Knife Toss is an intense new tap-to-shoot title from Crawl Space Games. Focusing on skill and timing, Knife Toss aims to have players sitting on the edge of their seat. Simple controls, online connectivity, and pleasant graphics all add to this game’s charm.
Knife Toss Pros:
- Bright colorful graphics
- Edge-of-your-seat intensity
- OpenFeint leaderboards and achievements
- No-nonsense control meshanism
Knife Toss Cons:
- No music apart from menu screens
Shrouded in a carnival-style atmosphere, Knife Toss challenges players to toss knives (imagine that) at balloons mounted on a spinning wheel. Unfortunately for him, a skinny clown happens to be mounted to that same wheel. Pop the balloons and avoid the clown for maximum points and for the chance to progress. Each level contains a number of balloons needing to be disposed of in a prescribed amount of time. The accelerometer controls crosshairs which the player must aim correctly. Tapping the screen tosses a single knife. Hitting balloons successively creates a “streak” which will add a bonus to your score. The longer the streak is held, the higher the bonus. On the other hand, hitting the clown results in a drop in health. An active health meter resides at the top left. When either the health meter or the timer runs out, the game is over. The next game starts again at Round 1.
While the gameplay sounds fairly basic, Knife Toss ups the ante by incorporating power-ups and power-downs that add to the challenge. Random target icons appear from behind the spinning wheel during play. If hit, these elusive targets can activate numerous powers including stopping the wheel, slowing it down (or speeding it up), adding and subtracting from the timer, etc. Increasing the difficulty, once Round 11 is reached in Easy mode, the wheel can change spin direction without warning. Medium mode is unlocked by reaching Round 15 in Easy mode. Hard mode is unlocked by reaching Round 20 in Medium mode. Knife Toss also houses Bonus rounds. Here players can score timer and health bonuses by hitting balloons as they float by.
The game shines with bright colorful graphics, which would be expected considering the circus theme. The main menu is easily navigated and cleanly presented. Unfortunately, the whimsical musical score is only present on the menu screens. We liked the tune as it has a dark amusement park feeling, akin to a Danny Elfman piece. It would be better if we could listen while playing. Perhaps this will come in a future update. OpenFeint is utilized for online leaderboard and achievements. 35 achievements are present in all. The game sports tons of replay value due to these features and trying to beat your own previous scores which are available in an interactive High Score page.
After the first few attempts, we were hooked to Knife Toss. It has all the makings of an App Store winner: feverish gameplay, vibrant colors, quality visuals, simple controls, and online connectivity. At $0.99, Knife Toss is a handsome title that scores 5-Dimples with little clowning around.
