Quick Review: Much-hyped Minigore justifies its $1 price tag (but not much more)
Note: Play this game on EXPERT mode (toggle it in the options menu). It is WAY too slow if you play it on the Normal difficulty.
The game is as simple as it sounds. There are two touch joysticks on-screen: the left one is to move and the right one is to aim and fire your machine gun. Blast away, my friend, because there is no ammo limit and kick-back on the gun. The controls work beautifully and are definitely the game’s strong suit. It is easy enough to aim at the blasted varmint coming to attack you; similarly, running around to avoid the enemies is equally as smooth. Survival is the name of the game: you don’t ever win, per se, but you try to beat your high score by lasting longer than your previous tries.
That said, the game has enough pluses: if you’re sick of playing the various $1 games you’ve already got, I would definitely take a look. It is mildly addictive, and a good pick-up-and-play game. It’ll probably last about 1-2 weeks in your pocket before you get bored. For $1, that’s not bad. The graphics are great: the game has a certain style that is playful yet classy, and the artwork is definitely top-notch. Furthermore, it seems like this game may go the way of Pocket God and provide constant updates which may extend the life of the game (and perhaps quell my concerns about depth).
As it stands, I can’t endorse this as a must-have on the iPhone, but it does come at a great price (don’t all iPhone apps?) and the promise of updates is definitely enticing. A quick look at the Minigore blog indicates that many big updates are coming up soon, including bluetooth multiplayer co-op. More importantly, perhaps, Minigore is just a prequel to Hardgore, which looks to offer a helluva lot more. If as we suspect, Hardgore utilizes the same controls and graphics as Minigore, and provides deeper gameplay, we’ll be stoked to see how it turns out…