Game Review
2009-09-xx
by Darknut
iPhone Game Reviews 4
In the order in which I played them...
Saucelifter
by Madgarden
shareware $2
Verdict: 
Good if you can appreciate the classic action. Will probably be difficult and/or confusing for newbies.
This is a faithful clone of Choplifter. It has a fresh graphical style, but the feeling of the game is what's faithful. I like that there's a visual indicator to show how your handling of the iPhone is actually affecting your craft. I like that the movement is extremely smooth. It seems that some new enemies have been added to the original game.
Tap Tap Revenge 2
by Tapulous
free
Verdict: 
Broken.
This is a stereotypical rhythm game. Inexplicably, it repeatedly froze up in the middle of play, making it impossible to do well. Even the sound got stuck in a loop. Each delay lasted for several seconds, enough to throw off anyone's rhythm, which is pretty ironic.
Labyrinth
by Codify AB
shareware $3
Verdict: Well done for what it is.
This is a virtualization of one of those wooden mazes in a box tilted by knobs on the sides that we had when I was a little kid. This app does a good job of recreating that novelty toy on the iPhone and allows for a ridiculous number of different mazes.
Streetball
by Battery Acid Games
shareware $1
Verdict: Cheap.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly what's wrong with this because it almost seems like a cool game. I think the quality of the graphics, sound, and animation is just barely poor enough to register as crappy instead of unifying. It feels too much like Yet Another Shitty Flash Game for me to want to pay attention.
Since there are so few basketball games like this, it becomes that kind of game that you can convince yourself is fun if you want it bad enough.
Stunt Car Racing 99 Tracks
by Digital Chocolate
shareware $1
Verdict: Uninspired ...and ultimately pointless.
The car accelerates by itself. You seem to have very little control over what happens, or at least it's hard to understand what control you do have. The tutorial is annoying. Just to prove a point, I let the car run through the first course without touching the controls, and it completed. Is this even a game?
It takes no advantage of features novel to the iPhone. And the framerate is choppy. This leads me to suspect that it was ported to the iPhone from some other mobile device without much consideration.
Tower Bloxx Deluxe 3D
by Digital Chocolate
shareware $1
Verdict: Polished, but too simple.
This game revolves entirely around you tapping the screen at just the right point in a pendulum's swing. If that sounds interesting to you, then this might be a pretty good game. For me, this is similar to one of those annoying mini-games they stuck into the middle of Super Mario Bros 3. Except by itself and embellished beyond reason.
PewPew
by Jean-Francois Geyelin
free
Verdict: OK.
This is a 360° shooter that's not quite like Geometry Wars. It's pretty clean & simple, and nothing special, although the difficulty is an honest challenge if you're into dodging innumerable obstacles criss-crossing your personal space.
Trace
by Kevin Calderone
free
Verdict: Almost an interesting toy. Different, but boring and amateur.
This game presents a series of screens wherein you must guide a stickman to an exit door. The hook is that you can also draw lines on the screen to create additional platforms. Difficulty is introduced by adding enemy shapes that you must not touch as they move about on predefined paths. But later the stakes become random when the enemy shapes become ridiculously fast and unpredictable. Because of this, and because the attempt to create interesting levels was nil, I consider this more of an experiment than a game.
Pac-Man
by Namco
shareware $5
Verdict: Authentic and playable.
Experience Pac-Mania all over again. They were wise to present multiple control schemes, as I found that only the "flicking" mode allowed for the exact control required of this game.
Mini Golf 99 Holes Theme Park
by Digital Chocolate
shareware $1
Verdict: Insane loading times.
I'm positive I spent more time looking at loading screens than I did actually playing this game. Did the developers actually use an iPhone before they made this game? Maybe they didn't know that an iPhone app is expected to load in seconds. I wish I could say more about this game, but I can't "get past" the loading screens.
PapiJump
by Sunflat
shareware $1
Verdict: Too simple.
