Review: Zen Bound
by Matt Fox
April 3, 2009
Overview
The premise: Wrap a rope around a wooden object. Cover every inch of said object with this rope that leaves different colored paint to mark your progress. Finish with the object and unlock harder and more engaging objects….Sounds kind of lame, right? That’s what I thought. The hype on this thing had to mean it’s overrated and not fun at all, right? Well, I was completely wrong. This is an incredibly addicting game, and I’m not sure why to be honest. It’s so simple, yet effective and maybe that’s why it works so well. Because really, all you do is wrap some rope around different animal shaped objects, but it’s awesome. The music and graphics are amazing, and the controls work really well for the most part. If you want something a little left of center, this is exactly what you should get. Well worth the price of $4.99 assuming your looking for a more relaxed and slow paced kind of game.Features
Other than the great graphics, sounds, and musical soundtrack, the game is loaded with tons of features to keep you busy for hours and hours. With over fifty different levels the game keeps you busy for quite a while.
I’ve been messing around with this for well over a week now and I still have stuff to unlock. The game also has a link built into it that allows you to download the soundtrack for free (something that more games should start offering in the future).
Breakdown
The Good:
Just about everything! First off, if slower paced, puzzle games aren’t your thing then you really shouldn’t even be reading this. That aside, everything in this game is just brilliantly done. The music and sound effects really help to set a relaxing and meditative type of mood as you play through the game. It actually recommends that you wear headphones and I agree. Having the sounds directly heard through headphones really makes a huge difference in setting the mood and tone when you're playing each level. The controls are very easy to get down and after you complete one level you’ve basically got them down. The number of levels is staggering and almost overwhelming. This really is a great game to just pick up and play when you have a few minutes to waste. The graphics are another big deal for Zen Bound. They look great and although having good graphics doesn’t always make a difference for games, i.e. the Nintendo WII for example, the backgrounds and the objects that you interact with just look outstanding. Easily one of the better looking titles out right now for the IPhone.
The Bad:
It was really hard to try and come up with anything bad to say about this game, but there are a few minor flaws. They are really more like nit-picks than anything else, but here we go: The first would be when you use the headphones actually. Although they make the experience of the game better, when you move the phone around the cord from the headphones gets completely in the damn way of things. It’s actually pretty annoying. But, just don’t use the headphones and that issue is fixed…so…the only other issue I found was when you try to move the rope around the object. Wrapping the rope is very simple and easy to do. However, sometimes it can get caught on a piece of the animal, mostly their arms or legs, and it’s kind of hard to get it unstuck. Sometimes it just lags there for a moment before it suddenly snaps back into place. It can be a little frustrating at times, but in the long run you eventually get used to it and learn to work around it.
