Mobile Gaming

The idea behind 21! And Fun should be familiar to anyone whose played Blackjack in the past. The goal is to get the exact number 21 with any combination of five cards. If you were expecting some game about drinking, a play on 21, you should look elsewhere. The idea of getting 21 using cards is the only thing you’ll find in this game. Though it’s a simple concept 21! And Fun does manage to make it interesting with a few interesting design choices and different modes to chose from. The best I can describe 21! And Fun’s appeal would be with other games with similar concepts like Bejeweled. The concept is simple and familiar but done in such a way that repeat games never play out the same and the game has deeper strategies than first meet the eye.

So in 21! And Fun the idea is to get 21 but you have four rows that you can place cards in. You are drawing one card at a time from a deck and have a time limit to work within. Also depending on the mode you also may have row totals along the top of each row and if you get 21 in two cards you fill in letters that spell out F-U-N-! in the four rows. If you can fill these rows you are given a bonus. Also randomly placed in the deck you draw from there are Jokers that automatically give you 21 in a row but do not fill in a letter. You can turn off these Jokers as well if you’d like. On top of all these there is a multiplier on the side of the screen that fills and empties if you get a Bust. On the left there’s also a counter that tells you how many 21s you’ve gotten in a game. With these two side meters you can keep track of your progress while playing. There is also a timer so you have to play quickly!

So the three modes that you can play in 21! And Fun are Classic, Advanced, and Expert. As you go higher in mode difficulty different helper functions in the game are taken away. In Advanced lane totals are disabled and in Expert you lose Mystery cards, jokers, as well. Depending on your skill you can play on any of these settings and have a good time. When you’re done with a game you can view your stats, play an additional round, or even share your scores on Facebook. As with various other applications recently 21! And Fun allows you to share what you’ve done with Facebook to compare how others have done compared to you. This is nice because it allows you to compare to others and see how your skills fare against other players.

Aside from the main game and uploading scores there isn’t much to do in 21! And Fun, there are stats that you can view for your game but the only thing for you to do is play 21! And Fun’s game. While this may sound like a critique it’s actually good that the game didn’t try to do too much more because it would have taken away from the main game. 21! And Fun is a deceptively simply game that is great for simple pick up and play sessions to eat away at a few moments in a doctor’s office or around time. It doesn’t require a lot of setup or a take a long time to get started. That makes 21! And Fun a great game for pickup and play gamers everywhere.

Overall: 7.5/10

Clue for the iPhone is EA’s attempt to port the classic Hasbro board game to Apple’s mobile device. Clue is a game about a murder at a fancy party. While playing with others you race to search for clues on who killed the person in question, where, and how. The game is over when someone figures it out. In this rendition of Clue EA decided to use a Saturday morning cartoon art style that actually suits the game well. The characters have a good look to them and at the same time look shady and well defined, this was a great use of cel shading. Unfortunately for Clue on the iPhone EA made an abysmal omission in that the game is solely single player. There is no multiplayer to speak of in Clue and this presents multiple problems, first among them is that the game simply isn’t as entertaining alone and second it limits how long you can play Clue before it’s over. There was no reason EA did not include some multiplayer as they have included it in almost every other board game transition they have made for the iPhone.

Aside from the single player in Clue there are some Extras that EA has included. These are made up of biographies of each character, player statistics such as solved cases etc, and finally there are achievements that you earn when playing through the game. All of these are light reading and make little difference to the main game.

So how is the single player game played? In the single player game you play as an investigative reporter who is working himself up the newspaper ladder. This translates into you playing progressively harder scenarios to solve the murder and bring the culprit to justice. When I say harder there is no difficulty setting in Clue, instead the game simply adds more suspects and more weapons that could potentially have been used for the murder. What’s nice about this scenario mode is that even if the elements stay the same each scenario will move around which weapons, person, and location is the correct answer so there is some replay value in playing the scenarios repeatedly. In addition to this the game assigns you stars depending on your accuracy in game with the maximum being four stars. You can get a star for staying within the time limit, being correct about weapon, location, and suspect. You have to earn a specific amount of stars before you can move on to later scenarios.

To actually play through a scenario you are placed in a first person mode and given a time limit to get your story to your boss. In each scenario you have an on screen hud that allows you to do various things in a single room. You can talk to a suspect in a room or investigate various things to learn more about what has happened. All these menu options are quick and easy to use, but be careful because talking to a suspect or investigating objects eats up time. Also you use up time if you decide to move to another room and investigate the people and objects there. All of these things to make you feel like you’re in a true game of Clue.

In addition to these various options in rooms there are things that assist you in remembering facts and keeping track of clues. There is a Crime Map where you can keep track of where people and things are located, there’s a Notes section that keeps track of clues, and finally there’s a suspicions section that lets you rule out different weapons and people so that it’s easy to make your final accusations. Even with all these tools and options I always felt that my accusations came down to guesswork, in addition I never felt like I had enough time either. This is the main reason I didn’t enjoy Clue. I never felt I was getting better at the game and without any player interaction the gameplay felt dull. In the end Clue is most fun because of the multiplayer, add that to this version of Clue and you’ll have a great game. Until them Clue ends up being a mediocre game for the iPhone.

