In the world of smart device gaming, it seems everything wants to follow in the footsteps of Angry Birds. They want to be that next quick bite game to play. Well we may have found it with this new simple yet complex smart device gem at the cost of less than one dollar. Split! even goes just beyond waiting for your appointment at the doctors or being bored at work, it’s something you’ll actually want to play in your concentrated free time.
Now I’m going to skip right to the design and gameplay, since the plot of this game is well how do I put it: pretty non-existent. Red and Blue have to work together to escape from a high-security prison! Boom there’s the official plot. The genre of this game is hard to identify but I’ll give it a try: This game is a tactical puzzle game for iOS devices by the up and coming Malaysian developers at Touchy Interactive. Funny because there’s a lot of “touching” involved in this game. In an overhead view you start with two player icons which you can pretty much call Red and Blue. You control them individually and can move them at any time by putting your finger on one of the icons and then dragging a line up to the destination you want them to go, by then taking your finger off the screen where you want them to go. If you are in a viewable distance from the enemy, with no orange blocks (that represent walls) blocking the vision of either player, both of the icons will start shooting, first person to get hit dies instantly from just one bullet. If either of your player icons die, the game is over and you will have to retry the same level again.
Take a look at the tactics being used, Red distracts the enemies, Blue is going to take them all out!
Now from that standpoint, it comes down to whoever sees who first will get the better end of the outcome. There is however more depth than just that, as there’s a green blocks on the screen will represent cover, if you are near cover and the player icon sees an enemy or vice versa they will duck behind the cover automatically, same goes for the enemy. If both a player and an enemy are near cover and see each other, will take place between the two icons, but nobody will perish. This is where you can discontinue the crossfire by moving your player icon out of the enemy icons visibility range or you can take your other player icon, while that one enemy icon is distracted in the crossfire, your other player icon will shoot him on sight. That is what it will really come down to, how well can you utilize teamwork between the two player icons with baiting the enemy icon with a distraction from one player icon and ambushing the enemy icon with another player icon.
The great part about this games design is that there is no wrong answer as long as all enemy icons are abolished, which gives the non-linear and non-limiting feel to how you can get through a level. Each time you complete a level something new will be thrown in, such as switches that will let you teleport, change walls around, etc all adding in a new challenge not to mention getting the best scores and ratings on each level, think you can 100% this beast? You’re up for a challenge! It starts to become comparable to the longevity of what you would see in games like Angry Birds, the only small flaw is that it may seem to get repetitive and it’s not recommendable to play this game for many hours like you would for something like Elder Scrolls which is a lot less simpler of a concept anyways. For the best experience we also recommend that you play this on an iPad (4th gen) to have the biggest screen as it was obviously meant for that.
Check Out The Official Trailer From Touchy Interactive!
For 99 cents, what more could you really ask for than the graphics of the game? They’re pretty simple but stockish. Obviously majority of the enemies all look stock and the same as well as the levels which..well look all blocky and you’ll see the same kind of floors, walls and cover. The music however, while also can get repetitive, the music is wubtastic, full of dubstep/techno beats that will make you want to put your iOS device on speakers and dub up your room! One thing I must admit, reviewing a 99 cent game, there’s not much to expect as my current mindset is still put on these $60 home console titles, so as a journalist I’m used to judging how much the game is worth your money. I feel bad that this game is only worth 99 cents actually. I feel it should be at least worth $5! I honestly feel like handing 5 people with an iOS device a dollar telling them to pick up this game because it’s so worth the $$ that I want to practically give money away for people to play this game! (Um, they can do whatever they want with the extra penny, penny jar, homeless person on the street, charity, etc.)
Conclusion
This game is a remarkable first outing from Touchy Interactive and it looks like a great future for them. This game has a great foundation, addictive gameplay and for only 99 cents this game feels so good I feel like I’m stealing it for that price. While not playable for extremely long periods of time you’ll have simple yet complex experience with the tactics the game forces you to use and will make you amaze yourself in figuring out solutions to puzzles that require such tactics for 30 levels with more levels coming soon! You’re still here? If you’re tired of Angry Birds, What are you waiting for? Split! and go buy this game!
8.5
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