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We’ve all had part-time jobs like working at a diner or for a fast food chain, or walking dogs, in order to finance our survival in this cruel world. Playing video games is one of those things that keep us sane, a form of escape from the torment of real life. And yet we are now playing video games that greatly remind us of our current or former jobs—like wiping tables. Wipe is all about wiping tables, and nothing more. This title has all the depth of a platter, but it is entertaining to a certain degree. However, even though you purchase this game at full price, there are still levels that are locked, and half of the items are also “coming soon.” I don’t know why. The game itself is shallow, and yet content is still held back. Why? Furthermore, I really don’t understand how game developers can have a hard time putting up a good interactive tutorial. Wipe has none, though it does have an in-game text manual. However, even the game manual is finicky, because you can’t escape out of it directly. You have to swipe yourself back to the first page to access the “back” button. Also, this is becoming a trend in PS Mobile games, physical buttons not being implemented. The core gameplay is indeed veering towards touch controls, but is it difficult to program the use of Start in pausing? Gameplay is simple: you just wipe the dirty tables, lifting some plates if ever the dirt is placed under them. And that is it. There is a combo system, but nothing out of the ordinary. The cloth you are using gets dirty over time, and you have to rinse it, which takes some time. Time is important here because there is a time limit for every restaurant/level. Of course, you only have a few levels because, as mentioned, some are still in the pipeline. Before I forget, there are some decisions in game design that bug me out in Wipe. When choosing a table to wipe, you have to tap on the table and tap the “Wipe” button situated at the bottom left of the screen. How about simply double-tapping? I am not nitpicking, but it should be pretty much a given to have such a control option, right? I’ve played great Minis, despite that format being hampered by so many restrictions, from controls to file size limit, from connectivity to raw computing power. Freed from those limitations, there is no excuse for developers to slack off in the PS Mobile program. Back to Wipe, where my main problem is the locked content, or the unfinished state of the game. If this were a demo, a teaser of some sort, I wouldn’t whine like this. However, there are better Flash-based browser games out there. There are some iOS games that are free that are much better than this. Unless SYNC releases all of the content, I will not give a more thorough review than this. 3/10 POSTED BY JASPER NIKKI ON SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2012 AT 3:02 AM
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Quirkat is best known for their ultra-niche set of card games for the Minis program, the Basha card games which I extensively studied and learned how to play. They are good and interesting card games but definitely not for those who lack patience and perseverance. If you are not a manic-obsessive person, the Basha series is merely a clusterfrap disguised as a video game. Then there was their Mena Speed, a totally forgettable game. I shouldn’t have mentioned this, since you might get seriously curious and follow the link to the review. Stop. Continue reading this review, because Word Blocked is Quirkat’s and one of the PlayStation Mobile lineup’s best games yet. Word Blocked is a word game that is presented differently. Maybe there are other games that play like this, but I haven’t encountered one. It seems to be the Touchscreen-Era lovechild of Boggle and the Rubik’s Cube. The game presents a 3×3 golden neon cube with letters engraved on each square. You can easily manipulate the cube like a Rubik’s Cube. You can twist the rows and columns in four directions, mixing up the letters as you please. And then you can swipe the screen in four directions so that you can rotate the entire cube to search for new words. The Boggle part is where you string up words upon words by merely touching the letters, lighting them up. On the right side, you can see the letters you’ve highlighted to form a word, score, level and the submit button. There is no “cancel” button; you have to unlace the letters you’ve inputted by touching them in the reverse order. Anything can be strung up as long as they are adjacent, even if they don’t belong to the same “face” of the cube. Interestingly enough, you can string up letters and then rotate, twist and turn the cube to find more letters for your pending word. However, you cannot build up a combo with this method. You can only gain multipliers if you can correctly submit words in succession without twisting anything. The touchscreen controls are magnificent, probably the best among PlayStation Mobile games. Though the menus presented are small, they accurately responded with my desired outcomes, and the same goes for the gameplay proper. There are two modes, Relaxed