Cool Cherry Trees
4 Player Reactor for Android
Rating:
5 Stars
Not many Android games can boast simultaneous 4-person multiplayer on one device. Today’s free app, 4 Player Reactor, can though; and it does a fantastic job with it. You’ll find tons of trivia games for your Droid, ranging from ice cream to Justin Bieber. 4 Player Reactor decides to test your general knowledge and reaction times with questions ranging from basic math problems to capital cities. It’s a simple enough set up, featuring up to 4 buzzers surrounding a screen which displays one of 22 different puzzle modes at a time. You can jump straight in and take every puzzle head on with ‘Quick Game’ or pick out your favorites and set a higher goal with ‘Custom Game’. Either way you go, in a matter of seconds, you’ll be on your way to find out who has the fastest fingers in your group.
The Good:
Four people? That’s ridiculous for a single Android Device! Not only that, but it’s something everyone can enjoy at the exact same time! This is perfect for that downtime between ordering your food and waiting for it to arrive at a restaurant. It’s something anyone can enjoy because it’s easy to jump straight in without much explanation. There are plenty of different puzzle types to choose from and an abundant supply of ‘trivia questions’ to go with it. Not every puzzle mode is straight trivia though. 4 Player Reactor mixes it up a bit with shape matching and mazes. There’s also a ‘handicap’ built into the game's buzzers. If one player gets too far ahead, their buzzer will shrink, and then start moving around so it’s harder for them to hit.
The Bad:
The interface is bland, but it certainly gets the job done. Occasionally, when your buzzer starts to move, it seems like there is a mild hit-detection issue; but perhaps that can be attributed to the ‘handicap’.
The Ugly:
The only weakness of 4 Player Reactor is that it offers up too many wrong answers during the puzzles. Sometimes you’ll be sitting there, staring at the screen, and it feels like a wrong answer never is going to come up again! This is just a minor gripe though.
Bottom Line:
This is a ‘must-have’ that should sit right next to Angry Birds on your phone. You can spring it out at any time when you have a few bored people or, perhaps, if you need an ice-breaker. Even playing through the one player ‘practice’ mode can be entertaining at times. Whether you get it free or have to pay the surprisingly low $1.99 asking price, it’s money you won’t regret spending. If you absolutely can’t bear to pay for an app though, there’s also a free 2 Player Reactor available on the Android Marketplace, however it has less puzzles as well as the two-person limitation.
4 Player Reactor was created by Cool Cherry Trees and is Amazon’s free app of the day for 05/06/11. It typically sells for $1.99