Brandmania: Hidden Objects
This game in an interesting tidbit. Imagine playing the old find hidden objects book I Spy except that it doesn’t tell you exactly what you need to find and all the objects are related to famous companies and you’ve got Brandmania. You’re a detective of some form that has to find escaped logos and trademarks that have gone on a riot (I don’t get it either) in cities all over the world. At first it took me forever to figure out where some of these hidden trademarks are, which doesn’t mean the game itself is bad, it just means I fail as an American consumer.
With every city you get a scenery full of references to well known companies (like a guy with a book on his face for Facebook) and all you have to do is match something in the scenery to the brand you have to find, if you can’t find it at the moment you can switch to another. The game depends on a battery to smoothly keep on going, and to charge it you have to find hidden objects, switching between brands too many times and using too many hints lowers the battery. Between games you will be taken to a scene filled with regular objects to “recharge” your battery, it’s exactly like playing a regular game of I Spy.
This is not a complete game and to keep playing the other stages have to be bought, whether or not you do after the initial amusement is up to you. I can’t be bothered to buy a game that might as well be free considering it’s basically free advertisement.
4/5
Motorcycle Bike Race Fire Chase – Pro Racing Edition
This game is pretty annoying. You’re basically controlling a motorcycle with an invisible driver running away from an invisible fire you can only keep track of with a meter stick of how far away your motorcycle is from said fire the motorcycle keeps getting closer to. And that’s the biggest problem.
The game has multiple hills, to advance every time you go down the hill you’re supposed to tap the screen to speed up the motorcycle, because hitting the gas pedal is a bad idea when you head uphill since the bike gets incredible momentum from the downhill dive. Well if you perform this correctly you should be in midair, and here’s the real challenge: take the nosedive at the correct time, hitting downhill should propel you in midair again, hitting the middle or uphill, which is often unavoidable, results in you slowing down and getting closer to the fire.
That would be completely fine if you could actually get away from the fire, I went past many many hills after several mighty jumps, and I didn’t get a smidge bit farther from where I currently was with the fire. Yet, land in the wrong way and I end up closer after a half second halt. It’s challenging and becomes a quest to become more accurate, but after a while you begin wondering what else you could be doing with your time.
It’s like the game was purposely made to make you buy the motorcycles you can’t unlock until you buy them by making whatever progress the default motorcycle accomplishes insignificant. Throw in annoying repetitions of the messages “BOTTOM OUT!” every time you don’t land and “BIG FAT AIR!” after many good jumps and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
1.5/5
PuffOut
This is a very simple game made to pass some time. You move a fish in order to keep him away from three puffer fishes bouncing around the screen. The goal is to keep him from getting popped by avoiding the puffer fishes as long as possible. The challenge is they keep bouncing at ever increasing pace, occasionally slowing down, and they randomly puff up. Items like starfishes and lifesavers pop up and depending on the item give you additional seconds.
The biggest challenge to me is the screen only gives so much space, and because this is a very simple see how long you can last game there’s less engagement than more complex games that operate on survival like Jungle Run. Other than that the game is a decent way to pass time if you’re on the go, just turn off the volume and listen to some of your music.
3/5
Cpt. Backwater
This is a game made to exercise your mind without you noticing. You have to match items in closed chambers with every level revealing new obstacles like wormholes (I believe) and bombs that need to be set off during specific times.
In terms of progress, the game performs splendidly. Every level seems to get subtly harder as you go along and levels eventually need to get unlocked with coins and bananas you earn during gameplay. It is a demanding game, but not unreasonable.
For a simple game, it also has decent and graphics that go easy on the eyes. As a pirate themed game it also does a splendid job with sticking to its theme and remind you you’re out for booty! With 100 levels you’ll be able to enjoy the game for a long time. I’d say this is an app everyone needs to have.
5/5