makes you hit your enemies harder so they are a lot easier to push in the water) and finally Bear Claws (which makes it harder for the enemies to push you).
Conclusion
Penguins Arena: Sedna’s World is a fun game to play! Although it’s hard to find any servers these times some players will think that it’s not worth their money anymore. The replayability is very high and once you start playing it takes a while before you choose to quit the game. It’s the combination of funny looking penguins, joyful music and very simple mechanics that make this game worth a try.
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