Fun-Sized iPhone Reviews: Volume 2

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• Tags: fruit ninja, fun sized, helsing's fire, ipad, iphone, jim and frank mysteries, professor layton, review, veggie samurai

Fun-Sized Reviews are bite sized nuggets of knowledge that’ll help you make App Store purchasing decisions in rapid time.

Veggie Samurai – $0.99/$2.99, Quantum Squid Interactive
Get this game if: You want to stick it to those vegetables; you prefer RC Cola to Coke

Veggie Samurai is a knock-off an homage to Fruit Ninja – veggies fly at you, and you cut them up with your katana while avoiding the bottles of poison that are thrown into the mix. They’ve attempted to improve on Fruit Ninja’s gameplay by giving you the option to dice your veggies, cutting them into quarters for additional points and combos. As similar as the game is to Fruit Ninja, it lacks the overall charm of the original – I find myself bored while playing it, yet I enjoy myself immensely when cutting up the fruity equivalent. It’s… okay. It comes in an HD version for the iPad (for triple the price); an option Fruit Ninja doesn’t have – but why would you need it? I hate broccoli; I don’t want to see it highly defined.

Helsing’s Fire – $0.99, Ratloop
Get this game if: You enjoy things that are awesome; you’ve always suspected Van Helsing was a bro

Dracula is at it again; building a vampire horde to destroy the world -  but Professor Helsing and his trusty assistant Raffton will be having none of this as they take on the infected to rid the Shadow Blight of the demonic uprising. Helsing’s Fire is a puzzle game unlike any I’ve seen before, and it’s a fun, stylish romp to boot. I am in love with the art style and found myself giggling at the dialogue more than once. With 90 levels and a Survival Mode, the game is a steal for $0.99 – grab it before they realize this and raise the price!

The Jim and Frank Mysteries – The Blood River Files – $0.99, 99Games
Get this game if: You love Professor Layton; you haff tvelve metchsteek

I would love to tell you about this game, but first I need to figure out the combined weight of these seven matchsticks using only 2 straight lines. If you help me out, I’ll tell you what I know.

Jim and Frank’s Excellent Adventure, er… The Jim and Frank Mysteries is a puzzle-solving game in which the title characters are tasked with finding the secret of Blood River. The game is a clear homage to the Professor Layton series by Level-5, but manages to escape feeling like a cheap copy (likely because the originals aren’t and will likely never be available for iDevices). If you’ve played a Professor Layton game, you know exactly what the deal is – you travel from scene to scene, solving puzzles for the townsfolk in exchange for their help. The game has a wide variety of puzzles that’ll keep you engaged (if occasionally frustrated), and is a great deal of fun – even though I’m loyal to the good Professor, I found myself really enjoying Jim and Frank’s take on things. If you’re no good at puzzles but still want to play, hints are available via the game’s currency of the Eureka. Find the Eureka dollars hidden in each scene, then use them to “buy” hints for the puzzles giving you trouble. You’ve even got the option to buy additional Eureka for real money if you’re really, really bad at puzzle games.

For $0.99 (the introductory price), Jim and Frank Mysteries is a fantastic deal – the game is crisp and looks wonderful, and comes complete with a cast of wacky characters each with their own agenda that may or may not be tied to your quest. And what’s the deal with Blood River, anyway? There’s only one way to find out, and there are far worse ways to spend a dollar.