SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake

I can absolutely tell that there are kids who will fall in love with it, and adults who are going to enjoy the nostalgic trip back to the occasionally surrealist world of Bikini Bottom.

Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake is such a blast! With great gameplay and a lot of nods to the Nickelodeon show, it brings a colorful vibe and joy to the whole family. Both hardcore gamers and casual ones will enjoy it.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is what you would imagine a warm Krabby Patty to be like – delicious comfort food that never fails to satisfy.

A must for SpongeBob fans who already couldn't put the controller down during Battle for Bikini Bottom.

Ideal for kids, its a great game to bond over between parents and children with a bit of old-fashioned gamepad swapping.

A solid sequel to compliment a wonderful franchise, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake offers a much more coherent adventure platformer than its predecessor. With each world feeling like it’s own TV episode, and a fun story throughout, there is a lot of fun to be had within this entry.

All in all, your enjoyment of The Cosmic Shake is going to depend on your history with SpongeBob. Fans of the show will appreciate the love and care that has been poured into every nook and cranny of this acquatic adventure, but the references and jokes may be lost on those who have never seen an episode. Still, even those will a slight interest in SpongeBob love The Cosmic Shake for its unique worlds, great pacing, and infectious charm. If nautical nonsense be something you wish, there's a ton of fun to be had under the sea in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake.

Enjoyable, undemanding gameplay combines with absurdly humorous storytelling and excellent voice acting to make SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake a fun and charismatic campaign that will be enjoyed by kids, fans of the characters, and anyone who enjoys straightfoward 3D platformers. It can also be a great way to share the experience with the little ones, whether it's passing the controller to them or just having the kids watch you play.

This game builds on the foundation of Battle for Bikini Bottom, so don't expect much innovation or novelty. However, the gameplay in itself is totally fine thanks to good controls, varied levels and solid presentation. Do take into account that it is a fairly easy game and that the game has some technical flaws, in addition, it can be a bit monotonous at times.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is fun for everyone who knows the little yellow sponge. There is sadly no co-op mode and the adventure is played through quickly. Due to the hilarious humor from the TV series and the attention to detail and voice actors from the series, this is great fun for all burger makers.

Despite its shortcomings, the game remains a well put together jump and run that can be finished in a weekend if you want to find all the collectibles, or in around 10 hours if you’d rather focus only on the main story. The costumes are the best example of the game trying successfully to be a fanservice experience, and it works for the most part.

Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake is a 3D platform that fans of the cartoons will enjoy, even if it lacks that stroke of genius that would have allowed it to be more memorable.

SpongeBob once again stars in a 3D platformer that rests its gameplay on well-established stylistic features, offering few surprises but still providing a fun and enjoyable experience.

Ultimately, though, this is powered by joy. It’s a largely forgiving experience, bolstered by innocence, optimism, and some genuinely funny jokes. It all feels as vibrant as it looks. While it’s geared towards a younger audience, it can (and should) be enjoyed by fans of all ages. Not the best day ever, but Purple Lamp has scored a sweet victory nonetheless. [Issue#25, p.83]

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a decent 3D platformer that does a great job of capturing the magic of what makes the cartoon as appealing as it is. If you don't mind its lack of challenge, I'd say give it a go but just keep any pins away from Patrick, ok?

I find Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake to be an enjoyable, comfortable romp through a colourful world. There's plenty of the show's personality translated into a smartly paced adventure and I do think that will appease plenty of fans. Some of the technical hitches may have been resolved by the day one patch but I didn't encounter anything fatal. It's not going to provide a challenge for most players but the writing maintains a quirky charm that fits hand in glove with the cartoon.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake doesn't reinvent the wheel for platformers, but there's still lots to enjoy.

The Cosmic Shake really does feel like a direct sequel to Battle for Bikini Bottom, taking advantage of nostalgia for both that era of 3D platformers and of course the source material of the show. A cavalcade of jokes and references delivered through inoffensive, if uninspired, game design, it's sure to land nicely with the right audience even if it doesn't seek to have its genre peers shaking like jelly.

Put simply, if you enjoyed what worked in the past, you’ll absolutely love The Cosmic Shake. While the game doesn’t take any giant leaps forward, following a familiar path proves what we already know still works just fine. The team at Purple Lamp has clearly found its niche and let’s hope they continue to serve up more of the same style moving forward.

