Lets talk about apps...

Categories: general-stuff

Tags: Apple fanboy, computer games, computer game, and another thing

Date: 30 April 2009 21:18:41

Or one in particular: geoDefense on the iPod Touch.

I'm teaching games at college at the moment and geoDefense is the game that's getting the most love and hate.

For a start it riffs on (which is a kind way of putting it) a fantastic forebear. Let's be honest: geoDefense steals its entire art style from Geometry Wars. Which, in one way, is good: if you're going to steal, steal from the best.

The first levels, all in the easy setting, are brilliant. Loads of fun and very compulsive. That's when it's good. After that it's very, VERY hard and that's when it's bad. From Medium level 2 the game is a broken mess of decisions which take the game from being a compulsive classic to being a very unkind partner. Caution, it says as you load it up, meltdown imminent. And that's very true. In one respect that's useful; I've been using it as an example of best and worst practise in one fell swoop with my students... But it's so close to being deleted because it's so frustrating it's untrue.

Still, just one more go, eh?

Other apps I'm loving; iFractal, Classics, iFooty, Artisan, Topple, Rolando, Dr Awesome, Spawn, Randompos and my favourite app of all: Backgrounds. Hardly a surprise Apple had its billionth app downloaded over the weekend. Good job it wasn't that app though...