iPhone Roundup
Drop7, EDGE, newtonica2 and Jetset.
newtonica2
- Publisher: Fieldsystem Inc.
- Developer: Route24
- Price: GBP 0.59
- Download size: 8.6MB
As the name suggests, Newtonica2 is a game about ducklings in space. Wait, I've done that one. Oh well, too late: that's not what the name suggests, and neither does it suggest that it's a game about what are effectively snooker trick shots with celestial hazards, but it is, and it's a pretty good one at that.
Each of the 36 single-screen levels presents you with a duckling, which needs to be transported to a circular vortex somewhere else on the screen. You can influence this directly by tapping a very small number of circular icons, which emit shockwaves that push the duckling away. Said duckling bounces off certain smiley icons and crashes unhelpfully into others, so there's an element of clearing to be done too, although your shockwaves only affect certain items.
Following a few basic introductory levels, developer Route24 complicates matters to the extent that you have to activate shockwaves in a certain sequence, or activate two simultaneously, or move one along a small track to choose its starting position. There are other obstacles to consider too, like blocks hanging over exit vortexes and fields of smiling pea asteroids. Certain levels also have donuts to collect, obviously, which stud an interstellar bonus collar.
Retrieving these on your path to the goal is increasingly difficult as you draw to the end of the game, but the last half-dozen or so levels are hard enough to complete at all. Conflicting shockwaves add spin to your duckling's movement, and in some cases the game's reduced to trial and error. Lots of error, and sadly you have to exit out to the level-select screen to restart.
It's easy to forgive though, partly because it's cheap and cheerful (very cheerful: I'm particularly fond of the mother duck leading her rescued ducklings along the completion screen for each level), and partly because individual tasks only last a few seconds, so there's no great sense of loss if you fail, and because you can skip levels if you get stuck. Fail a few times and you're also prompted with a star, which trails stardust along the duckling's suggested path to give you a hint.
It's certainly not the best game on the iPhone, or even the best puzzle game, and the role of spin and lack of an instant restart are perhaps a little awkward for something that's otherwise very accessible, but if you like to nibble at brief, cute little puzzles on your way to work, then this will doubtless keep you happy for about the same price as a newspaper and probably for longer.
7/10
Jetset: A Game for Airports
- Publisher: Persuasive Games
- Price: GBP 2.99
- Download size: 9.8MB
On the surface of it, the banned items list at airports makes a lot of sense. "Fireworks", "paint stripper", "viruses". But then it gets a bit peculiar. You can have toothpaste, but only 100ml. Ditto soup. There's an entry on the BA website called "The North American liquid policy". And until you're in the queue it's impossible to predict whether you will need to remove shoes, your laptop from your bag, your things from your coat, your coat from yourself, and so on. On one occasion, I witnessed a burly security man at Seattle-Tacoma airport demanding a woman remove the booties from the sleeping infant strapped to her chest before she could pass inspection.
Jetset puts you on the other side of it. You're a security guy at the airport, and you deal with the people coming through the queue ahead of you, checking their bags and clothing for banned items, which - guffaw - change arbitrarily on a regular basis. So one minute you're confiscating laptops, hats and trousers and next it's bacon and make-up. You keep going until the queue of Playmobil people stretches out the door, or you let too many banned items through, or ban too many allowed items (you get five mistakes in total). Then it's game over.
Control is smart enough - the screen displays close-ups of the person and the contents of his or her suitcase at the bottom beneath a bigger image of the rapidly backed-up queue, and to select banned items you just toggle them with a tap. If the conditions change while you're inspecting someone, you can give them their trousers back or remove an errant water bottle before letting them through.
In other words, it's tidy and repetitive but absorbing satire, and there are some neat touches which may or may not be in on the joke: all the passengers look bored and unhappy, and if you're actually in an airport then the game notices and unlocks special "souvenirs" - particular items that might appear in that place. Sadly my review budget didn't stretch to getting the train up to Gatwick.
Nor though did my interest, which is down to one, simple, game-breaking thing: frequently you get knocked out not because you failed to observe something, but because the rules change just as you're tapping the "Proceed" button, so you get stung with a rights or security violation before you can react. There's no obvious reason why it can't safeguard you from this - never changing the rules when you have an item already toggled, for example - as the need for observation under the pressure of a growing queue would have been sufficient to keep you interested and challenged.
As such, and particularly given the higher GBP 2.99 price point, Air Traffic Chaos is a better response to your isometric airport needs.
6/10