Review: Lite-Brite - Glow Your Imagination
by Felix Xiao
September 21, 2010
Overview
If you've been alive anytime in the past 40 years, then surely you've played around with a Lite-Brite at least once or twice. Recently, EA has brought this legendary electronic drawing game to the 21st century and lets you transform your iPhone into a fluorescent peg-filled board of creativity.Features
The game offers 3 playing modes: free draw, template, and animation, as well a time attack option in template mode. Your goal is to fill a empty board with pegs of 17 unlockable colors to create bright designs. You have the option to either construct your own image or select one from 20 pre-installed creations. Medals are awarded for completing the picture within a time limit, and you can share your creations using email and Facebook.
The Good
Lite-Brite manages to bring back many childhood memories and offers something a little different from other drawing apps available. The graphics are absolutely beautiful, and you have the option to control the lighting of your board to alter brightness levels. You start the game with several colors and unlock more with the completion of pictures in template mode. Animation mode is really unique and allows you to combine your picture creations to create flashing images and picture slideshows. Other than being tedious and having some interface issues, animation mode is a great addition to the classic Lite-Brite game.
The Bad
There are many problems embedded in almost every aspect of the game that render it extremely difficult to have fun with. First off, the app launches into a start screen with 3 options and no titles so you have no idea what you're doing. The instructions are annoyingly shown every time you start drawing something unless you find the options menu and turn it off. After you finish a level, the game lets you know whether you've earned a medal or not, and then leaves you stuck on the level with no idea what to do next. The controls in the game are definitely its biggest flaw, and if you did enjoy the actual Lite-Brite game, you'll find the iPhone version to be a huge disappointment. For some reason, EA only allows you to move around the board if you use 2 fingers to slide across the screen. This takes way too much effort to execute properly and greatly slims down your chances of doing well in time attack mode. On top of that, you are deducted time if you touch the screen in any place that's not a designated spot for a peg of your selected color. Placing a peg in the wrong place is incredibly easy, and even easier if you have slightly bigger fingers. Erasing is simply atrocious, and you'll be better off clearing your entire board instead of going through the painful process. The toolbar at the bottom of the screen hides itself after a few seconds, and selecting a color competes with erasing for being the worst user interface application of all time.
The controls will prevent you from enjoying free draw mode, and the lack of genuine designs will drain much of the fun out of template mode as well. Although there are 20 templates, the majority are them are from other EA games, including at least 4 from Littlest Pet Shop. Lite-Brite is in desperate need of a level sharing system that allows you to recreate other users' designs, but knowing EA, life on Mars will probably be discovered before an update is submitted.
