Holy Moley Review And Competition

My first impression of Holy Moley was a multiplayer version of the old mobile phone game ‘Snake’, although it is much more than that.  You play a mole in this multiplayer-based game and you have to dig underground and not run into any objects on the level, or where you or another mole has already dug. The objective is simple – the last mole standing wins.

Why the name Holy Moley? Well, you can choose from 1 of 5 moles which all seem to have a different religious background by their choice of headgear, which is how you identify where your mole is located on screen. Up to 4 moles can play at once, either player or computer controlled. There are 24 different levels to choose from – 6 each of grasslands, jungle, ice or desert – or if you’re stuck on which level to play, there is also a random feature.

There are 2 game modes – either first to X rounds wins (X being from 5 up to 500), or ‘King of the Moles’ where points are allocated or taken away depending on where you have placed in a game, and the first to 10 points wins. Players leading in the game will have a star above their head, which means you know who to try to take down as a priority.

A great feature about the game are the power ups. Power-ups fall from the sky, and include speeding up your mole, slowing it down, making it invincible, or activating ‘Holy Moley’ mode where more power-ups are showered on to the screen. There were problems with the power ups, however, as you do not always know how long the effects will last for which can lead to a premature death, and sometimes you can go an entire level without seeing any at all.

Objects within a level terrain can range from a landmine to an octopus or even massive holes in the ground, which you often find you bump into or fall down due to them being odd shapes and not knowing how close you are able to get to them. There are also patches of water in some levels that you are able to swim in, but be warned – swim in them for too long and you will drown! However, you can use this to your advantage and box other moles in so that they die, which couldn’t be more satisfying.

A massive problem I encountered with the game was the stupidity of the CPU moles. These moles would frequently fall off the levels, down the holes, and run into their own trail without any need to whatsoever. This led to very biased scoring towards yourself – one round I played I ended up with a score of 40 and the CPU moles had scores of 7, 14 and 8. So either the CPU moles are stupid, or I am just amazing at this game.

Of course, the solution to this problem is playing with friends. This is a VERY fun game to play with others, and it is such a shame that the game does not support Live. Playing with friends’ means you have opposition that has half a brain (probably), and a much better game experience. Additional players can also join part way through a game.

The review score for this game is based on the overall experience when playing multiplayer with “real people”. In this way you don’t get bored quickly, and there are plenty of different levels and power ups to keep you occupied. Plus you don’t have the problem of levels being cut short by another holy mole that always seem to be in a hurry to meet their maker.

Holy Moley is available now to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace for 240 Microsoft Points.

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Competition

We have 3 codes for Holy Moley to give away in our competition. For your chance to win, you must be a twitter user and you will have to tweet the following:

RT and follow @GamenoobUK and @Funbulb for your chance to win one of 3 codes for Holy Moley. Visit http://bit.ly/dfuafq for more info. #GNHM

Rules

• You must be following @GamenoobUK and @Funbulb on twitter to win.
• Competition will close at 6pm (UK time) on Saturday 25th September.
• Maxium of 1 retweet per person per day. Any more than this and you will be disqualified.
• Winners will be chosen at random and will be posted on our twitter page shortly after the competition ends.