and Time Limit. Sadly there are no online leaderboards just yet. Personally, I am hoping for Quirkat to update this game so that I can proceed to dominate the online leaderboards. The Relaxed Mode is true to its word, as you can go on and on pinning down words without much fuss and until your own limitations stop you from proceeding. For every 100 points you score, the level goes up and new letters are dealt. As you progress, fewer vowels are given, and finical consonants like Q and Z are handed out lavishly. In Time Limit Mode, you are given only two minutes to come up with the best score you can achieve. There are bombs and missiles to help you in changing words on the cube. Certainly, you won’t care about graphics with these types of games, but that doesn’t mean Word Blocked’s graphics are horrible; they are well above average. The presentation is also good, as well as the elevator music that accompanies the game. Word Blocked is Underline without the difficult touch controls, but with limited game modes. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, though, because there is plenty to be had with this one. 9.5/10 POSTED BY JASPER NIKKI ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2012 AT 9:17 PM
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You Are the Ref and You Are the Umpire from Four Door Lemon are two different games, but essentially identical. So I’m doing both in one review, so as to save my sanity. One covers soccer (or football, as the rest of the world prefers to call it), and the other covers cricket, which is a sport popular in the UK, Caribbean, Australia, and parts of Asia (India/Pakistan). They are trivia games, not so much about the sports themselves, but the official rules of the sports, putting you in a situation a referee or umpire might be in and asking you which multiple choice answer is the correct one. While I have some exposure to soccer from being a kid, I grew up in the short-lived “indoor” soccer era, where the game was played not on fields, but inside, sort of like in a hockey rink, only without the ice. The idea being that there would be a higher score, and thus Americans would find it more entertaining. Which they did for a while, for about a decade or so. So in other words, I know virtually nothing about either subject (the only soccer players I can even name are Daryl Doran, who actually used to be my neighbor, and Slobo Illijevski, and the only cricket player would be the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who). This makes it somewhat hard to gauge how relevant the questions are. But at their core, You Are the Ref/You Are the Umpire are trivia games. Trivia games I understand. Anyway, You Are the Ref/You Are the Umpire have three different modes: Sudden Death, Assessment, and Name the Player. All use the basic format of a trivia game—they present you with a question, then you simply have to pick the correct answer out of three choices. Sudden Death and Assessment are similar, as they both present rules situations. The only real difference is that Sudden Death is a game; you are timed, and when you answer incorrectly, the game is over and a score is presented. Assessment just lets you answer the questions leisurely, without a score. I say “question,” but in reality these are more like long paragraphs, often detailing a convoluted situation, complete with amusing illustrations. Sometimes the “correct” answers are rather subjective, though; for instance, one was about the coaches complaining about the officiating of one of your crew members. If you pick “Do nothing,” it says you answered incorrectly, even though in the explanation of the rules, it says you don’t really have to do anything, and you just have the discretion to. So really, it’s not even about the rules, but how the designers of the game feel you should interpret the rules. I don’t know if they got some famous officials to weigh in on this or not. So one wonders how seriously you should take their advice, if you were truly an umpire or ref (Edit: Apparently these are written by a well known official). Name the Player plays like Sudden Death, except that you are presented with a drawing of a player and must pick their name from the choices given. I have no idea who any of these people are, if they are big names or what, and how recognizable they are or aren’t. All I know is that I didn’t come across Daryl Doran or Slobo. I thought I came across The Doctor, but apparently not. I think this mode should have been reversed; instead of being given a face and three names, you would be given a name and presented with three faces. If nothing else, just to mix things up. But also because it sometimes falls into that trap of giving you 3 similar names. Like, say, Henry Blofeld, Harry Bloomfield, and Harrison Bergeron. Which I’ve always found to be unfair in trivia games, because you might have a vague memory of who it is but can’t quite name him. Then you see a name, but which one? They’re all so close. I guess it depends on how hardcore you want your trivia games. While the game itself is extremely simple, they spent quite a bit of time and effort on