Posted by Ryan Johnson on 08 27, 2010

Grumps

Categories: Games, | 0 comments | |

What does it say of me if I saw the name of this app and was immediately drawn to it? HAHA, long week I guess If you like dodge ‘em games then you may want to try your luck at Grumps. Trapped in a 2D world you’re forced to weave in and out of falling emoticons in an endless and increasingly difficult journey to stay alive. If you’ve got good vision and excellent tilt reflexes, you may score big in this game.

Created by Mojo Software, Grumps is a very simple concept, that’s basic to the eye yet difficult to master. Disgruntled emoticons rain down endlessly from above with increasingly smaller windows of space separating them. It’s your job to tilt your iPhone/iPod/iPad side-to-side to navigate the avatar, which happens to bear a striking resemblance to developer Carl Andrews, in and out of the way of the falling frowny faces. You’ve got a little wiggle room for error because you can get touched up to 3 times before you’re toast. However, if you put yourself in the wrong position, getting hit three times in a row is really easy to do.

Much to their dismay, the Grumps aren’t the only emoticons on the block. There are also happy faces and bombs. Collecting happy faces gives you bonus points so you can pad your score a bit as you play. Keep in mind Grumps includes Open Feint so padding your score equates to bragging rights on the global leaderboard. Bombs are the most critical things to gather in my mind. Once you’ve grabbed a bomb, you can save it for when you need it most. When you’re cornered and it’s a certainty that the Grumps are about to give you the smackdown just tap the screen to unleash the bombs fury, obliterating all the Grumps on the screen. Collecting bombs and smiley faces are a must, but keep in mind that many times they’re set up as a trap and it’s almost a given that you’ll get hit by a Grump or two trying to snag one. No biggie if you’ve got three lives left, but once you’re down to your last one, you’ll really want to pick and choose when to go for them.

So, what’d I think about Grumps? Meh, it’s okay. I played it, didn’t really love it, not really sure if I’ll play it again. I found the tilting sensitivity to be a little on the slow side, and overall I guess I just wish it was a bit more polished. The sound effects seem a bit cheesy to me and the graphics although they may be appealing to many, are a bit rough around the edges and kind of remind me of scenery from Pee Wee’s Playhouse. At a cost of only $0.99 it’s hard to say that this game’s not worth the money because it does offer those that enjoy retro looking dodge ‘em games something to add to their collection. However, I’m not really sure that Grumps is going to be everybody’s cup of tea.

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