Try to jump upwards on platforms that become ever more sparse, until you miss and fall. Repeat. This might be fun, or it might be kinda like if you were in one of those vertical shafts in Metroid, except it went on forever with no exits.
World Cup Ping Pong
by Skyworks
shareware $1
Verdict: Annoying.
The physics seem pretty realistic, but I can't tell if there's anything I'm doing to affect what happens. I'm pretty sure that, even when I hit the ball, the outcome is mostly random. If that's not the case, well, it needs to be more obvious.
Isotope
by Affogato
shareware $2
Verdict: Almost fun.
This is another clone of Geometry Wars that's a bit different. This one is slow-paced and takes place in a series of confined rooms. Presumably it gets really hard later, but I got bored with the absence of challenge in the first level.
Rolando
by ngmoco
shareware $3
Verdict: Pretty good action + puzzle platformer.
This is a 2D platform jumper, except that you have to tilt the iPhone to roll your guys around. Actually this is very much a puzzle game, as you must learn how all the elements of a level work and figure out a course of action that will allow all your guys to reach the exit. I guess it's a bit like Lost Vikings in that respect, but with more emphasis on the physics of rolling than on thinking puzzles.
JellyCar
by Walaber
free
Verdict: Interesting toy.
This is another one of those crappy 2D motorcycle physics simulations, except that this time everything acts as though it's made of Jell-o, which ends up allowing for some pretty interesting circumstances. This isn't quite a game because whether you win or lose is very often randomly beyond your control. The categorization of "easy" and "hard" levels is pretty arbitrary. There's also a weird bug that occurs regularly when the springy tensors cause parts of your car to get stuck in a chain-reaction orbit around each other, which I shall dub "the black hole effect". The developers decided to count this situation as a death. They seem to be ignoring the unfairness of this non-deterministic gameplay, or perhaps they have conceded that it's impossible to make something deterministic in this crazy environment. And honestly, this had to have been conceived by fooling around in a physics engine rather than starting with a game design proper. Therefore I consider this an interesting experiment that ought to get made into a real game any day now.
That said, I will admit that I played every level and spent more time with this than most other apps. My favorite level is the snowboard level, although you have to be really lucky to get close to the finish line.
Vanguard Storm
by Squenix
shareware $5
Verdict: A fast-paced puzzle game dressed up in the Squaresoft theme.
It's a "fast tactics" game, which is to say that you merely have to decide where to position your guys so that their abilities will most effectively deal with the pattern of advancing monsters. It's pretty well done, but for me it was a bit too contrived and mechanical. Or in other words, the "puzzle" aspect of the game abstracted the situation so much that it was no longer a "battle" to me, and that made me feel a little "fake". The games I can think of that are similar to this have fittingly simple, minimalist graphics, so it seems funny to dress it up with the opulent Final Fantasy theme. (Or maybe not.) One thing I liked is that you can make your moves as fast as you like without having to wait around. I only played the one level allowed in the shareware demo, so I can't say much about how it goes later. The music reminded me of Secret of Mana (also a Square title), which was nice.
California Gold Rush
by Digital Chocolate
shareware $2
Verdict: Boring and simple-minded.
You must navigate an invisible maze in order to reach the gold. This is another example of a shareware game that falls into the trap of expecting you to focus on saving up money to buy a whole bunch of crap in the store between levels that doesn't really help you enough to be worthwhile. In other words, I think you have to be pretty shallow to play this for very long. I guess if you like other "casual" games, then you might like this one, because it's trying really hard to be one, although due to lack of focus, I think its audience will be quite narrow.
Snail Mail
by Sandlot Games
shareware $2
Verdict: Cute yet honestly challenging.
This looks like a racing game, but really it's an obstacle course where you have to quickly react to the upcoming conditions.
Battle of Pirate Bay
by Muteki
shareware $1
Verdict: Amateur.
Essentially this is a slow, handicapped version of Missile Command. Well, I guess it's not slow if you're willing to account for the lower speed & accuracy that the touchscreen allows. But the graphics and design are so amateur that they kill the potential.
