ah. i was truly suckered into blowing $30 on a rushed licensed product. i really am an adult now.

cosmic shake feels so weird. it constantly feels like it should be a great game. the controls are solid enough, the graphics are appealing, and it's running on the basis of the bfbb remake that i thought was great. yet, the new direction they take with the gameplay feels rushed at best. the game tells you where to go and what to do, and besides some side collectables, it's a straight shot to the finish with little non-visual variety. abilities that spongebob once had in the heavy iron games are no longer around, and you have to progress in the game to learn new ones (artificially making it so that you have to backtrack to previous levels if you want to 100% them). combat is drolling and repetitive, especially when they force you to take down the three-hit tanks. everything just feels worse.

this sentiment extends to the game's identity as well. half of the writing is references, and all of it isn't funny - precisely because it plays it way too safe and hogties itself to what older people might vaguely recall spongebob to be. i don't think anything made me respect the current spongebob crew's aim to give modern episodes a distinct difference from classic episodes than seeing a random european writing group's fanfiction given a budget. to that end, the audio - music is unmemorable, the voice lines play way too frequently, and sound mixing leaves much to be desired.

i could be much meaner. i thought i was going to be meaner. i also thought this might have turned out better than it ended up. i had high hopes for at least another solid spongebob adventure. i pre-ordered this for $10 less than msrp. unfortunately, when i finally got around to this, all i ended up with was a disappointment.