Once downloaded, I loaded it and what my eyes saw was far beyond my expectations, it is the most polished BETA I ever seen, everthing is perfect. In fact, its one of the most polished games ive seen in a while... from the menus to the music and to the actual game, everything matches perfectly, making a very congruent game that feels right. Menus are very polished, with lots of info (including a stats and scores page with tons of them, like Number of Zone Reached or Time Played or Speed Boosts Hit and of course Achievements, up to 45 of them, making it a longer snack than usual and a nice time killer for achievements freaks like me) and all being very accessible.
All the tiny details like being able to start a game from the achievements menu or seeing your world ranking without needing to go into GameCenter is cool, and the "Game Over" screen is also wonderful, displaying all the information you need right there. Your score is made by the sum of three stats: Time Flying, Blubbles Collected and Clouds Smashed, and sums it up for the total score, so you know exactly what gives you more points and it feels very fair for us gamers. There also info with your personal best, worlds best and your rank, also gives you the info about things like Distance flown. The whole package reeks of quality and the menus are the prime example of this.
Second thing you notice is the soft happy tune made by Gruff Rhys (music video below). Once you hear it a couple of times it gets stucked in your head forever and wont let you go... and after two weeks playing this every day, its still fun to hear, so you probably wont get bored with it. And theres an instrumental version when you are playing the game, so its different from the main menu song theme.
I think now its about time to tell you about its gameplay, and this is where Whale Trail really shines. Maybe you are thinking that this game is too similar to Tiny Wings, I cant blame you for that, as its have some things in common, like the one touch control method or changing backgrounds, but there is where comparisons stop. Whale Trail is so much more than that. While both games are about being fun, Whale Trail has many different things going on to keep you entertained for a long time.
Level design is excellent, the clouds are perfectly placed to make this a roller coaster experience, going up and down evading obstacles (some move, for greater challenge) while collecting blubbles. Oh the blubbles, they are so important... they are what keeps you alive, what keep you going and also what gives you your multiplier. This is a different kind of endless game, one where you don't die instantly with the first thing in your way, here you have a life bar that consists of how many fuel you have left, and the fuel are the blubbles. If you collect blubbles with out hitting any clouds that gets in the way your multiplier rises and therefore your scores augments very quickly, but if you touch a cloud, both your score and life decreases, and if your blubbles fuel depletes completely, you dive in below the screen and you will end in you arch nemesis hands (in this cases cloud tentacles) and get captured. And there are shiny stars along on the path for you to collect, and if you collect enough of them Frenzy Mode will start, and here is the funniest part of the game, as you gain considerable speed and can smash clouds, making your revenge on the clouds a very very fun experience.
Willow The Whale has some very peculiar friends that will try to help you along the way, and they come in at the intersections to feed you. When you first arrive at the new segment, the background changes completely, and every segments is very different within each other, spawning all the rainbow colors, and there are seven of them with more to come.
Whats outstanding is the level design of the sections. The first section is very easy with many many blubbles, but as you progress into the game, blubbles starts to spare out and there are not so many of them anymore, so you better not run into a cloud or you will die and this is the roller coaster begins... as i said before, level design is excellent, as it has you traveling between very closely attached clouds, cloud tunnels, clouds that moves around and all sort of cloud positioned everywhere to make this a memorable ride. And the pace gets really fast so you will have to put all your effort in evading clouds while gathering bubbles while trying to also collect stars while going, lets say it again, fast. Good luck.
Oh wait, I almost forgot, there also different paths to follow, some exploration to make with the Speed Boosts that allows you to go higher, and explore the heights on the look out for bubbles. This magical game is so good that I could go on and on and on speaking about all the good and polished things this game has to offer, and all the fun you will get on the way, so I just will say one last thing: This is the game Tiny Wings wanted to be.
Remember, Whale Trail, the next big hit will be out for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad tonight, 20th of October on the AppStore for $0.99. I will have a full review when its out to tell you everything you need to know about all the promised upgrades when the final build, the completed game, hits shelves everywhere.
For more info visit the developer website: http://www.ustwo.co.uk/
1 comments:
I hope you'll make a "full review" as promised.
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