Game Review: Color Lines for iPhone

[rating: 3/5]

Go retro with this Russian classic

This is the original version of the 90’s russian game “Color Lines” made specially for iPhone. One of the best logic puzzle game that was installed on almost every PC in the beginning of 90’s. Same heroes, same board, same balls and same addictive gameplay. It’s 100% old school “Color Lines”, but now you can play it wherever you are.

A faithful port of the 1992 puzzle game invented by Oleg Demin, which pits you the pretender against the king of the realm in a battle of colour ball matching on a 9 by 9 grid. Starting off with a mix of coloured balls you have to tap one to select it then tap the cell you wish it to move to, hopefully pairing it with balls of the same colour but doing this also adds 3 balls to the grid, unless you make a line of 5 (or more) either vertically or horizontally making them disappear and raise your character further up its column and lower the King some points as well.

Graphically it’s pretty much everything you’d expect from a game that is essentially 17 years old with simple yet functional pixelated graphics but thankfully they have included a standard iPhone keyboard for inputting your name onto the highscore board, while better than some games I’ve reviewed, the game limits your highscores to the device so no global competition for you.

Sound wise it’s very limited, for the most part the game is silent until you select a ball then it starts making a clicking noise that’s it.

While I’m sure this game is a fine recreation of the original I can’t help but feel a little disappointed that the game hasn’t been expanded to suit the modern day platform. I would have liked to have seen a two player mode using 3.0 features or just passing your iPod Touch/ iPhone to your opponent and an online highscore board. Really pushing out the boat I would love to see pinch to zoom support, letting those of us with larger fingers play more comfortably as the game cells are rather difficult to select and frankly you don’t need to have the setting keys on screen at all times and other elements could easily be reworked to suit.

iphone-app-reviews-promo-codes-official-app-store-badge_touch_4Price $0.99

The Good

  • Retro fun
  • Uses onscreen keyboard
  • faithful recreation of the original…

The Not So Good

  • …that doesn’t take full advantage of iPhone /iPod Touch potential
  • Single game mode
  • Small controls

Reviewed By: TylerDurdan

Color Lines Screenshots

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