Max Damage Review
PROS
- Pick up and play controls; drag and let go to aim and fire.
- Fun puzzle/chain-reaction style levels; mixes things up from the regular destruction.
- Bright cartoonish style; multiple characters to choose from.
CONS
- Final scores can take a long time to process.
- Some levels focus too heavily on chance; the same (or near enough) shot can result in wildly different scores.
VERDICT
Max Damage is a simple physics-based puzzler/shooter that focuses on general destruction; it's nothing we haven't seen before, but the chain-reaction levels can be a literal blast.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
Max likes to blow things up. Some would say this makes him a social time-bomb, but then again others would gladly place a cannon in his hands to see what happens. Max Damage by Digital Goldfish sets aside the worrying idea that people have left a weapon along with their expensive goods in the vicinity of such a disturbed child and goes with the flow.
Instead of having specific objects that need to be destroyed (say like pigs), you need to aim for the most amount of destruction, targeting expensive items so they fall and are broken in preference to cheaper ones. Max is provided with a variety of ammunition to reach these high-scores, shooting everything from basic cannons to bouncy balls and explosive charges. Each level provides a new challenge that can range from simply toppling a complex structure to finding a chain-reaction that results in the damage you want.
It's a neat approach to what is already a well established genre, though aiming can be difficult on levels that require finessed shots with lower power as your finger obscures the gauge. This comes on top of the standard woes of minor changes in angle resulting in vastly different results thanks to the physics engine, making some levels a pain to complete. Thankfully the game does provide skips, but patience and practice can win out as well if you don't mind the repetitive soundtrack.
While the focus on performing damage brings its own challenges, it doesn't feel as rewarding to succeed when you occasionally depend on blind luck for the physics to swing in your favor. If you enjoyed the original Flash title you'll get a kick out of the polish that has gone in to this release, but if you've played cannon titles on your iPhone already this is an easy title to overlook.
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