the artwork, which looks pretty good. There’s a gallery where you can view the unlocked pictures. Of the scenes, not the players. Other than an annoying theme song, there’s not much in the way of sound to this. I think they missed an opportunity by not having “Gooooooal!” played when you get an answer correct, at least in You Are the Ref. It’s really hard to judge a game like this, because it aimed to fulfill a very small niche, one of which I don’t happen to be the target audience. With that said, I think it could have been a better trivia game. For one, who likes solo trivia games? A multiplayer option where you pass around the Vita/phone/tablet seems like something essential to a trivia game. Beyond that, the single player mode is rather limited, because they could have come up with a more in-depth game aspect than just a sudden death mode. That can be fun for a score attack sort of gameplay, but it needs something deeper for solitary play. They’re also iOS ports and, of course, missing features like Internet leaderboards and achievements. Just once I’d like a PS Mobile game (or Mini) that has more stuff than the iOS version, not less. But still, if you really want a cricket or soccer/football rules trivia game, then it’s a solid, if unspectacular, choice. It does what it advertises, and it has a decent number of questions, so you do get what you pay for. You are the Ref: 5/10 You are the Umpire: 5/10 POSTED BY JEREMYR ON THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013 AT 5:19 AM
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Several PlayStation Mobile offerings are games that are such shallow, simplistic rough drafts that I wonder why the PlayStation Store gatekeepers allow them to be up for sale. Good thing ZooZooGo! is not one of those, and though the price may be a little bit higher than its actual worth, at least we get something from it. ZooZooGo! is also available in the iOS ecosystem, for free. That made my enthusiasm fizzle once I found out about it. Nevertheless, this is the curse of console owners who wish to play casual games on their devices: the price. Some other games make up for this discrepancy by packaging the entire franchise into one neat title, like Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder. Others drastically change up the content while retaining the core gameplay, like Karoshi. A few include additional content like new modes, levels, difficulty settings, or characters, though by “few,” I mean I can’t actually remember seeing a PS Mobile or Minis release following this to justify the often hysterical pricing. Since I don’t have an iOS device, I can’t thoroughly compare the PlayStation Mobile and the iOS versions. Nevertheless, ZooZooGo! on its own is jam-packed with content. First, there are three gameplay modes: Treasure Hunt, a match-3 game featuring animals; Animahjong, you know what that is by its name; and Puzzle Quest, a slide puzzler. At first, you can only play Treasure Hunt, as you must unlock the rest of the modes. Animahjong is easy to unlock, and though I can’t remember when I did unlock it, I’m pretty sure it was early in my playing. Treasure Hunt is a match-3 game that follows the core gameplay of a match-3 game with no twists. Yes, there are special effects depending on the level you are on, and there are also power-ups to equip. Still, these gameplay additions are not as ingenious as what was offered in earlier match-3 games like Aquattack!—and that game is almost three years old! Like Treasure Hunt, Animahjong allows you to use power-ups, like getting rid of an unwanted set of animals, or board reset. It is quite enjoyable, and fresh, given the radiant graphics and pleasant colors on the Vita screen. The music is just fine. Repetitive? Hell yes, but it’s the sort of music you hear in the elevator or in a lounge that doesn’t bother you, and you tend to ignore it. There are microtransactions, BUT WAIT, don’t get overdramatic. Big Head Games were able to come up with a saner microtransaction structure. As opposed to purposely being gimped to force players to pay to enjoy, ZooZooGo! will just charge you if you want an easier route to an already easy game. You pay for shortcuts that you can actually achieve playing the game normally, like power-ups and in-game coins. These coins, used to unlock new levels and modes, can be gathered by simply playing the game. The microtransaction aspect is still not enticing, but at least it’s not a crazy proposition like we usually find in pay-to-win games. I like the production values of this one, great graphic art, finished gameplay, responsive and smooth touch controls, and honestly, they mildly justify the price tag. Oh well, we already have the incurvios, the Everybody’s Arcades, and the Wipes of the PSM world. ZooZooGo! looks like fan service, a great one at that, with the current state of PlayStation Mobile. UPDATE: ZooZooGo! is now free! However, the rating will remain as is since it was reviewed with the price in mind. 7/10 POSTED BY JASPER NIKKI ON SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2013 AT 5:06 AM
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