Mole Control

The phrase “based on the popular game Minesweeper” fills me with fear. The reason for this is the completely underwhelming Arcade title Minesweeper Wars which took the fast and furious Minesweeper action we all know and love and sucked all the fun out of it until it died. Luckily however, when Mole Control arrived and promised me gameplay based around the ideas of Minesweeper my fear started to drift away. I learnt to embrace the concept. To be at one with it. Now I just hate moles.

Available online, Mole Control puts you in charge of a hovercraft-like contraption, equipped with a digging arm on the front. Faced with a pest problem you’re asked to not make craters out of mole-hills and pilot this craft around the various arenas of Molar Creek removing the mischevious exploding moles and generally saving the day. As you pilot the craft you’ll lay down markers showing how many moles are in the vicinity – once you’ve pinpointed the little bugger, you can dig it up with your digging arm and remove the threat – clear all the moles from the level (the numbers do get quite large as you play through) and you’re onto the next area.

If you’ve played Minesweeper, you’ll understand the gameplay immediately. Even if you’ve never idled away a few work hours clicking at the grid on your PC you’ll pick this game up straight away and won’t look back. With its cartoon-style graphics, and less than serious story (as you may have suspected, due to the explosive nature of the invading pest) the game sucks you in to its world quite quickly. The game is presented in vibrant colours, and the town of Molar Creek is a lovely white picket fence community for you to explore and dig up, complete with nosy old ladies and hard working gardeners, all with their own story to tell you.

Story mode isn’t all that’s on offer here. During the story you can play quite methodically and take as long as you need to complete the levels, but if you fancy something a bit different with a definite sense of urgency then try out the time attack mode. Starting at the novice level you can work your way up to being the master of Mole Control by testing your moling skills against the clock. Even novice difficulty will test you when you tackle this mode, so it’s good to hone your skills on the adventure mode before tackling the time attack as there’s really no time to waste on these levels, and, while finding moles will increase your available time, mistakes cost you time here so you don’t want to be running over a mole by accident.

Mole Control is a neat little game, perfectly suited for pretty much anyone. Speaking for myself, I’ve taken to a little bit of mole wrangling during my lunchtimes at work. While this is fun, it does make the lunch hour pass far, far too quickly – proof if proof was needed that it’s somewhat addictive.