Review: Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid
Published by ngmoco, Rolando 2 is a simple 2D puzzle platformer. You move the “Rolandos,” which are circle-shaped creatures of varying sizes and abilities, by tilting the iPhone left or right. Your goal is to guide all of the Rolandos to the end of the level. The controls function perfectly. The tilting works better than using a D-pad or a joystick. You swipe the screen to make the Rolando jump, and can select multiple Rolandos by dragging your finger over them. Sometimes, you need to interact with your environment, and that involves a simple swipe, tap or drag of your finger depending on what you’re trying to do. Everything is easy peasy. That’s what makes this game so brilliant: as soon as a human develops motor skills, it can play Rolando 2 on the iPhone.
The puzzles are complex enough to, on occasion, require two or three passes before you can beat a level. However, there are only two levels in the entire game that gave me any trouble at all, so I wouldn’t declare this as a challenging game. I was expecting it to be a bit more difficult than it was. But then I realized that isn’t what the game is about. Rolando 2 follows the same theory that Sonic or Mario do: make the gameplay so damn fun that it doesn’t matter if the levels are easy.
Another feature I loved (and should be in every game) is iSave. If you get interrupted (read: you get caught playing on your iPhone at work), you can go back into Rolando and it remembers exactly where you are. It doesn’t just take you back to your last save point, it literally starts the game right where you left off. With the short levels of Rolando, this isn’t THAT critical, but still an incredible feature that is executed perfectly.
four five times to try and beat a time challenge. It is just that addictive.
If there’s one knock on the game, its the social networking aspect. I just wasn’t into challenging my friends to beat a level with more points than me. And maybe I’m just old school, but why the hell would I develop my own Rolando 2 avatar. I tried it, obviously, but quickly lost interest: I guess I just loved playing the game too much to bother with that crap.
What we like:
- Overall User Experience. All games should be this simple. Never once did I need to search for a help button or was I frustrated because I couldn’t get the game to do what I was supposed to do. It’s like the classic Apple user experience: in a game!
- Every level is different. HandCircus makes game-developing look easy: they created 46 kick-ass levels, and each of them seems like it comes with its own new trick to keep you enthused the whole way through.
- The rest. Solid graphics, addictive gameplay, iSave, an intriguing storyline, what-you-get-for-the-price, FREE levels to come, engaging puzzles.
What we don’t like:
- Why does every game now have to have a freakin social networking aspect? Just like every corporation thinks that setting up a Facebook account means they’ve met their Web 2.0 obligations, iPhone game developers seem to think there’s a requirement to have social networking in all of their games. It’s not a burden to me, and I guess some people use it, so its not a real drawback, per say. Nonetheless, it was worth a rant.