The third title in the 48 hr App series is here and it’s three times the charm with this installment. The 48hr App Series is a project by ustwo in which they develop and submit an iPhone app within a strict 48 hour time frame. Considering the time limitations, ustwo continues to deliver engaging gameplay surrounded by masterful visuals.
…™ Pros:
- Gorgeous visuals
- Simply addictive gameplay
- Cute techno sounds
- This was done in 48 hours? Wow
…™ Cons:
- No online global leaderboards
The third of six episodes in the series, …™, take a little bit of a departure from the preceding games. While .™ and ..™ forced players to stay alive by eating blue balls and avoiding red triangles, …™ introduces the drop-from-the-top scenario. Players must guide their white ball toward the bottom of the screen by slipping through holes in a stack up of ascending plates. Looming above are rows of killer spikes that look like teeth poised to take a bite. As time progressed the plates move upward pushing your ball with them. An encounter with the upper spikes ends the game. The scoring in …™ is exactly the same as the other two 48hr Apps. Just stay alive as long as possible racking up points as each second passes.
Graphically, …™ is gorgeous. Bringing the series back to 2D and away from ..™’s three dimensional environment, meantime, …™ shows artistic flare that we’ve grown accustomed to with ustwo. While totally in black-and-white, the retro polka dot and striped designs had us mesmerized. At times, we were so involved in appreciating the busy visuals that we hadn’t noticed our ball nearing the death zone. We dare to say that this is the best looking app in the series thus far.
Controls are simple yet take a bit getting used to. Tilt the iPhone or iPod touch to slide the plates that the ball is resting on. At first, the tilting seems to be have a backward affect on the movement. But once you get in the groove, the control scheme improves. Once the ball successfully drops through the opening, the plate disappears. Lining up several plate holes at once allows successive falling, which really helps you get away from the top spikes. On the other hand, hesitating or becoming disoriented by the hypnotic environment will quickly cost you.
Sound effects shine in …™ as well. The game rewards with cute techno blips and beeps as the ball scales down the screen. If the ball touches the upper spikes they quickly shut off the gameplay area with the sound of a heavy iron gate closing. Ominous ambient sounds envelope the gameplay. Actually, they reminded us a lot of the “scary” soundtrack in castle levels of Super Mario Bros.
While …™ does allow in-app tweeting of your high scores, we wish these 48hr apps would acquire some sort of online global leaderboards. We understand that the reason for this omission is the short development time. Maybe once the entire series is released we’ll see ustwo offer a “remastered” rerelease. In the meantime, …™ is, in our opinion, the best addition to the series. If you’re a fan of simple survival titles, this is one $1.99 5-Dimpler that we suggest you own.
