Mobile Monday – OMG-Zombies!, Bubblanche, Cubixx, Cosmic Bump

You know what day it is? It’s Monday again and that can mean only one thing here at GodisaGeek.com: It’s time for another edition of Mobile Monday, the article where we take a look at four mobile games and let you know if they’re worth your time and money.

This week we’re taking a look at OMG-Zombies! from Laughing Jackal, Bubblanche from Sergey Evsyukov, Cubixx from Laughing Jackal and Cosmic Bump from Orca.

Read on to find the full reviews of each game, but don’t forget to come back next week for more Mobile Monday reviews. While you’re here, if you have played any of the games listed, or even just want to come back once you’ve had a go to let us know how you got on, we’d love to hear from you in the comment box at the bottom of the page.

Get downloading and get playing!

Titles are available on PlayStation Mobile, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad unless specifically stated otherwise. If you like what you read, click the small black “App Store” button next to the iOS games to load iTunes up and purchase the title!

OMG-ZOMBIES!

We all love a zombie game, whether we’re running around the screen in First Person putting bullets squarely between their eyes, or simply sitting back with a nice relaxing adventure game such as The Walking Dead (OK, maybe it’s not quite so relaxing); there’s no denying that the zombie genre is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. It’s with that in mind that Laughing Jackal, the guys that brought us Hungry Giraffe which we reviewed a couple of weeks ago, have released OMG-Zombies! for PlayStation Mobile. OMG-Zombies! is a game that has a single objective, to destroy as many zombies as you possibly can with as few bullets as humanly possible. Think you’ve got what it takes?

When you start each round in OMG-Zombies! the first thing you’ve got to do is take into account how many bullets you’ve got. You’ll only have a limited amount of bullets with which to take down as many zombies as you can. Some of the zombies have certain attributes, for example, the standard zombies will cause any nearby zombies to explode when they’re killed, the police zombies will shoot a bullet in a straight line, killing any zombies that happen to be in their line of fire, the soldier zombie will shoot bullets at angles doing the same thing. The large zombies will cause a bigger explosion than the standard zombies when they die and the toxic zombies will create a pool of acid when killed which, when walked over, will cause any surrounding zombies to also die (again). It’s these different attributes which must be tactically used in order to kill as many zombies as possible. It takes some getting used to but, when you do, you’ll be able to see the patterns in each level and you’ll be a pro in no time.

While you’re playing OMG-Zombies! you’ll notice the multiple paths that you’re can take at the end of each level. Once you clear a level and you’ve killed enough zombies to gain one of the medals (either bronze, silver, gold or platinum), you’ll be given the choice of three levels to move on to. Once you get to the end of the game, you’ll get one of a series of different ending; some of them will be good and others of them won’t be quite so beneficial to you. The endings are determined by luck, so there’s plenty of scope to replay the game.

OMG-Zombies! is a fun little game for the most part, it’s a puzzle game with a little twist that keeps it interesting while working to add a little bit of a story on top of it all. It will keep a few players interested for a good deal of time and keep them coming back, at least until they’ve unlocked all of the endings, or one that they’re satisfied with. Having said that, it does start to get a little bit repetitive after a little bit of time but, as with most other games designed for mobile devices, chances are you’re not going to be spending hours at a time playing it.

BUBBLANCHE:

There are plenty of games on the iOS App Store that task that player with performing relatively complicated tasks, puzzle games where the player has to be educated in a certain way before they’re going to get anywhere with the game. That’s not what Bubblanche is. Here, your only task is to destroy as many of the bubbles as you possibly can under certain circumstances and get the highest score you can. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? You know what, it really is too. Bubblanche, developed by Sergey Evsyukov, is a game with a simple concept, simple controls and is just plain simple to learn.

When you start Bubblanche you’ll be greeted with a screen of bubbles of varying colours, with more of the bubbles falling from the top of the screen. In a similar move to the classic Tetris, the aim of the game is to stop all of the items that are dropping from the top of the screen from filling the entirety of the playing area. Once they do it’s game over and none of us want that. In order to clear out the bubbles before they fill the screen the player must wipe over bubbles of the same colour with their finger, the bubbles change colour to indicate that they’ve been selected and, once the player has lifted their finger from the screen, the bubbles will disappear.

There are plenty of game modes for players to choose from, the standard game mode is a continuous game mode where the bubbles will constantly fall from the top of the screen, falling faster and faster, until the player loses the battle with the constant cascade and the bubbles fill the entire screen. The other games modes are a little bit easier to get into but are no less addictive to certain players, the endless mode is more of a stress reliever than an actual game mode, having the player just spend as long as they want in the game, popping bubbles and increasing their score. The game mode which I personally enjoyed most of all was the timed mode, where the player is given a certain amount of time to wipe as many bubbles from the screen as they can.

The controls that you’re going to be asked to use couldn’t be simpler, the player is only ever going to be asked to swipe across the screen in order to pop the bubbles of a particular colour. It’s a little bit more difficult on the smaller screens of the iPhone and iPod Touch, simply because the colour that you’re selecting can be obscured by your finger, but it doesn’t really make the game difficult to play, just a little bit more inconvenient. Play the game on an iPad (or even the recently announced iPad Mini) and everything will be fine.

