iPhone Review Round-Up: StarDunk, Castlevania Puzzle, Doodle God

Fri, Jul 16, 2010

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With so many games being released on the iTunes app store, it’s sometimes hard to keep up with which ones you should or shouldn’t be playing on your iPhone. Thankfully, we have the review round-up to show you the best games available on the app store, complete with summaries and reviews from all around the web.

StarDunk

In what can best be described as “planetary basketball,” StarDunk looks to turn the traditional space shooter on its head by providing an easy and quick experience that takes only seconds to master. The gameplay appears to consist of flicking space basketballs across a planet in order to make it into the basket. In GameZebo‘s review of the game, they described it as having “an online free throw competition that’s out of this world” and overall said that it was “a surprisingly enjoyable outing.” Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5. Price: 99¢.

Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night

While not quite released in the US App Store yet, Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night is available in several international stores and TouchArcade has decided to publish their review a bit early as a result. Castlevania Puzzle differs greatly from the rest of the franchise simply because it’s a puzzle game, but TouchArcade doesn’t believe that is a big problem as they “not only enjoyed the title a great deal, but became helplessly hooked on leveling up their character, discovering new items and spells, and exploring the immense castle in the game.”

As far as gameplay goes, you spend the majority of the time roaming Dracula’s Castle to eventually fight the mad vampire. Along the way, there are many demons and creatures to fight, which plays out much like the Puzzle Quest games from D3. In these battles, you match 3 like colored gems which will either attack your opponent or earn you power-ups. Once your enemy’s life bar is completely drained, the battle is over and you are the victor. TouchArcade summarizes Castlevania Puzzle as being “a robust Castlevania game through and through” that will keep “gamers busy for a long, long time.”

Doodle God

Element creation is usually left up to the gods, but now it can be left up to you with Doodle God. TheAppEra reviewed the game and said that the game can seem boring when explained to you, but “Once you play it, the game somehow enchants you like its name suggests. Soon you’ll find yourself discovering elements like there’s no tomorrow.” As with other games with “Doodle” in the title, the graphics appear as if they were sketched on to a piece of paper. Gameplay is simple in that you just simply combine elements to make new elements, but the trick is to find compatible elements. For instance, combining the “Fire” and “Earth” elements makes “Lava.” TheAppEra calls the developers of Doodle God “geniuses” for making such a refreshing game.