"America's Largest Killer of Time?"...Not quite.

When Zoop came out, it came out on EVERYTHING...Game Boy, Genesis, Super NES, and even the Playstation got it. Zoop is one of the harder-to-find Playstation One games. It was only released in the long cases in North America and is (as of this review) listed as having a rarity of seven out of ten, which is pretty dang rare, over at the Digital Press rarity guide. Sometimes games are rare simply because nobody wanted them...Either because it wasn’t hyped enough or because it was just plain terrible. With the number of systems it got thrown on, and I still remember all of the ads for the game in various gaming magazines (as well as a few in non-gaming magazines, too) it obviously got itself hyped just fine. So could the rarity of this game be based off of that it’s terrible? Well, probably not.

Zoop is a puzzle game put out by Viacom that gloats itself as being “America’s Largest Killer of Time.” While the game is enjoyable for a while, and does have the potential to be a game that you play to kill a lot of time, it just lacks something to make it really stand out as a great puzzle game – variety. Nothing really changes in Zoop aside from the backgrounds...And here and there, new little surprises pop up, but essentially, you’re just doing the exact same things over and over for 99 levels. The game is fun...But not so fun that you’ll be willing to play 99 levels of the exact same thing.



Basically, you’re an arrow within a square in the middle of the screen. Colored shapes start to move towards you, you need to eliminate these shapes. You can only eliminate shapes that are the same color as your arrow. If you eliminate a shape and a different colored shape is behind it, your arrow changes into the color of the shape that was behind the one that you eliminated. In the place of the shape that you changed colors into, the colored shape of the color you once were appears...So, let’s say you’re a red arrow and you eliminate a red shape that has a green shape behind it. By eliminating the red shape, you become a green arrow and a red shape appears in the place where that green shape was. It’s more confusing to read it than to actually play; you’ll catch on quickly once you pick up the controller. Once the shapes get close enough to you in the square, they’ll pounce on you and it’ll be game over, so you’ve got to be quick and eliminate the shapes as quickly as possible while trying to set up combos for a high score.

Graphically, this is the best version of Zoop that I’ve seen...Which makes sense because it’s the most powerful system of the Zoop games released in North America. Some of the backgrounds are quite beautiful, like the one with a blue sky and clouds in the background....However others aren’t quite as enjoyable. But, you won’t be focused on the backgrounds much, you’ll be focused more on the actual gameplay. The graphics aren’t great here, but they don’t need to be. They more than do their job. This audio is decent. It’s nothing that’ll ‘wow’ you, but it’s also not going to make you reach for the mute button, either. The audio is decent, and like the graphics of the actual gameplay, it’s not great, but it more than gets the job done.



Zoop is actually a pretty fun puzzle game and it’s kind of a shame that the Playstation version is so rare. If it had sold better, or if more folks had known about its existence, perhaps we could’ve seen a sequel expand on the ideas and gameplay found here and create a puzzle game that was truly great. As it is, Zoop is a decent puzzle game, but there’s only so much Zoop that one can take before getting bored. If the gameplay was as solid as, say Tetris, 99 levels of repetition isn’t so bad, but Zoop isn’t quite on the same level as Tetris. As it is, Zoop is a very good choice for any Playstation owners that are looking for a decent puzzle game....That is, if you’re able to find it.

7/10