The second gig for Rovio, the famous developers who brought us the Angry Birds. Yes they are back, back with their new physics based game i.e. the Amazing Alex. It is available for both android and iOS for a few weeks now; we thought we should check it out and see if it matches up to the integrity of Angry Birds.
Gameplay
In the Amazing Alex, you are a kid with a lot of stuff going around. There are different world to choose from the classroom, the backyard, Alex’s Bedroom, The Tree house and you can create your own levels as well. The plot is that you have to complete the objective puzzle with a number of objects you can place to complete the level.
Starting levels are pretty basic where the game shows off a “how to” for users to get familiar with the game logic. The interface of the menu and over all feel and look of the game is very familiar and sometimes feels like another iteration of angry birds. As we progress through levels, the difficulty increases: you will have to set up objects, define path, sling objects (like angry birds) and basically complete the level however you envision it.
The controls are great as well; you just drag and drop the objects at their positions, once set press the play button to play the scenario, and if you fail you can press the stop button to reset all objects to their initial positions. You can tap the screen during gameplay to reset as well, useful when you know that you have messed the level up.
The classroom stage is pretty easy; all you have is desks and books to manipulate to get to secure the level. But it is logical; you want to understand the gameplay before you get into harder levels, right? The classroom stage usually involves you to put books in a basket or soccer balls in the basket using simple and easy to understand concepts.
As the game progresses, like in the backyard stage, it gets a little tougher where you have to cause chain reaction, plus the obsessive race to gather all the coins kicks in when u set up the scenario. So, as it goes on in this level, you will have to guide snooker balls through pipes, set free balloons, guide the soccer balls in the basket and etc. it mainly emphasizes at timing and placement of objects.
Moving on to the “Alex’s room” levels there are more entries, like slingshots. The thing that bugged us was setting objects like the slingshots were particularly difficult, although the whole concept is based on it, but we fell it could have been more “user-friendly”.
And finally, the best part; you can download and even make and upload you very own designed levels. You can choose the backgrounds from all the levels choose the objects, place the initials one, set requirements to complete and set objectives. Once done, they are property of Rovio and they will have the right to share your levels. Similarly you can download levels others created through “download levels” selection.
Overall we give the game a 4/5 in gameplay, not a perfect 5 because it gets a little boring at the start but once the puzzles start getting complicated the game becomes more interesting.
Sound and Graphics
As we would expect from Rovio, the graphics and sounds are spot on. First up graphics, they are neat and sunk in well on your android device. Well finished candy interface was pleasing, well what more? Rest of the objects are detailed as well, nice use of color schemes compliments the overall design. Sounds are important as well. Bouncing effects from all the different types of objects for instance popping of balloons, slingshots and bouncing of ball sounds authentic and it is this attention to detail that have made Rovio titles successful.
We can’t ask more from a “casual” game and hence it gets a perfect 5/5 from our side as far as overall look and feel goes.
Conclusion
The brand name of Rovio set it at an amazing pace, launched on 23rd July; it has already crossed over 100,000+ downloads and we do see a bright future for it up ahead. Since Rovio provide excellent application support we believe the $0.99 will be well spend and worth it.
Amazing Alex gets a nifty 4.5/5 Score from us, although the concept is not unique and new but still it is a great game.
Download:
Android: Market Link
iOS: App Store