Osmos ($4.99) seriously contends as one of the best games available for the iPad. It originated as a PC title, but received a visually stunning transfer to Apple’s tablet from Hemisphere Games, a developer specializing in “games for both sides of your brain.”
With this criteria in mind, Osmos HD delivers in utilizing the skill-sets of both cerebral hemispheres, forcing players to simultaneously use logic, creativity and spacial awareness. In this game, you guide a “mote” with the goal of accumulating more mass, while avoiding the larger red-hued bubbles. As you propel the mote it shrinks in size, dispensing smaller motes. This adds legitimate challenge to the game. This being said it is not easy to master, which should be the ultimate goal for any game developer, creating a game that is challenging but masterable nonetheless. You don’t want to frustrate players and the creators of Osmos understand this principle.
Enter the inclusion of ambient (and sometimes distantly menacing) music, which plays in the background throughout each level. The gameplay is rather slow, so beating each level takes a fair amount of patience.
Regardless, Osmos HD is the perfect casual iPad game. It only costs a finksy. The visual elements are consistently breathtaking – each mote contains a galaxy of color and animation. Despite being simple, the game’s integration of touch controls is highly intelligent, meaning adults and children can play without needing much of a tutorial. Simply tap in the opposite direction of where you want to mote to go.
The levels range from wide-open space, where your mote can travel at a higher speed, to those in which motes are sardined into expansive clusters, placing more emphasis on delicate navigation.
Odyssey and Arcade, the game’s two modes, are pretty standard. In order to unlock levels in Arcade mode, you must make progress in Odyssey mode. The developers also included an page that keeps track of various achievements such as ‘Drifter,’ ‘Odysseus,’ and ‘Warped Chaos Master.’ This game comes with OpenFeint integration, so you can share these achievements with friends.
Osmos will definitely be in the discussion for best iPad games by the end of 2010. If you are into strategy, puzzle games and testing your patience, download it immediately. Your family and friends will probably stage a gaming intervention.
Ben Silverman of Yahoo! Games rates Osmos pretty high, too.
