iPod Games Review Roundup (page 2 of 8)
- September 15, 2006 19:23 PM PST
- Email this!
Vortex
One of the two games developed internally by Apple, Vortex is easily the best of the initial 9 iPod launch titles available from the iTunes Music Store. It is apparent that Apple spent a great deal of effort in creating a solid puzzle game for launch that was made to take advantage of the iPod's unique controls -- and by that I obviously mean the scroll wheel.
Vortex is basically a circular version of Arkanoid or Breakout. Instead of moving a pad (called a "bat" is Vortex) horizontally to eliminate a rectangular wall of bricks with a ball, you have full 360 degree rotation and will be aiming for a circle bricks in the center of the screen. So the gameplay screen is essentially one big a large circle with a bat that rotates around the edge, with a smaller circle of bricks in the center. The goal is simple: destroy all the bricks and advance to the next level.
But, of course, things aren't quite that simple. The circle of bricks is usually multilayered, and often each layer rotates in a different direction, clockwise or counterclockwise. There are five difficulty levels -- Newbie, Rookie, Intermediate, Pro, and Expert -- and the level of difficulty determines how the circle of bricks is arranged. So the ball speed doesn't change, but the way the bricks are oriented does. And things can get difficult very fast.
There are several factors that up the difficulty level, aside from the sheer number of bricks and the rotation. For example, normal bricks break in one hit, but some take multiple hits, while others don't break at all. And, to put another bee in your bonnet, just like most versions of Breakout, there are power-ups that can either help you out or be a big pain in the rear. Good ones are items like Stretch (makes your bat wider) and Multi-ball (three ball mayhem, but you can get them in succession for more than three balls), and bad ones can shrink your bat to frustratingly small sizes.
The best strategy is to break through the outer layer of bricks and trap your ball in between two layers so it bounces around for a while and knocks several bricks at a time. The less you have to move your bat, the better. The gameplay is instantly addictive. You start will five balls, but there are power-ups that reward you with extras. And on the later levels, you'll need them.
The scroll wheel is your only control, and you can set it to either rotation (any shift in finger position moves the bat left or right, regardless of where your finger is on the scroll wheel) or finger position (the bat moves correspondingly to your finger position on the scroll wheel). It's nice that Apple included two options, though it would have been nice to be able to adjust the sensitivity of the scroll wheel because it is quite sensitive.
You can pause, turn music and sound effects on/off mid-game, save mid-game (kind of like a resume function) in the case that you need to shut down your iPod, but once you squander your supply of balls, it's game over, no matter if you saved or not. The top corners of the screen displays a clock and a battery meter so can keep an eye on how much juice Vortex is draining. And you're going to need it, as this game sucks up quite a bit of power. I'd put it on par with moves, perhaps even more.
Much like Lumines on the PSP, Vortex comes together as a puzzle game and music package. By this I mean that the audio really adds a nice amount of ambience to the game and, unlike some of the other launch titles, the audio quality in Vortex is crisp and clear. Nice job, Apple.
Fun Factor: 4.25
