For this week’s iPad Games of the Week, casual gaming gets a boost with Doodle Fit. Tilt to Live HD improves the gameplay of an already impressive title, and much more.
Doodle Fit (99 cents)
The iPad was made for casual gaming, and Doodle Fit is the latest in a long line of addictive apps that are easy to pick up, but hard to put down. True to form, the premise of this game is simple: Drag a series of Tetris-shaped blocks into a set area to fill it up.
The challenge? You’ll need to carefully place each block in the right spot or you’ll leave an open space or two when you run out of pieces. If that happens, it’s time to start over again. And there’s a timer running, so darn it, focus next time!
There’s intentionally no way to rotate your piece, adding an extra element of pain to the pleasure of solving each level. Plus, the ability to set a white or black background makes the game that much easier to play in the dark (in bed, anyone?)
With multiple solutions to each level, and a fairly steep difficult curve as you play, there are many hours of puzzle-goodness to be had in this little 99-cent app confection.
My favorites? As you get into the third and fourth sets of levels, you’ll find open areas shaped like structures and other objects that can take up to 15 or 20 pieces to complete. It’s all good, clean fun.
Tilt to Live HD (Free)
If there are dozens of Tetris-inspired puzzle games in the App store, there are just as many that try to leverage your iPad’s accelerometer to let you tilt your device to control your movements. Tilt to Live HD goes far beyond steering a virtual car or rolling a metallic ball into a hole, instead putting you in command of a little arrow that must avoid red dots of doom at all cost.As you tilt your way in between, around and generally “away” from the dots, you’ll encounter a huge range of larger, multi-colored power-ups that let you get back at the baddies. Just pop each power-up, and you’ll freeze a section of the screen, shoot a purple shockwave, and generally destroy or disable the forces of evil.
In many cases, you’ll be encouraged to tilt a 360 and run over or destroy the dots caught in your power-up’s special attacks. Take that, you fiendish . . . dots?
For all your hard work staying alive, you’ll build up a multiplier, and generally rack up gobs of satisfying points. One of the most welcome Settings allows you to select Overhead mode, which makes holding your iPad and playing the game from this angle perfectly simple. The playing field is massive, and you’ll find lots of creative ways to dodge your way out of trouble.
Add four game types to the mix in the expanded $2.99 version – Classic, Frostbite, Code Red and Gauntlet – and you’ve got yourself an instant classic that travels anywhere your iPad goes.
Cut the Rope HD ($1.99)
You’re at home minding your own business, playing with your iPad, when the doorbell rings. What’s this? It’s a box containing a creature of some kind that blinks kindly at you through a pair of holes.
Then you see the note: “Feed with candy.”
A solid three hours later, I had fed my new little green friend (named Om Nom) a metric ton of hard candy, using my finger to let ever more shiny gems of the sticky stuff drop lazily into its insatiable maw.
Miss his hungry hole, and little Om Nom gets seriously sad. Feed him and grab the stars along the way, and he’ll crunch his way into each yummy treat with extra gusto.
If it sounds easy, you’re half right. Sure, cutting strings to let candy dandle on its ends is simple, but as the levels unfold, you’ll find ever more strings attached to the candy, and some interesting obstacles to overcome.
Add to that a physics engine that takes into account the weight of the calorie-laden sugar bombs as well as the distance it falls on its way into my green friend’s stomach juices, and you’ve got yourself a puzzle game that also wants to be a solid physics title. You’ll even come across air bubbles that make the candy float, cushions of air that blow the candy around in each direction and more.
If the amount of time my son and I have spent playing this fresh game is any indication, I think we might have a new top seller on our hands. Get it now, you’ll love it.
Okay, Om Nom, Daddy’s coming! Bye!
Victory Day HD ($2.99)
If there’s one game I’d term a “guilty pleasure” on my iPad this week, it’s Victory Day HD. Available for just three bucks for a short time, this side-scrolling WWII-inspired gore fest puts you in the boots of an American or Soviet foot soldier. You’re task is bloody simple: Use a variety of weapons to shamelessly slaughter the enemy.
If you’ve ever played Castle Crashers on the 360, you’ll feel right at home here. Use the left control to move forward and backward, as well as up and down. You’ll need to judge your blows and shots to land in the right spots, given that there are several paths to take across the screen. Just keep running and gunning to the right to work your way through the levels.
Tip: Keep moving. If you pause in one spot too long, you’ll take some serious fire, and fail. Continue running to the right, and you’ll find health, ammo and more.
There are a dozen levels to explore, and the controls are pretty darn solid. You might want to put your iPad on a flat surface, and use your index fingers to control your avatar to maximize speed and attacks.
With flamethrowers, RPGs and tons of other super-cool stuff, you’ve got yourself a clearly adult run-and-gun gaming experience that will have you taking out the enemy for many days to come.And, really, who doesn’t love well-rendered blood and guts in their shooters?
