Posted by Rich DeBell on Mar 12, 2010

Roll Em Hoops

Categories: Games, | 0 comments | |

I remember the good ole days as a kid when going to Chuck E. Cheese’s was the absolute best! One of my all time favorite games to play there was Skee Ball. There’s a certain level of skill required to truly master Skee ball. You have to use just enough power in your arm stroke while aiming for a tiny hole, just slightly larger then the circumference of a softball. Another favorite game of mine as a kid happened to be the little mini basketball shooting game. I had one of those in my basement growing up and was addicted to it for most of my childhood. When I saw that Hairy Monsters Studio, recently launched it’s new game app Roll Em Hoops for the iPhone and iPod touch it immediately grabbed my attention because on the surface it appears to combine both of these games.

Roll Em Hoops is a new take on the traditional arcade basketball game where the user rolls a ball up an alley (Skee Ball) to make baskets instead of shooting the ball like other arcade basketball games.

There are three modes of play including:

In the Bonus – Light up all 5 hoops to unlock 4 different bonus games(Bombs Away, Cow, Rainbow Jumpers, and Spirit)
Old School – Rack up the points shooting at both stationary and moving targets.
3 Pt Shootout – Shoot 5 balls at each hoop. The first 4 balls are worth 1 point each. The 5th ball is worth 2 points.

As I mentioned above because of my childhood fun and memories with both skee ball and basketball I felt I needed to give Roll Em Hoops a go. Hairy Monsters Studio did deliver a fun game. The graphics are great first of all, using the newest of 3D animation technology. Most importantly the game play was fun. The various game modes do provide some good variation enabling you to get more use and longevity out of it. Roll em hoops is another game that is perfect fo the iPhone because it’s something you can easily pick up and play for a few minutes and then set down without worry of losing your level or progress. Each game mode is short and sweet. The key of course is to get the highest score possible.

Though I did truly enjoy the game there are a few ‘yeah but’s’. For one, the motion of throwing the skee ball is good but not great. I found it difficult to be very precise with direction, however the game does make up for that with giving the user some leeway on shots. Some shots that look like they are misses bounce around and go in for instance. In addition some extra features which would be great would include multiple difficulty levels, social network sharing of scores, and multi-player mode where you can play head to head against your pals.

All in all Roll Em Hoops is a nice iPhone app game to add to your library.