I Love Hue
by Zut!
                                        

Definitively not a game for people with colour blindness, I love Hue is a colour matching puzzler where you attempt to rearrange coloured squares back into order according to its shade. In it you test your depth/colour perception – you’ll be amazed how the colours just sort of click in your mind – I know I was!

I Love Hue is not a bad game, however I tend to judge a game on how fun it is and how much I want to progress onwards. Whilst I do get a level of satisfaction upon completing a stage, I do find myself inwardly groaning that I have to do it again.

Although it’s not a game I can get particularly excited about, I would totally recommend I love Hue for more the more methodical casual gamers out there. I do appreciate the fact that when you complete a stage in better than average attempts you get rewarded by being called ‘a beautiful ray of light’ – who doesn’t get a big mental hug with compliment like that!

2.5/5

Tomb of the Mask
by Happymagenta UAB

                                      

You’ll get the odd douchebag who will compare Tomb of the Mask to Pac-Man – however they are wrong to do so. Apart from the odd passing similarity such as the old school graphics and the fact it takes place in a maze, Tomb of the Mask is a completely different, standalone and ultimately very entertaining game.

The aim of the game is to transverse Mayan themed labyrinth stages avoiding various booby traps whilst collecting dots (but not like Pac-Man!), as well as coins, stars and power ups (but not fruit - proper power ups!) as you go. The key to success is definitely pin point precision turning, as the game mechanics are super quick – you dash from wall to wall lightning fast.

My biggest problem- and in all fairness my only problem - is the ‘5 lives wait 25’ policy. It’s not the policy itself (as pretty much every free-to-play game uses this method I’m soooo used to it now) it’s the amount of lives. Because the game is so quick you can blow through all 5 lives in a matter of minutes - which is very frustrating.  You can play in the stage-less, energy-less arcade mode but without the objectives pf the main game its not the same.

With its retro Commodore 64 style graphics, addictive, enjoyable (and un-Pac-Man like) gameplay, Tomb of the Mask is an awesome game. However because of the fact you only get to play for a couple of minutes every few hours I am forced to give it lower score that this brilliant game actually deserves.

3/5

 

Lara Croft: Relic Run
By Square Enix Ltd

The basic dynamic of this game is one of an infinite runner, however theres enough additional Tomb Raider/platformer action such as parkor, base jumping, quad biking into ravines and shoot outs with jungle dwelling lizard men to make Lara Croft: Relic Run stand out from its competitors.

Quick reaction time is essential for this game. Barriers and caverns seem to appear out of nowhere and are further exacerbated by the fact – in the jungle levels anyway – that when Lara pushes branches out the way they swing back towards you obscuring your view.

The controls are tight and graphically the game is stunning – easily one of the most visually impressive games out on Android (watch out for the amount of space it takes up in your memory and stay on top of the updates!).

I’ve reviewed a few infinite runner games for my blog and I have to say Lara Croft: Relic Run is the best. The reason? Its just that good- Square Enix have very successfully created a scaled down Tomb Raider game for the hand-held market and kept the freemium crap to a minimum.

Plus Lara is looking as hot as ever!

4.5/5

Beneath the Lighthouse
By Nitrome

 

I am so bad at this game! I want to be good but I just don’t have the… I don’t know… the coordination? The logical brain? Whatever it is, I don’t have it!

 

Beneath the Lighthouse is an awesome original puzzle game. You control the rolling of the ball-character guy by tilting the whole screen like a steering wheel. Per stage there are various objects and hazards that you have to transverse or avoid in order to reach the end goal - which get (obviously) harder and harder as the levels go on. Often challenges involve you to having to tilt one way and then immediately tilt back again – and this is where I fall down!

 

If you want to roll right you have to tilt the screen to the left and vice versa- and I just cant get my head around it! I’m alright when I have plenty of time to think but when quick reactions are required I am USELESS! Honestly 90% of the levels I have cleared have been the result of one random act of fluke!

 

Beneath the Lighthouse is a very cool innovative game. I love the Minecraft-esque graphics and I love concept of the game itself. Please don’t let my rusbbihness put you off what is a very well made, unique and most importantly an enjoyable game.

 

 4/5

 

Strata
By Graveck

 

Is Strata a game? I’m not sure? Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but I’m just not sure it counts as a game- more of a brainteaser.

 

The premise – layer the colour ribbons so that they cross the corresponding colour box without a different colour ribbon crossing over the top. Sounds simple enough but the higher the level the more ribbons and boxes you have to contend with and it gets pretty damn hard.

Strata is the kind of good brainteaser that goes well with your 11am coffee break. If I was a in charge of promotions at Graveck I would totally be trying to get a daily addition on the puzzle page of some online newspaper, because I could quite easily see this being as popular as a crossword or Sudoku with folk of my parents’ generation – my Mum certainly loves it!

3/5

Push Panic
By Bejoy

 

At first glance Push Panic seems like a standard physics/puzzle game- its not- it’s a mental thumb bashing free for all and I love it!!

The premise of the game is that coloured blocks fall from the top of the screen and you have to link them into chains. However before the blocks are linked they have a tendency to pile up along the bottom. Across the playscreen there is a bar that you cannot let the blocks pile up above. As such it is essential that you link the blocks into chains so that they disappear as fast as you can - failure to do so results in losing the level.

There’s certain amount of risk that must be endured in order to be truly successful at this game. Levels require a high score in order to be completed. The longer the chain links the higher the score. So when you are challenged with getting a crazy high score (which as the levels go on gets even crazier) you have to create some pretty long ass chains. However as the levels go on the blocks start dropping pretty damn fast from the top and begin to pile up just as fast along the bottom. As such you have to weigh up the risk of a big pile of blocks vs. a long chain. At times it can get really intense!

Ive reached a point now where I don’t think I can progress any further as I simply can’t move my fingers and thumbs quick enough to keep up. Because of this I can’t give it 5 out of 5 full marks but I will highly recommend it as a fun and entertaining game for all- especially those who have not got the early stages of arthritis brought on from a lifetime of cracking their knuckles like me.

4.5/5

TwoDots
by Betaworks

 

I was playing TwoDots in bed the other night and my wife turned to me and asked ‘darling are you just staring at a bunch of dots?’ at which I was forced to concede that ‘yes, I am indeed staring at a bunch of dots’. However, I explained to her, I’m not staring at any old dots I’m playing TwoDots -a very cool puzzler that looks deceptively simple but actually takes a lot of brainpower to complete.

Like its predecessor (Dots) the object of the game is to connect the dots according colour – however connections can only be made horizontally, vertically or in a square. Unlike its predecessor though, one now has to complete various challenges in order to complete a level such as getting anchors to drop to the bottom of the screen in a certain amount of moves. It can be challenging at times but also a lot of fun.

Another slightly less welcome addition to the Dots series is our old friend Mr ‘Lose five lives and wait 25mins for new one’. That said so many freemium games use this format now that I’ve kinda gotten used to it and cant be arsed to complain about it anymore.  Twodots is still an awesomely addictive game despite its use.

As for the appearance of the game my wife is right of course right- the game does have a somewhat modernist minimalist appearance. However I think it looks cool. If a artist like a Damien Hirst created a painting that consisted of just a bunch of colourful dots on a blank canvas I bet it would be worth millions of dollars… what Damien Hirst has created a painting like that and it is worth millions of dollars? Case in point.

4/5