Purple Lamp showcases a clear adoration for SpongeBob SquarePants, with jokes, deep cuts, and characters that brought me back to my childhood. And when they weren’t forced or overused, they worked well in the narrative. I especially loved hearing that one fish scream about his love of chocolate, and hearing “My leg!” brought me great joy. When The Cosmic Shake is at its best, it sounds, looks, and plays like the kind of game I would have begged my parents to buy me growing up. But when it falters, it’s boring. It’s a game I recommend to fans of SpongeBob SquarePants with ease; for those looking for a great platformer, though, better options lie elsewhere in the sea.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a solid game for true fans of the TV series and a way to introduce young gamers to the platforming genre. While its graphics and design improve on SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom-Rehydrated, the lack of diversity in the Jelly enemies and Wishworld designs will be a turn off to some. All the same it's worth checking out for the endless references to the show.

Quotation forthcoming.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a seven to nine hour dose of pure, stake-free fun. It’s a platformer that won’t offer you anything you haven’t seen before, but it executes what it does well. The familiarity of the characters and world is always going to be its selling point, and fans won’t be disappointed by the quality of the humour.

Still, there’s a lot to love in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake, whether you’re a hardcore SpongeBob fan or a sucker for a good old-fashioned 3D platformer. The colourful worlds and silly humour will appeal to kids, sure, but it also calls out to the inner child in all of us. It’s the sort of game you can simply switch off with: forget about the rest of the world, and get lost in a zany world of rainbows, pineapple houses and balloon starfish for a while. What more could you want, really?

SpongeBob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake makes for an inconsistent start, but grows into the kind of fun-filled platformer its star deserves.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a short and fun collectathon that feels like the original cartoon in all the best ways. Frequent bugs and a tad too much repetition weigh the game down, but it's not enough to make it anything less than a good time.

The Cosmic Shake is a mixed bag. It works exactly well enough to make me alright with continuing to play and will probably be a decent enough game to give to your kids who don’t have the finesse to get through Super Mario Odyssey yet. However, for a comeback in a long-running franchise, it’s severely let down by an unoriginal concept, a severe budget deficit, and levels that feel like a developer just going through the motions to crank out a game.

Despite the issues, The Cosmic Shake is generally competent. If you can overlook the mini-games that dot the landscape, the platforming is tight. Combat is mostly on the same level. If that works for you — and if the idea of more SpongeBob if that excites you — than this is one you might consider.

Despite reservations about the levels and combat in particular, there’s still a lot of fun to be had here. The platforming feels great and every frame of the game is gorgeous to look at. We just hope the next adventure takes a bigger leap in the gameplay department.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake could offer you a couple of fun evenings, but don't expect something extraordinary. There is almost no incentive to replay levels other than unlocking new costumes and you can get more than enough of those during your regular playthrough.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake represents a setback compared to what was seen in the remake of Battle for Bikini Bottom, which should be the standard, especially since this is a game with an "original" proposal. Without problems, it can be an introductory experience to gaming for children and youth audiences, but outside of that group and if you are not a fan of the series, better watch an episode or its movies.

The Cosmic Shake has its ups and downs, and is not an experience for just anybody, especially with its hefty 40 dollars price tag. If you are not a die-hard SpongeBob fan, you can probably skip this one or wait for the discount season.

Snappy dialogue brings the occasional laugh, and the experience remains pleasant enough throughout its entire runtime – but a devotion to the past, and a seeming lack of interesting ideas means The Cosmic Shake simply slides off the brain, like a passing thought.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a decent 3D platformer filled with all the SpongeBob humour you'd expect, but it feels like a step back when compared to the far more imaginative Battle for Bikini Bottom: Reheydrated. The lack of alternate characters or costume abilities really hurt it, as does the very linear level design, so while there’s still fun to be had but I was left with a general feeling of disappointment.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is an earnest effort to produce another great game for the character, but it hasn't completely worked. The premise is good, the level design is imaginative, and there's a clear love for the IP with its countless references and costumes. However, some of the gameplay feels very dated, while a number of presentational shortcomings and a laundry list of bugs hold it back. If you're a big SpongeBob fan, there's absolutely a good time to be had here, but a general lack of polish and some played-out design mean it's not quite the sweet victory we were hoping for.

SpongeBob SquarePants nails the feeling of the source material and it does a great job of replicating the free and fancy fun of those old-school platformers. That being said, it's not a great game, at least if you're over the age of 12. It's lacking in challenge, it's rather short, and there's very little replay value. For the younger players who haven't been jaded by this wonderful and wicked industry, it's a serviceable platformer with authentic voice acting that gives players a chance to be part of their favorite show. For everybody else, it's a short distraction that had the potential to be so much more.