Review: Doodle Dive - Antithesis To Doodle Jump
by Staff Writer
June 22, 2010
Overview
Doodle Dive is the antithesis to Doodle Jump, and it's made by Romper Games the developers of a game we really liked called ReBounce. You guide Doodle Dave as he plummets through the sky tilting to avoid all kinds of obstacles from the mundane to the insane. The game is a descent based game rather than an ascent based game that also has collectibles along the way.
Features
As you're falling down there are little gold Tetris type pieces that you can try to collect, and when you get 100 it's an extra life. The game features two types of power-ups with an umbrella turning you into Mary Poppins and a sushi roll turning you into a sumo wrestler. There are online high scores via OpenFeint, and they're included in game showing your live rank.The Good
The game is simple casual endless fun that plays relatively the same every time, but keeps you coming back for more. It's plenty of fun controlling the decent, tilting around to get through obstacles that come at you in a constantly quicker pace. The obstacles begin with birds and flying toasters from Windows 95 to shout outs to popular iPhone games.
The obstacles include the doodle from Doodle Jump, pygmies from Pocket God, green pigs from Angry Birds, Gerald the Bird from Bird Strike, and so many more. One of the obstacles is even the island from Pocket God with a pygmy on it that flies in at slow motion playing the opening soundtrack from Lost, and there's even the four toed statue. The game has so many different connections to so many familiar things you'll love seeing them fly past.
Part of the Doodle Dive experience is spotting all the various characters. The game has a doodle graphics style, and all of the characters are made a little silly. The doodle style could be done simply, but it's highly polished in this game from the changing backgrounds to the art style of all the obstacles.
Another part of the enjoyment is that you don't only have to avoid, but there are collectibles to earn lives to survive longer. You will need to collect the little gold tetris pieces to survive for a high score, and the power-ups help a lot in collecting. It's great seeing Doodle Dave turn into a sumo wrestler or Mary Poppins to collect the gold pieces or smash through obstacles.
The game is extremely fast paced, and has the perfect on the go mentality to play for a few minutes here and there. Once you get going the obstacles come at you at such a frantic pace you will be tilting like mad. The tilt controls work great allowing you to not only tilt left and right for movement, but also up and down to adjust the speed of the descent.
