Android Game Review: Mad Blocker
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Mad Blocker is the latest game on the Android Market to focus its attention on becoming the best Tetris game out there for Android. Mad Blocker is designed by Open Emotion Studios, the team behind “Zombie Mart”. The game available on the market for €0,79, and upon first look would appeal to both younger players and those wishing for a quick and fun game whilst on the go.
So the big question is, have Open Emotion Studios created the best Tetris-style game on Android? Does Mad Blocker have the sort of addictiveness and slick gameplay that will leave its competition trailing behind? After giving the game a thorough work out in each of our 6 categories, we shall see how Mad Blocker has performed!
Graphics: Need to squint
When you load up the game, Mad Blocker looks fairly nice. From its menu buttons to the background picture, everything is well layed out and well presented. Unfortunately this is where the compliments end. As soon as you start a game, you will most likely find yourself squinting at the screen in order to see exactly where you are meant to be placing these tiny blocks falling down. Where exactly you’re meant to place these blocks is also not very well set out, so sometimes it turns out to be a matter of luck.
If the game were slightly larger and easier to see, then these graphics would be very nice. Yet they fail to be, simply because the size of the graphics ruin the gameplay somewhat. The fact that you cannot change the background pictures, nor the colours or faces on the blocks, means that pictures integrated within this game quickly become tiresome and the y hardly thrill the player. Therefore a high mark for graphics simply cannot be given.
Graphics: 2/5
Sounds: Competent
I didn’t mind the sounds on this game at all. They don’t exactly set the world alight, but they do the job. As you start playing the game, you will notice a background track that sounds relatively similar to that of games such as the old PSP classic “Loco Roco”. After a while this music can become pretty annoying, but you will find under the settings menu that there are a number of different songs to choose from, however all sound pretty much the same.
Under the setting menu you can also find the mute button too, which may well be a better option, depending on your taste. Overall however, I wasn’t put off by the music or menu sounds and found they complimented the game, up to the point at which they play on your nerves.
Sounds: 3/5
Controls: Fiddly
I personally found the controls for this game relatively OK. I have spoken with a few people who find that the game is very hard to control, but overall it ran well for me. It would certainly be advisable to check the “Help!” menu upon opening the game, as I also had control problems until I read how they worked. After that though, I only encountered a couple of minor faults.
The first was that the controls simply are too fiddly. You will probably need small hands and fingers to navigate your blocks around the screen (luckily I have), and coupled with the small graphics, the whole controlling aspect feels over-complicated. Although others may not think so, I reckon that over time you can gradually get used to the controls, but they definitely could have been made easier.
Controls: 3/5
Scope: That’s it?
Arguably the worst feature of this game is how quickly it is all over. From the main menu, you get three choices of game mode: Easy, Medium and Hard. This is all in order, however once you begin the game, it quickly becomes clear that all you are playing for is your high-score, and once this realization sets in (and it will do after about 10 seconds or so), Mad Blocker becomes boring very quickly.
The lack of any sort of achievement system, or unlockable levels, characters and backgrounds means that this game is over in a flash, and once you’ve played in once, you won’t be in a hurry to load it up and play again. Disappointing.
Scope: 1/5
Atmosphere: Broken connection
The games pretty much lacks any sort of atmosphere. With a complete lack of any sort of story, you never connect with any of the characters of with the feel of the game, and that is a shame. Even a short and sweet story would have been better than nothing.
The sounds and background pictures do nevertheless enhance the atmosphere of Mad Blocker in their simplicity and well drawn look. Yet this cannot save a game which fails in every other aspect of the atmosphere test, and because of this one mark out of five seems correct, and even that may be slightly generous.
Atmosphere: 1/5
Fun Factor: Yawwwnnnn…
This game bores the player almost immediately after starting a game, regardless of which difficulty you have chosen. The small and fiddly controls and graphics don’t add anything at all to the fun factor, and I cannot see many players wanting to give this a quick 10 minutes of play whilst on the go. The only thing I found fun was at the beginning of starting a game on hard mode (I wouldn’t even bother with the other two, unless you’re struggling to get to sleep at night), where you are actually frantically moving the blocks around the screen, yet this is where the complicated controls step in and ruin things. Overall not a game to excite or inspire.
Fun Factor: 1/5
Conclusion:
To sum up, I’m not entirely sure who this game is aimed at. At first you think youngsters, yet the fiddly controls and lack of customization will certainly put them off. Then you think, OK, maybe the more sofisticated gamer, but the young-looking menus and background and yawn-inducing gameplay will deter these gamers. Overall I’d say that this is a game everyone should avoid if they can. There are much better Tetris-style Android games out there on the market, and if it wasn’t for the graphics and controls, which are just about bearable, the mark for this game would be in the single figures.
Review by Michael Veal. Videoreview by Michael Veal and Lara Van Waas
