Tis the season to be jolly fa la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……..

At least that was the case before an army of shadey characters showed up at the north pole and stole all the holiday cheer. Now Santa has to take them all out with his trusty water pistol and get X-mas back on track.

Fans of games like the original Mario Bros. and Bubble Bobble will appreciate this game as a kickback to classic arcade gameplay.

The art in the game is very well rendered (as is the case for most MiniClip games) all the way from the characters to the backgrounds. The music is festive without being TOO x-massy, and the sounds, just like the art, are very fitting for the whole classic arcade presentation of this game.

The gameplay isn’t very complicated and you can pick it up pretty quick: Use the arrows to walk, jump and drop through floors. You need to get within range of the baddies, without getting hit yourself, and soak them with water (using SPACE). This freezes them bit by bit until they are fully encased in ice. Once you have an enemy trapped you can kick the ice-ball like a padded man at a women’s self defense class to take out other baddies. Each enemy you take out drops a present, decoration, or holiday treat that you can grab to boost your score.

After a few levels I started thinking the game was bound to get pretty repetitive, but I was pleased to see that wasn’t the case. Every few levels you run into a boss who you have to beat in some special way. If you are like _altr_ and have to take frequent piss breaks because you just finished your second six pack at breakfast, there is a pause feature, which is finally become much more standard in flash games.

So yeah, this game doesn’t have a ton of depth to it, and there’s not a lot to see, but older gamers like myself who grew up playing these type of arcade style games will get some enjoyable play time out of Deep Freeze. And even if you don’t care about that style of play, it’s still an x-mas game. Go play it and get with the holiday spirit and all that rot.

[ Play Deep Freeze ]