Review: BePlumbed
Score:
73%
A polished version of an all-time classic game, spoilt slightly by poor in-game call handling...
Version Reviewed: 1.01
Buy Link | Download / Information Link
Cast your mind back to 1990 or so, and a little game called Pipemania, which set the gaming world alight with a new definition of pure and adulterated gameplay. The combination of puzzling skill, speed of thought and accuracy with the mouse, in the race against time to build a working pipeline before the ooze overflowed, proved irresistible to many, including myself. There have been many ports to different platforms over the intervening years, but this is one of the more polished for smartphones.
From the pixel-perfect title screen to the animated settings, from the detailed animations and sound effects/music in the game itself, BePlumbed is quite simply top notch. I don't normally dwell too much on review software unless absolutely necessary, but BePlumbed had me hooked for quite a while, stuck in 'just one more level' mode! As with the original, the pipe pieces offered at the bottom of the screen always seem to be just the ones you don't need and you'll need a good brain to get your head around some of the pipe paths.
BePlumbed doesn't need much RAM, either, and plays ball with the rest of your S60 smartphone, letting you switch away to do something else without incident. Unfortunately, BePlumbed fails the 'try and take a call while in the middle of a game' test rather spectacularly - you get to answer OK but then the merest touch of the 'Hangup' key and the entire device resets itself. I tested this on two S60 phones and the behaviour was identical.
If Fee Jo can iron out this bug, they'll have a real winner on their hands...
Reviewed by Steve Litchfield at