Review: ReBounce - Creating a New Gaming Genre?
by Staff Writer
February 19, 2010
Overview
ReBounce is a brand new take on the arcade puzzle genre from Romper Games. You control a puck, and you have to destroy marbles by hitting them with a gold puck. The marbles take three hits to destroy, and your best objective is to make as many marbles on the same level of damage to make a huge chain of marble blasting.
The puck bounces around automatically, but that doesn’t do much. You can control the puck by flicking on the screen in the intended direction, or tap and hold on the puck to slow down time temporarily, and aim your shot.
Features
Three gameplay modes are included which alternate as you progress through the main game. The highlight is rush mode which gives you endless rising columns of marbles and gears, and you try to keep them from reaching the top target line. In puzzle mode you try to remove all of the marbles to reach the center objective circle in 60 seconds. Finally, bonus mode gives you 60 seconds to try to score as much as you can with columns set up for huge chains. Two power-ups are included with bomb to blast everything touching it, and spark chains as well as multiplier which builds your multiplier, and destroys a whole column. Gears are included which the puck can’t break, and can only be destroyed by a bomb blast either right next to, or part of a chain.
In total there are 40 levels split across the three gameplay modes. OpenFeint 2.4.3 is included with online high scores for each of the 10 rush modes, and there are 20 achievements.
The Good
ReBounce is all about the gameplay which is supremely unique, and perfect iphone gaming. This is as action packed as a puzzle game can be, and truly creates a whole new genre. Each of the gameplay modes gives you something different from the hectic endless rush mode to puzzle mode which requires order despite being timed. Rush mode is absolutely amazing as you start off by simply destroying big chains of marbles to having to flick all around between the three rising columns squeezing through the gears to hit any marbles, and more preferably the bomb power-ups. As you go the columns rise faster, and there are more gears to deal with. You’ll want to build as high of a multiplier as you can to amp up your score quickly, and remove whole columns at once.
Puzzle and bonus mode are really nice challenges as you need to figure out how to amp up the points quickly as you only have 60 seconds. Gold is a lot easier on the endless rush mode, but in puzzle mode you need to figure it out, and then figure out how to do it in the best method for the most points. The game truly has every aspect of object smashing you could possibly want, and presents it in a whole new way that makes it one of the best experiences on the iPhone.
Another great feature is the control method. The game picks up your actions perfectly when you tap and swipe from the puck despite the small scale. The best part is the slowdown aiming technique which comes in handy a few times in tight spaces, and adds to the strategy of the game.
The game is designed spectacularly, highlighted by the puck which bounces around constantly rotating on a 3D axis sparkling as it flies. Each of the three levels of damage show degradation in the marbles, and their color scheme until it's a burst of pebbles as they're destroyed. The backgrounds also change as you progress, and are all finely detailed with motion, and even tilt as you tilt the device.
There is no included music or soundtrack, just sound effects which more than make up for it. There is a sound for each hit of a marble, and they vary based upon the length of a chain. Then there is the ding of hitting gears, blast of a bomb, and lightning strike of a multiplier (both audibly and visually). In total as they're all happening together it makes a soundtrack of its own.
Playing through all forty levels is tons of fun, and well worth $1.99. On top of that each level is ranked bronze to gold, and there is an intrinsic addictive reward particularly for rebounce to try to get gold on all of the levels, and even to play select levels of the three modes. OpenFeint is also included which adds even more to replayability with eleven high score tables and 20 achievements.
