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Zoop is the orphan child of Tetris that no one wants to take home 

Developed by Hookstone Productions and published by Viacom New Media, Zoop was released on a ton of consoles in 1995 (and later for PS1 and Saturn). Viacom was clearly trying to convince everyone that this was the next Tetris. In fact, their slogan for the game was “America’s largest killer of time!” (and this was supposed to help sell the game?) But don’t be deceived, Zoop is nothing like Tetris, and once you start playing, it’s not hard to stop. The game was ported to everything, but it’s been largely forgotten since, not even appearing as a cheap mobile game. I played the SNES version. Let’s analyze this strange puzzle game and find out why it doesn’t quite succeed. 

I must admit, the gameplay for Zoop is unique. You control a shape within a square in the middle of the screen. Other shapes will appear around you and will slowly but steadily produce more shapes. Each shape has a distinct color. Your goal is to “zoop” to other shapes of the same color, which then changes your shape to the next shape behind that one. You want to keep from any shapes touching your square. This all happens in real time and can be quite exciting, making this a type of “action puzzler,” if you will. Special pieces will sometimes show up on the field which allow you to get rid of an entire section. However, while the gameplay is good, it can also become repetitive, losing that addiction factor which was so relevant to Tetris.

The controls are simple, easy, and intuitive. You control the shape in the middle, and are free to move anywhere within your square. Only one button is required, making the game very easy to play. Due to the different shapes and colors, the game is colorful, but still bland. As you progress in the game, the background color changes, but that’s it. The different shapes are small and strange. Why not use squares, triangles, and circles? Instead the shapes look more like blobs and amoebas.

The game offers only two modes: Continual and Level. To state the obvious, Continual has you playing until you die, and Level has you playing a series of levels which require you to reach a certain amount of points. You can also choose your stage and difficulty. Unfortunately, levels are very samey except for different background colors. Levels become more and more difficult and hectic as you progress, but again, the game can quickly become repetitive.

As far as presentation goes, there's nothing. The game doesn’t even explain how the gameplay works. Granted, you can quickly figure it out, but would a tutorial be too much to ask? What about sound and music? There are not very many sounds. You will mostly be hearing the whooshing sound of your shape moving back and forth. The music here is a strange beast. It’s mostly jazz, sometimes quite mellow, and at other times loud and obnoxious. Props to the game for actually having music during gameplay, but it can get grating after awhile. It doesn’t help that the game doesn’t have some kind of theme (for example, Tetris had a Russian motif).

Strangely enough, there's no two-player mode. How can you have a puzzle game without multiplayer, it's just a horrible oversight. Of course, even if you could compete, the two of you would probably look at each other and say, "Let's play Tetris instead." 

Final Verdict-- 2 Stars: Not Worth It 

Zoop is cool at first, but it gets old fast. It’s not a terrible game, but its lack of personality, character, and multiplayer hurt it big time. It just couldn’t compete with other puzzle games, so it’s been left behind. I think the name wasn’t good either. Tetris has a strange appeal to it, and sounds a little sophisticated, but Zoop, well…it rhymes with something that smells and is quickly flushed down the toilet. Sadly, this game had a similar fate.