After taunting us with nothing but vague details on their new game, Rovio has finally launched their next big hit "Amazing Alex" for iOS and Android today. As expected, it launched with a $0.99 price point and comes packed full of levels. There's a fantastic tutorial, tons of items to utilize, and four different locations to play in. They've even added a level builder to keep the fun going after you've beat the initial 100 levels 'Amazing Alex' launched with and essentially provided limitless content as users can upload their created levels and download other's creations. It certainly sounds like they've found the formula for success.
Rovio
The Fun Stuff:
People like physics-based puzzle games, and Rovio has proved that already with the immense popularity of their "Angry Birds" series. Thus, they've decided to stick to the genre that's treated them so well, and that is definitely a good thing. The concept of setting up Rube Goldberg machines is an absolute blast, and to compliment that, Rovio has developed top-notch physics for the game. It's not to say that everything is perfectly realistic; but rather that everything act and reacts the way you would expect it to in one of their games. Balls bounce, towers topple, balloons lift things above them... there simply are no awkward surprises.
The number of items in the game is astounding too. Everything from trap doors and bowling balls to RC monster trucks and mechanical punching fists. Even the evil pigs from "Angry Birds" make a cameo as a piggy bank. Every object's behavior is self-explanatory, and you'll rarely find yourself doing a trial-and-error test run on just one particular object to try to understand how it works. Instead, you'll just grab and place each object like you've been doing it your whole life.
Each new location adds additional objects to the puzzles, and gives you the opportunity to gather more for your own collection in the "My Levels" section. As you complete sections and earn stars, you'll unlock additional items which can then be used to build your own custom levels to share with the world. It gives you a chance to flex your creativity in a different way while simultaneously garnering the pleasure of stumping your friends with your top-notch puzzle designing skills.
The Frustrating Stuff:
The downside to the level creator is the restrictions Rovio has placed on users. Instead of being able to design levels and pick challenges freely, you're restricted to one mission goal: collect three stars. This means you can't have any of the secondary objective such as getting a particular ball into a basket or popping all the balloons on screen. This is somewhat of a disappointment seeing as that's really the foundation of the entire game and was the basis of its back story:
From cleaning his room to battling cardboard robots in his backyard, Alex creates amazing chain reactions to get the job done.
Apparently, the key to cleaning his room is picking up all the stars he dropped. As far as what collecting stars has to do with battling cardboard robots, not even the best "Amazing Alex" puzzle solvers can figure that one out.
There is only one other frustrating thing about "Amazing Alex", but fortunately it's rather nit-picky. When attempting to rotate objects, you need to make sure there's enough space for them to rest at the angle you want them to finish at, otherwise the object will just reset to it's original orientation when you let go. On the earlier levels, it's not much of a problem because there is plenty of free space to rotate the objects in. In the later levels though, things get much more crowded, and you'll occasionally find yourself having to disrupt sections you've already placed perfectly just so you can make a minor tweak to another item causing problems.
Bottom Line:
Rovio has done it again with "Amazing Alex", creating yet another puzzle masterpiece. It's an incredible blend of overcoming challenges while simply having fun. Creating the complex chain reactions is so intuitive and entertaining, people of all ages will find themselves as engulfed by the aura of "Amazing Alex" as they did with "Angry Birds." Just like those titles, at $0.99 it's a complete steal when you consider the amount of content packed into the game, and with free future updates planned, you'd be a fool not to join in the fun.
Download Links:
Google Play - Lite Version / Full Version
Amazon AppStore - Lite Version / Full Version
iTunes - Full Version
Amazing Alex was developed by Rovio. It was released in North America on July 12, 2012. It's available on iOS and Android. This review was based on an Android copy purchased on the release date.
Anthony Ortale writes news and reviews on behalf of Examiner.com. He does so much gaming in his spare time, it’s practically a full time job! If you like what you read here, please subscribe to his articles! You can also follow Tony on Twitter, or become a fan on Facebook! If you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to email Tony any time at ortale.anthony@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you!
