Prey the Stars: Gabu Gabu Planet is a strange name for a game, you have to admit and even after playing this game for the sake of this review the title still means nothing to me, but at least it’s a fun game.
Gabu is a dog-like alien that has crashed to earth and all he and his mates want to do is eat as much as possible. The game itself is like an action puzzler, you control Gabu and you have 3 other aliens fighting for the food on the screen, you run up to a piece of food and bash the face buttons to eat it as quickly as possible, if you hit the buttons in time to the bars on the screen, you will earn bonus points, eating lots of items and you earn a power up ,GABUGABU time, this means you can eat things quicker too. If an enemy gets in the way you can simply brush them aside and if you get lucky they will fall off the side of the level and lose some vital points.
You start the game as a very small Gabu, eating only eggs, radios and drink cans, as you complete levels you will move onto larger items like stereos, cakes, and then even larger items grandfather clocks, stadiums, ponds and houses.
To progress through to the later levels you need to fill a spirit meter, to help you get extra points certain food holds special abilities, if you eat 3 of a kind you will be given a special, this can be a bomb to throw at an opponent or a dizzy which slows them down or even a wave that spreads across the screen, knocking all out of the way, although this also takes out the food which you then have to wait to re-energize.
Not all food is edible straight away, some items are too big for Gabu to eat so you need to hunt out the power up food, eat a few of these and your stomach level will increase, allowing you to eat those lovely tiered cakes that have been teasing you. The stomach level can be increased a few times allowing you to chomp down on huge foodstuffs, get hit by an enemy though and its back to square one.
Eating is not the only requirement of the game as some of the items are protected by elements like water and fire, so instead of eating them you need to lick them using the X button, again doing this in time will earn you extra points. There are also spirits hidden away in some items, by using the suck power to eat these you will get even more bonus points.
Gabu Gabu Panic utilizes the dual screens well, you have the main action on the top screen and the map and scores on the bottom, a small disappointment is that throughout the start of the game all you use is the touch screen, but the actual gameplay itself is all about using the buttons, I would of liked to have seen an alternative control option personally, but you can’t win them all.
To add a bit of variation to the game you can also open new challenges in each level and also unlock some of Gabu’s friends, Bari, Pero and Chuchu, collection fans are also catered for, throughout the game you can pick up skins and these will alter the appearance of your monster, like a strawberry skin or a football, each skin will also boost abilities giving you bonuses like faster eating or movement.
This is quite a fun game, the running around and eating things is fast paced and you always need to keep an eye on your opponents, making sure they don’t eat your fruit for a combo or even try to eat you, however it does get a bit repetitive. The amount of skins to collect opens up the game and you can play against friends online or in a single card battle. Good fun and a bit different.
