Smash Hit

screen520x924Smash Hit is an action game in which you use a limited number of metal balls to remove the glass obstacles in your way. I enjoyed it quite a bit, mostly due to the very crisp graphics and simple, yet still sufficiently difficult, mechanic of moving through the levels and timing your throws perfectly. The balls (and the other objects) are subject to physics / gravity and some of them move so most of the game resolves around figuring out how to handle the different obstacles the game throws at you. It’s produced by Mediocre for Android and iOS. Note: This review is about version 1.3.3 (updated december 2, 2014).

The game is pretty much the definition of a casual game as you can finish the classic mode in pretty much an hour (if you are an expert at these kind of games). It took me a few more hours as I also tried out the different modes and went after all the achievements. I feel the achievements are done very well. There are no really grindy achievements and the last few achievements I had left posed a challenge but were not excessively so. There’s also a much more difficult mode (boss mode) for those that want more of a challenge, but luckily there are no achievements linked to that.

unnamedAnother thing I feel it does pretty well, is the way it is monetized. If you don’t want to buy it, you have to start from the beginning every time (in classic mode). You can finish the game that way, but it will be much more challenging as you can’t use the checkpoints for each level and getting hit only once will break your hit streak (hitting ten crystals in a row upgrades the number of balls you throw per throw (up to 50 hits, thus 5 balls thrown at once is the maximum)). I ended up buying the game after a few tries to finish it one run as I was enjoying it sufficiently. This is a one time purchase which also unlocks the other modes. There are no other transactions (or ads).

One minor thing which was a bit annoying is that some of the moving glass obstacles appear in your face only at the last second (and the hit box for your ‘face’ isn’t very clear). This means you either have to hit them that instant or take them out way in advance. And that last option is something you don’t really want to do as not every obstacle needs to be hit and the more throws you save the more you will have for the next level. This meant that for optimal play I was timing my shots in the last split second; which made for lots of retry’s when that didn’t work out.

All in all, a great addictive game to play for a short while. Note: To me it felt finished after I finished classic mode, I have had no desire to also go finish boss mode (or play in the zen mode).

image_pdfimage_print
Tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.