Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: Foodimal Frenzy Review

Back in 2009 audiences were surprised to find a charming and adorable animated film in theaters, referring to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. A few years later and we're just weeks away from the release of the sequel, but there's no need to fret. Sony Pictures Animation teamed up with some cool folks to create Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: Foodimal Frenzy, a cute-as-a-button iPhone game that combines folks' excitement for the sequel with our general addiction for Bejeweled-like app games.

The game begins with a tutorial where it shows how to connect and save the foodimals. The more you save, the higher your score. Instead of constricting you to only get three in a row diagonally or vertically, you can swipe your finger any which way so long as the particular foodimal is next to the rest of your line. Next thing you know, you're swiping like crazy with this newfound finger-swiping freedom.

Similar to Candy Crush, you're aiming not only to save a certain amount of foodimals, but also hit goals that will give you a certain amount of stars. If you don't hit the minimum goal, you can't move forward. In some ways this game is a little too easy to get through. Sure, they try their best to raise up the difficulty with what you have to do each level, but with the surplus of Celebrationators (which wipes out all of that type of foodimal that's carrying one), and bonus rounds it's tough to even fail a round. Within the first hour I zoomed through most of the levels with enough stars acquired to get me onto the next. At the same time, there's a lot of levels to comb through so it'll eat up any time you were killing by playing on your phone.

And let the Candy Crush comparisons continue. You run out of battery lives? No matter. Either you go and spend a dollar on a couple more, or wait a half hour to let your lives recharge. There's even some special added bonuses you can buy outside of the level for a couple of bucks that'll ensure your victory over a difficult level. The bonuses are useful to a degree but kind of unnecessary with such a easy game.

At least the graphics are absolutely adorable and nice to look at. The different foodimals have the same kind of 2D animation style similar to the end credits of the first Cloudy movie, which raises up this game's cute-meter. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: Foodimal Frenzy is fun to play through but a little too easy for my taste.

App Store Link: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: Foodimal Frenzy for iPhone & iPad | By PlayFirst, Inc. | Price: Free | Version: 1.3.2 | 46.5 MB | Rating: 4+