Review: Psarakia for S60 3rd Edition Review
Score:
68%
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Psarakia for S60 3rd Edition
Psarakia is apparently the Greek for little fish, and the aim of this game is to form continuous lines of two or more identical fish. The catch is that they're usually hidden under ice, and you have to break that ice if you want to make lines. Breaking the ice uses up your life force, but if you make lines you gain life, so it's best to only uncover fish which will make lines. You can uncover lines of several types of fish in one go if you want.
If you can't find any lines of fish anywhere, you can blow them all up and start again by pressing 3.
If you earn more life than you can fit on the meter, you level up and the score multiplier increases. The aim is to score as much as possible, and the game ends when you run out of life.
Psarakia was originally written for smartphones with touchscreens, the idea being that you'd move your stylus or finger in a continuous sweep around the screen. This has been implemented on non-touch phones by clicking the d-pad button to start moving the cursor, then clicking it again to finish, which works fine.
Game Modes
There are two modes for the main game, Easy and Hard. Easy is a very casual time-wasting sort of thing, suitable for when you don't really want to concentrate too much, somewhat similar to Zoo Keeper. Hard is (as the name suggests) more difficult and requires your full attention, as your life meter automatically drains over time even when you do nothing, and uncovered fish freeze over again if you don't make a line with them quickly.
There's a third mode which is basically the familiar children's favourite, the memory game. You have to match different kinds of cartoon fish. Looking at a card uses up life force, while finding a pair increases life force, so of course you should guess pairs in as few goes as possible. The game ends when your life force runs out.
The main game mode is on the left, the bonus memory game is on the right.
Overall
CrazySoft deserve praise for sticking to their easy-to-use control system where every function is labelled on-screen with a number, so you always know which keypad button to press.
Psarakia also looks quite nice, with an arctic fisherman motif and a colourful overall style. The gameplay is adequate, and once you understand the concept it's easy to while away time trying to get as many lines of fish as possible, both in easy and hard mode.
However, you never get a feeling of overall strategy in the game, so you never really feel any need to carry on playing. Winning or losing seem too much to do with which fish you're given, rather than how good you are at the game.
AAS Score: 68%
PS: You can see a video of Psarakia in action over at the Unofficial Nokia Gaming Blog.
About this review:
The game reviewed here was the Symbian S60 3rd Edition version of Psarakia. It was reviewed on a Nokia N93. The screenshots are taken from horizontal mode, but the game can also be played in vertical mode.
Psarakia for S60 3rd Edition can be purchased by clicking here.
There is also a UIQ3 version of Psarakia.
Reviewed by krisse at