Following on from the huge disappointment of Pipe Mania, Lafix has popped up as my salve. It’s a very basic salve, and for me that just adds to the charm, but it does what it sets out to do (be a great little puzzle game) and is hopefully one of the first titles by Jeti to grace the Symbian platform. Yes there’s room for improvement, but unlike Pipe Mania, Lafix has the core gameplay sorted out, and made that attractive enough to keep you coming despite the flaws.
I've long been a fan of sports simulations, bringing outdoor games and activities into the virtual world of your always-with-you smartphone. So, even if you're stuck on a train or just lying in bed, you can still go driving, for example, whether in a car or on the golf range(!) Mobile Darts aims to take that most unathletic of sports and bring it in similar virtual form into Symbian smartphones. Which it does, at the expense of introducing an unexpected level of ability frustration...
Ah, Speedball 2. It's a name that is spoken of in reverential terms, because of the impact that it had on the computer gaming world in the late 80s and 90s. Now two of the original Bitmap Brothers, as part of Tower Studios, have updated the classic futuristic sports game for Symbian. Have they captured enough of the spirit of the original to make Brutal Deluxe a watchword for smartphone fun? Let's find out.
Some things shouldn’t work well together. Putting together a Bejewelled style match three game with a 'Sim Village' system to keep score strikes me as a four o’clock in the morning idea that's just wrong. But much like Run DMC and Aerosmith, 10tons's Heroes of Kalevala makes it work thanks to a smart learning curve and a huge dollop of style.
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. Look, this is going to be painful, maybe you should just stop reading now. You see, last week there was a bit of a scuffle in the AAS chat room, because Pipe Mania had shown up in the Ovi Store and we all wanted to review it. I got the short straw (I just didn't realise it at the time). Put together by AppsOnGo, this doesn’t appear to be a licenced version of the game, and while it does have the same starting point as the traditional PipeMania, it rapidly goes horribly wrong.
There are two types of music rhythm game out there – the first uses existing songs and performances and carefully pre-sculpts the musical beats you need to hit (Rock Band is a good example of this), and the second is where your own musical collection is used and the program will analyse the music to create the patterns to match on the fly. Where does Gamelion's Boom Beats fit in?
It's not often that you play a new game and wonder why on earth noone's thought of the idea before. But that's what I was thinking when reviewing Word Jockey. Not because of the horse racing metaphor for winning and losing, but because of the idea of a word game played with extreme time pressure. Word Jockey also manages to present a super-slick and rather pleasant interface, making it a sure fire hit all round.
Remember the old kids game of patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time? And how frustrated you were that you couldn’t do it while your best friend could? I think that’s how Steve felt when he passed me Moto X Mayhem to review and I promptly labelled it as a fun, challenging but fundamentally a great game. “Too hard for me” said Steve, and he went back to taking pin-sharp pictures of shiny hardware while I started reviewing this great game title.
Where to start with Treemaker, the brand new puzzle/platformer from Mikrotie? How about one word: “Difficult". For me, though, that’s a good thing. This is a platform game you’ll need to work at to complete, and thanks to the great UI, wonderful controls and smooth gameplay, I think everyone else will appreciate it as much as I do.
