Hello again! Twice a month, I’ll be turning a critical eye to a few free and not-free iPhone games I’ve been playing. These games will not always be the new hotness, but here’s hoping I’ll find some gems. It’s another short week with finals looming. Wish me luck on my Shakespeare exam! Onwards, then…
Fruit Ninja
If you have an iDevice, or even a Droid, you’ve probably heard of Fruit Ninja. You’re a ninja who has to cut fruit, which you do so by dragging your finger over fruit, avoiding bombs and making sure no fruit drops off the screen without being cloven in twain. Why are you cutting all this fruit? I like to think it’s because you’re being trained in chopping the shit out of your assassination targets. Clearly whenever you cut bananas that’s in preparation for severing limbs (perhaps to toy with your prey before the final stroke) and any round fruit stands in for lopping off heads (always important – hey, it’s the best way to make certain they’re dead, right?).
For the sake of the screenshot, all three of these fruits dropped. I hope you're happy.
In reality, the whole game is about mindlessly slicing fruit and getting a high score. There’s a few different modes, but it mostly boils down to whether you want bombs, a time limit, or power ups. Because of how fast the game moves, I never ran into the “my hands are blocking everything” problem games of this sort usually have, so that’s a plus. It’s Fruit Ninja, and it’s pretty awesome for only a dollar. Go murder some fruit.
Score: 8.0
Price: $0.99
Geared
You remember all those physics-based flash games that were super popular a few years ago? You don’t? Well, games like Geared or anything where you balance boxes on top of other boxes were huge for a while. Geared has you dropping gears in strategic places (from a bunch of different sizes) to build a chain from gear A (already turning) to gear B (not turning. Needs to turn). Each puzzle can be solved rather quickly. The thing is, there’s 200 different levels in the paid version, which is a lot. I haven’t beaten all the levels yet, because I’m not a maniac, but the later levels look quite insane in how complex they get.
Here's the first level on the left and the last level on the right. You're screwed.
Really, though, it feels exactly like a flash game port, though admittedly a good one. The biggest problem is that when you drag out one gear, you have to put it back to pull out the next gear if the first gear hasn’t ‘set’, that is come to rest on the environment. It’s a minor annoyance, but still annoying. The sensitivity for the gear ‘box’ at the bottom, where your unused gears are, feels weird. I’d semi-often grab and somehow miss a gear, and have to try a few times to get it right. It’s not a deal breaker or anything, just a PSA – but overall Geared does sometimes feel a bit too much like a high-quality flash game, not really as unique as it wants you to think. For less than the asking price for Geared you can get games with more unique gameplay and even more levels. If you’re bored with those, though, Geared is worth a try.
Score: 7.0
Price: $2.99, free version available
iTunes link paid, iTunes link free
Look forward to the next edition of iPhone reviews roundup. Do you have an iPhone game you’d like to see reviewed? Did you like this edition? Comment, or e-mail me an kpabst [AT] beefjack [DOT] com.
I love this article. 10/10. I love fruit and even though that game is about cutting fruit I love this article thx
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Kevin Pabst (May 12th, 2011)
Hmm, suspicions of bias there
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Simon Williams (May 12th, 2011)