NaturalMotion Games Limited
The Good:
NaturalMotion Games certainly knows how to replicate real physics, and you can definitely see it at work here. The tower tilts and slides as you tap and tug on blocks trying desperately to remove them without toppling the tower. Everything from the blocks to the environments look amazing, whether you’re working with the natural wood blocks in Classic Mode or the colorful blocks of Arcade Mode. This new game mode challenges you to play fast working against the clock, and to play smart by matching colors as quick as possible to get a bonus multiplier. The more points you score the more coins you get which you can use to purchase game-changing ‘boosts’, such as a time bonus or a rewind feature to save yourself if you accidentally tip that tower. This offers a unique and more exciting spin on the original game that will have you constantly trying to beat your friend’s high scores.
The Bad:
The physics are rock solid; however, the blocks themselves seem to be a little bit lighter than their real-life counterparts. It’s fun to see the tower twitch with every move you make, but it’s not that life-like and can be somewhat frustrating. Also, if you jump straight into Arcade Mode, you suffer a slight disadvantage as the ‘How to Play’ really only teaches the differences between Arcade and Classic, and completely ignores the fundamental controls necessary to effectively navigate the tower.
The Ugly:
Amazon’s App Store is usually pretty good about offering any warnings you may need to see if there’s a possibility of a problem. This time, however, they seemed to have dropped the ball. This download requires wifi, but you won’t get that warning until after you attempt to download it and get a nasty error message. After that, it’s a complicated process for getting your download to work again, so make sure you have it enabled ahead of time to save yourself some trouble. There’s also been quite a few other errors reported, but it seems to be specific to individual devices rather than particular models.
Bottom Line:
Who doesn’t love Jenga? It’s definitely worthy of a little space on your phone, so get out there and grab it while it’s free. After that, there’s probably something better to spend that $2.99 on, as Jenga doesn’t offer much in the way of diversity.
Jenga was created by NaturalMotion Games Limited and is Amazon’s free app of the day for 6/19/11. It typically sells for $2.99