Review: Build ‘n Bash (iPhone)
Build ‘n Bash is kind of like Tetris… but different. Your job is to build a building using random beams of varying shapes. There’s a grid of anchor points on the ground and you attach the beams not only to these anchors, but also to all the neighboring beams to complete a floor. Each building requires a set number of floors to be completed, so you keep building vertically after each successful horizontal completion.
Three game modes are available to test your skills. Play against the clock to beat your own times, race against computer opponents to complete your building first in a campaign mode, or against multiple computer opponents simultaneously.
The “Bash” part of the game comes in the form of different attacks you can earn to use against your opponents. You earn these by completing a floor and you can touch the icon to send them out. You can freeze your opponents for a few seconds, send a giant weight crashing through the structure, hit them with a tornado, and a few other things. Conversely, you can defend against some of them when sent against you.
The rest of the game is pretty easy and forgiving, but the full multi-opponent Battle Mode is insanely difficult. I felt I was pretty quick for a human, but the computer just plain punished me. It completed a 5-story, 2×3 building in the time it took me to finish floor number one. I really don’t see how there’s much room for improvement there.
Graphics are done is a pleasing 3D style very reminiscent of Nintendo 64 or Playstation era. Controls are simple and intuitive, though panning and rotating is a little cumbersome and I usually placed my beam when I didn’t mean to. Also the 4-directional pad in the lower left of the screen never seemed quite adequate for repositioning the beam, especially is larger building types. Perhaps it would be simpler to tap the point on the building to position the beam and double-tap to drop it? I don’t know if that’s feasible, but I think it would work better and panning would be less touchy.
Sadly, I’m running an iPhone 3G with OS 4.0 and Build ‘n Bash is a pretty taxing game on the system. For me, it loads slow and crashes during loading often. Rebooting the device helps immensely and the game runs just fine once loaded. I suspect if you have a more recent model you will have a much better experience.
Build ‘n Bash is available via iTunes and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 2.2.1 or later.
