Android reviews roundup

Posted February 22, 2011 by Matthew Lee.

It’s time to do the little green robot some more while you read the latest instalment of Android capsule reviews, taken from those titles that caught my eye over the past couple of weeks of trawling the Marketplace. Some new, some not so new; some fantastic, some a little disappointing. A couple more free games, too, just to give those with cash flow problems a reason to smile. Here we go!

Leap Sheep (Turtle Rock Studios, $0.99, no demo or free version available)

In one sense, Turtle Rock Garage’s Leap Sheep is the epitome of casual gaming – a simple idea tarted up as much as it can be. Sheep gambol merrily towards a fence, and you need to tap to send them sailing over the barrier. No mistakes keeps your multiplier going up, and tricking while they’re airborne charges up a special meter, which you can use to clear out any sheep that get stuck.

Simple, yes, but it is well-handled – clean, attractive visuals, easy to get the hang of, and pretty challenging once things get faster. Bear in mind it is just another score attack game, though, and doesn’t quite have the charm or the depth to stand out from the herd the way it could have done.

Score: 6.7

Super Dynamite Fishing (Handy Games, $4.10, free version available – full game, ad-supported)

How do you feel about rednecks? Never not funny or lazy, worn-out stereotype? Depending on your answer you might think Super Dynamite Fishing is the best thing ever or, well… all right, sort of? Developers Handy Games’ comic 2D blaster has you sending Redneck Joe sailing back and forth across the water at various different locations, dropping sticks of dynamite on the different types of marine life under the surface, scooping up their corpses for sale at the local cannery.

It’s easy to pick up and play, with some bright, perky cartoon art and quality sound design. But it’s ultimately fairly repetitive stuff which takes some time to get particularly challenging, so if the theme doesn’t grab you, you might do better elsewhere.

Score: 5.6

Slice It! (Com2Us, free – ad-supported)

Slice It! is about all the instruction you need. Com2Us’ little puzzler presents you with a shape, then challenges you to divide it up into a set number of pieces with a given number of strokes. It starts off deceptively simple – let me see, how will I ever cut this square into quarters with two lines? – but soon ramps up to staggering levels of difficulty, with more and more complex outlines and areas of the screen you can’t use.

The scoring system seems a bit lax, positioning lines can be a pain if you don’t have a handset with good multi-touch and the ads that keep it free are somewhat intrusive. Other than that, with the regular updates, if you like brainteasers, there’s little reason not to get this.

Score: 7.8

Super Drill Panic (Orange Pixel, $1.36, demo version available)

As soon as tilt-jumping games became so insanely popular, some enterprising soul thought ‘How about if I have the player go the other direction?’ Unsurprisingly, Super Drill Panic is one of many, many mobile games whose developers had the same idea, but it’s easily one of the best.

Beyond the slightly grating mangled English – yes, we get it, Orange Pixel, you really like retro games – this is a reasonably amusing little reaction test with a fair amount of depth as you escape down through an ancient temple from a giant boulder. It’s a one-note joke and the difficulty is pitched a little high, but powerups and lives are plentiful, and updates have already added a whole new character and set of maps.

Score: 6.8

Evac (Hexage, $1.56 or $2.37 for HD version, demo version available)

One of Android’s few long-time supporters, developers Hexage are nothing if not inventive, infusing all their games so far with a distinctive visual identity and some plain bizarre twists on classic concepts. Evac turns PacMan into a neon-soaked stealth title, and almost manages to make something great out of it. Production values are minimalist, but still gorgeous, and each individual maze you’re struggling to escape from proves a deviously thoughtful puzzle.

But the imprecise controls and punishing difficulty prove grindingly frustrating at times. Clearing levels is obviously possible, but there are some nightmarish difficulty spikes, and score attack is so tough (one hit kills your multiplier) it’s hardly worth the effort.

Score: 7.4

Vertigo Towers (Josh O’Clock, $0.96, demo version available)

Like that level where someone built Tetris in LittleBigPlanet, Vertigo Towers brings simple physics to the block puzzler. It’s actually three games in one. The main mode challenges you to see how high you can stack pieces by pausing them as they’re thrown at you so they fall neatly on top of each other. Then there’s Block Hunt, a skeet shoot of sorts, and a match-3 variant where you keep tagging clusters of blocks until they build up and too many spill over the sides.

The construction site theme is obviously just window dressing, but the visuals are bright, smart and colourful enough, and the different games are all sufficiently entertaining (fairly challenging, too) the whole thing offers quite a bit of value for money.

Score: 7.9