Freeze! Review
PROS
- Has a 50s sci-fi monster movie vibe to it.
- The freeze button is a neat idea.
CONS
- Upon death, you are taken to a menu with an option to restart instead of just immediately starting the level over.
- A lot of the level design in centered around patience, which can be a problem for a lot of players.
VERDICT
An interesting little physics game, but nothing solid enough here to recommend.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
There haven't been too many, but there's something enjoyable about games that stick you in small curved level, and ask you to use the iPhone's tilt controls and the power of physics to get the character you control to safety. Freeze is the latest of these, and it comes to us wrapped in a 50s monster movie shell. It certainly adds an amount of mood and character to the game, but the big question is of course, how does it play?
The answer to that questions is. “adequately”. You have to turn your iDevice round and around to avoid all manner of spikes and strange creature obstacles, to get to the swirly safety of the exit. The added gimmick here is all in the title name. Some levels give you a freeze button, which you can use to halt time, turning the level so that gravity affects your character in a way more conducive to staying alive and making it to the next challenge. This freeze button will often have a limited number of uses, so you have to be careful about when to take advantage of its time altering powers.
As the physics engine goes, turning the level with the use of your finger feels right, and your character responds well, gaining acceleration, and even flight if your travel around a curved surface was a little faster than it should be. Some of the design is questionable, having to wait around for pre-pathed monsters, or needing to be ultra precise with the controls. This would be less an issue if the level restarted immediately upon death, but instead it takes you to a game over screen, where you can choose to restart the level, making things a little more laborious than they should be.
With its bleak, Tim Burton-esque style, Freeze has potential to entertain those that are a fan of physics games, but it needs some tweaking in menu and level design if it wants to appeal to a greater audience.
Screenshots
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