Overall: 5/10

Kaloki Adventure is a game all about making the customer happy. Your job is to add expansions on a space station. Each station allows you to either satisfy a specific customer type or supplement your growing power needs. The idea is sound and almost feels like Sim City in space. Kaloki Adventure is a port of the big brother version on XBLA. Overall this transfer has worked rather well but in the process of making a game for the iPhone the precision of controls was overlooked. As a result Kaloki Adventure suffers a bit and isn’t as fun to play as it’s console counterpart. If you liked Sim City in the past Kaloki Adventure may be worth a look as the aspect of building and satisfying customer is interesting and fun despite the controls.

In Kaloki Adventure the majority of your time is spent in the main game. Here you are given objectives you must complete that range from create a certain number of these types of building or make this much money or power within a time limit. On the whole the types of objectives you’ll encounter stay fairly standard throughout Kaloki Adventure. What it all boils down too is watching your power consumption and customer base needs on the right side of the screen. Here you find six types of demand from your space station: Social, Science, Trade, Information, and Nature. Your job is to make sure you have buildings to satisfy all these various needs.

To go along with these different needs there is a category of buildings for each one. There is also a power category that you use to make sure you can run all your buildings. Inside of each category of building there are also more complicated and expensive types. As you build the less expensive building types you gradually unlock the ability to build better buildings, just like in an RTS. Once you have built buildings on the space station you can also edit their behavior. By that I mean that you can tell them what type of things to research and do. This system is risk and reward based so you can choose to have your power station output more power but on the flip side they deteriorate faster. It’s the same way with the buildings where you can edit what they are researching to fit the customer better and make more money. Aside from the main game there is a scenario mode you can play as well but really it’s more about simply messing around with a blank slate space station.

The main problem with Kaloki Adventure is its lack of interesting things to do. For instance, while you may be told to build lots of a certain type of building you’re almost never told why. The characters and their comments have little or nothing to do with your objective and as a result feel unnecessary. The entire game of Kaloki Adventure would have benefitted with some interesting characters to fill the space around you. The second problem with Kaloki Adventure comes with the change in control scheme. While it’s fairly easy to spin around the space station by swiping your finger across the screen the menus and selection of empty expansions is far too difficult. You’ll try and tap on an expansion port and miss or you won’t be able to tap on the right one. Kaloki Adventure demands you perfectly tap an item before it will open. This will quickly frustrate you as a player because you won’t feel in full control of the action.

Aside from these control and character issues Kaloki Adventure is a decent game. The ideas behind the game are sound and work well it’s just a shame that a more interesting premise or story could not have been implemented. The main question when playing the game for me was, “Why am I playing?” There’s no motivation to move farther into the game.

Overall: 5.4/10

My first experience with Marble Blast was on XBLA. When I first got my Xbox 360 I was obsessed with marble maze games and Marble Blast Ultra on the Xbox 360 perfectly fit the bill. Looking back I can say the game didn’t do anything particularly special or different but it did control well and had interesting levels. Marble Blast Mobile follows Marble Blast Ultra as a game that has expansive levels and power ups that make collecting the various gems in each level fun. However in this mobile rendition of Marble Blast an inconsistent frame rate and controls that are not as responsive as they should be mar an experience that I was genuinely excited about.

Marble Blast Mobile includes 20 levels with 10 multiplayer levels. As you play the single player levels you can unlock later levels but the levels are available from the beginning for you to look at in the main menu. As well there are 16 Marbles available for you to play as when you start the game but they all control exactly the same. While I like that the game forces you to unlock more levels I would have enjoyed unlocking new marbles as well. Because the levels are fairly varied I think it would have been interesting if you unlocked marbles modeled after each world or if you could ‘race’ against a competing marble to unlock it.

Aside from simply completing worlds and moving on to the next one you can also participate in time trials to earn medals or compete against other players in head to head matches. The time trials were frustrating, I was never able to earn even a bronze medal on any of the stages. This was as a result of the controls that Marble Blast Mobile employs. To control your marble you tilt the iPhone to move and by using two onscreen arrows situated on the left and right sides of the screen you rotate the camera to turn quickly. These controls work well but it seemed to me that it took way too much tilting to get the marble moving and to continue to move. Also when you began moving quickly the game’s frame rate would drop making quick movements next to impossible. In Marble Blast Mobile you have two mutually exclusive options: move quickly or move accurately.

To compound this issue in Marble Blast Mobile the worlds that you explore are multitiered and complicated. This makes collected the gems in each level increasingly frustrating because of the controls. There are on screen arrows that try and direct you in the appropriate direction but because the levels are so tiered you will mostly wander around levels trying to find gems by pure luck. It doesn’t help that the camera is set squarely behind the ball as well so seeing things directly in front of you can be next to impossible.

Marble Blast Mobile was a large disappointment for me. The original game I played, Marble Blast Ultra, for the Xbox 360 was a game that contained interesting level design, a good control system, and multiple items to allow you to creatively traverse levels. In Marble Blast Mobile the interesting levels, sounds, and power ups are included but the controls, camera, and frame rate drop sap the fun right out of this game. Maybe in the future a patch could be included to make the game have a steadier frame rate, like in Katamari Damacy, but as it stands Marble Blast Mobile isn’t worth the introductory price of $5. If the developers can fix the problems present in Marble Blast Mobile I would happily pay a few extra dollars for a more finished product.

Overall: 4/10