Bubblanche isn’t the deepest game that you’re going to be able to get your hands on but, for what it is, it fills a small niche in the market. It’s a fun game to play, even if you’re only going to be entertained by it for a small amount of time. Nevertheless, people will find it fun and, if nothing else, it deserves to be played.

CUBIXX:

Laughing Jackal are knocking it out of the park when it comes to content for Sony’s brand new PlayStation Mobile platform, first they had Hungry Giraffe, then OMG-Zombies! and now they’ve come back to the arena with the crazy, addictive and just plain mad Cubixx. OK, so they probably haven’t built the game from scratch, more just ported it from a pre-existing PlayStation Mini title (the giveaway is in the text at the start of the game asking players not to turn off their PSP while the game is saving) but having more content on a platform isn’t a bad thing, even if we have seen it elsewhere before.

Cubixx tasks the player with cutting holes out of a cube to expose the core, cut the amount of space away from the cube that the stage you’re currently on requires and the core will explode and you’ll move on to the next, slightly more difficult stage. The gameplay really is simplistic, even if it does take a new player a couple of failed attempts at a stage in order to grasp the mechanics fully, once you do there will be no stopping you and you’ll be destroying cores left, right and centre. Don’t expect to get too far though, the difficulty curve can be quite brutal, most players won’t make it any further than the fourth stage before they start finding things a little bit more than they can handle.

At the bottom right of the game screen, on each of the stages, there will be a percentage displayed. This is the amount of the cube that the player is going to have to cut away in order to proceed on to the next level. This is your target. The amount of the cube that you’ve cut away at any given moment is displayed in the top right. Players will control a small object (which can only really be described as a spark) around the cube cutting away small sections at a time; big sections if you’re feeling adventurous. The catch is that if anything touches the “spark”, or the line that you’ve created before you’ve created the entire section, then you lose a life. Lose all three of your lives and it’s game over and you’re going all the way back to the start in order to try your hand at it all over again.

The controls are simple enough to learn, even if it does take a little bit of getting used to. You’re only going to be using two things throughout your time with Cubixx, the Cross button to start your section you’re wanting to cut out, keeping it held down in order to maintain the “cut”, and the analog stick to move your little spark around the cube. That’s it, two controls to learn and you’ll be a Cubixx master in no time at all.

Cubixx gets really quite repetitive very early on and it mostly relies on the “I can do better!” factor to keep people playing for the long term. In this sense it kind of feels like the recently reviewed Super Hexagon on iOS, there’s nothing particularly special about the game, it looks fine and the controls work as well as they need to, but you’ll find yourself coming back to the game time and time again in order to try and beat your own high score. If that’s the type of game you’re looking for the Cubixx is going to be right up your alley, if you’re on the lookout for a game with a little bit more substance, then you should probably keep looking.

COSMIC BUMP:

iOS games have a tendency to keep people playing much longer than they normally would have done, whether it’s the gameplay, or the fact that each of the levels are a little smaller, more bite-sized than you would see in a PC game or a home console title. Whatever the reason, people keep playing them and there’s no shortage of games on Apple’s App Store. Cosmic Bump is another one of these puzzle games available for the iOS devices, developed by Orca, the game simply tasks the player with collecting all of the items throughout the level in order to move on to the next. Addictive iOS gaming at its simplest.

In a move similar to the hugely popular Angry Birds, the gameplay in Cosmic Bump tasks the player with placing their finger on the screen, in this case on a cannon, pulling back in order to increase the amount of power that’s going to be applied to the particular shot, and then letting go in order to let the alien that you’re controlling fly into the great beyond. The aim of the game is to collect all of the items that are littered throughout the level. As soon as you’ve collected all of them, the alien will jump back into his little spaceship and fly off to the next puzzle that you’re going to be figuring out.

This method of having small, simple levels (but a lot of them) is one that a lot of iOS games employ, and it seems to have worked out for them so far. There are a lot of levels for players to have a go on with Cosmic Jump and it’ll certainly keep the majority of people entertained for a good deal of time. The first couple of levels are extremely simple and help new players get used to what they’re going to be asked to do later in the game. Eventually new objects are added to the levels and you’ll soon find yourself learning how to use flippers (the pinball kind, not the swimming kind), spaceships and other objects in order to help you towards the end of each levels.

Even with all of the additional objects that you’ll be asked to take control of later on in the game, the whole title is really simple to use. The majority of your time with the game will be spent just using a single finger on the screen, pulling back on the cannon to decide how much power you’re going to be using. Because you’re only ever going to be using a single digit on the screen, you won’t be obscuring too much of it meaning that Cosmic Bump is perfectly capable of being played on the smaller screens of the iPod Touch and the iPhone without too much of a problem.

Another game published by Chillingo and it’s another one that many people will be able to sit down and played for a decent amount of time. The art style is fun and engaging and the gameplay sets it apart from a whole heap of lesser games on the App Store. That doesn’t mean it’s without its problems, it would have been nicer to see a little bit more variety in some of the levels for example, but if you’re looking for a new iOS game to entertain you on your way to work/school over the coming couple of weeks, you could do a lot worse than Cosmic Bump.