Quiz Climber
Some philosophical dude once said, “Wisest is he that knows he knows nothing.” After my shockingly bad performance on Quiz Climber, Chillingo's addictive, multiple-choice, general knowledge quiz game, I'm praying he's right.
Okay, so it's no great embarrassment I thought Bow Wow was a brand of dog food and not a famous rapper. And answering Gene Wilder as Star Trek's creator was a simple slip of the finger, honest. But the problem is I'd already invited my friends to compete against me through the integrated Facebook leaderboards, so my carefully crafted faux-intellect has been revealed for all to sneer at.
I suspect some of those 'friends' have been cheating, ahem, racking up high scores by buying lifelines with real cash. I'm too principled for that, you understand. So instead I've been banking lifelines earned through playing – lots and lots and lots of playing.
Reg Rating 75%
Price Free with ads or £1.49 ad-free
Publisher Chillingo
More info Quiz Climber on iTunes
Ninja Fishing
Seven years old, cowering in an open-faced fishing tent in heavy rain, soaked to the bone, peering through the thick smog of my dad's Golden Virginia rollies, maggots crawling in sawdust pots or leaking pus on the end of a hook. Watching interminably for a bite that never came. In many ways, Ninja Fishing is a lot like my first and only fishing trip.
Cast your line, trying for maximum depth using the tilt controls to avoid fish on the way down. Get too close and a tap of the screen converts your hook into a drill, blending fish into puffs of red mist. Reach the bottom and there's a chance to grab the treasure chest full of gold. On the way back up it's a race to hook as many fish as possible before you loft them into the air for a Fruit Ninja-style slashathon. The more fish you gut, the more gold collected. But watch out for the random sticks of dynamite that end the game early.
An RPG system upgrades weights, line length, drill oil and Katana blades, so you can fish deeper depths for more exotic beasts. But Ninja Fishing's simple hook quickly proves monotonous, as its mechanics are rinsed and repeated ad nauseum. The perfect fishing simulator, then.
Reg Rating 50%
Price £0.69
Publisher Gamenauts
More info Ninja Fishing on iTunes
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COMMENTS
GoF II - Is it worth it?
To be honest, if you have to ask then possibly not. It is, after all, one of the more expensive games on iOS.
On the other hand, if you're a dedicated space cadet who's spent hundreds of pounds on similar games over an embarrassingly long period of time, and across more platforms than you can remember, then price doesn't even come into it.
GoF II is the best iOS space game by a massive margin, and arguably walks all over some of its more expensive PC and console based brethren too. If you love the genre enough then you will love this game regardless of price.
As an aside: something not often mentioned in GoF II reviews is the feature that lets you share a full game save state over OpenFeint with any other devices registered to the same account. You really can play on the iPhone then switch seamlessly to the iPad and carry on. It's such a staggeringly useful feature that I can't understand why more developers don't do something similar with their universal apps. I'm looking at you, Rovio.
Galaxy on Fire 2
A 3rd recommendation for GoF2 here... I managed to rack up about 14 hours of gameplay on holiday, after getting hooked. It's a little fiddly played on the iPod/iPhone, but stunning on the iPad. It does play like an updated Elite, with less messing around than the original GoF.
Looking at the AppShopper activity, it was last discounted to £2.99 in April. You could hold out, but I don't regret having paid normal price for it. I wouldn't think twice about a similar game+price on Steam.
But is it worth 7 quid?
That second sentence there got me very interested until I saw the price...
Reckless Getaway...
..really is a lot of fun to play.
Unfortunately, as El Reg reported earlier, after a couple of hours play I was filled with an unquenchable desire to go out and rob some Banks. Well, I say 'unquenchable' - not strictly true. But I have still hit a bit of wall in that I can't find ANYWHERE to spend my ill gotten gains on Flat-screen TVs and Mobile phones! Wassatallabout eh? Now sitting here, surrounded by bags of loot, I have found the time to contemplate my actions, reflect on what went wrong and think of the children. BAN THIS FILTH IMMEDIATELY!!!
And second to the AC first poster - GOF2 rules. Once I got the experimental mining drill, a decent ship and one of those warp drive doo-hickeys to go collect Void ore I was in Han-heaven.
Galaxy on Fire 2
Absolutely amazing, had spent hours on it over the last two weeks — think Elite updated for touch devices... http://www.galaxyonfire.com/
