Mobile Games Roundup
UFO! Spirit! Abduction! Finger! Blob!
de Blob Revolution HD
- iPad / £2.39
- iPhone / £1.79
I may have mentioned this before, but de Blob really is one of the loveliest Wii games ever, and it spawned a pretty decent early iPhone game into the bargain. But while we await the arrival of a true sequel when flowers bloom next year, THQ's latest top-down take for iOS will sate our blobby urges just fine.
Rather than focus on restoring colour to the drab, grey world, the idea this time is to guide de blob around a simple maze and rescue as many graydians as possible in the quickest time.
At first, you can take as long as you like to carve out the best route to rescue all your friends, but the game soon ups the ante with evil time restrictions and patrolling sentries, forcing you to think on your feet as you tap your way around.
Interestingly, de Blob Revolution dispenses with any notion of a rigid level structure, preferring to challenge players with a seemingly random selection of mazes. If you perform well enough in the first round of challenges, you'll score enough ranking points to unlock subsequent modes, and the difficulty raises accordingly. The beauty of this system is that it feels like the game has no real end, and it quickly becomes of of those games you can dip into whenever you need to scratch that puzzle itch.
8/10
Abduction 2
- Android / £1.95
Having been downloaded some two million times by Android owners, it's fair to say that plenty of you enjoyed wallowing in Abduction's tilt-based platforming frolics. OK, it was just a reskinned PapiJump. Whatevs. In its defence, you played as an adorable jumping cow. What's not to like?
The inevitable sequel is mostly more of the same. You still have to bounce your cow up numerous platforms to reach a waiting UFO. The controls are still perfect, and it's as addictive as it ever was, but you get much more polish for your pennies this time around.
Immediately noticeable are the exceptionally pretty weather effects, the swanky backdrops and the character customisation options. You also have to be mindful of new platform types, such as spikes, fans and trampolines, and can unlock a ton of new characters as well as mini-games and graphical modes.
In short, it's far from just a cash-in sequel, and although the gameplay hasn't changed to any meaningful degree, there's a much-needed degree of substance to the whole thing now, with a proper Adventure mode alongside the dynamically generated classic levels. The only question marks are around the price, and whether the world really needs another tilt jumping game. Your mileage may vary.
7/10