Spin Star

Posted on September 14th, 2009. Written by Trevor.

Spin Star by Six by Nine Limited is a recent addition to the App Store which may have been missed by many, so I thought I’d best fix this and give you the lowdown on this new take on the matching game.

Given the fact that the genre is home to games such as Bust-a-Move, the developers have obviously realised that they would need something pretty innovative if they wanted to make any impact. Fortunately, that’s exactly what you get. Taking the standard match 4 coloured balls (or Orbs as they like to call them) to remove them from the playing board, they decided that said playing board will be orbited round a central point that injects new orbs into the playing field, allowing you to rotate the board through the full 360 degrees, in an attempt to match the orbs quickly enough.

Add to this, 10 different types of orbs, including bonus multipliers, Fling orbs, bomb’s and a rather nasty Creeper orb that keeps rearranging your game board and it sounds like a winner, but is it?

The game has three levels of difficulty, Casual, which only making use of standard, multiplier and fling orbs. Medium which uses every type of orb, starting off gently but getting very frantic and finally Intense which shoves you straight into the action and is faster and meaner than the others.

Controls are simple, slide your thumb or finger around the lower half of the screen to rotate the playing field around the central point, new balls are released from here and you need to match them up in order to clear them from the board. But don’t think for one moment that you get it all your own way. At set intervals additional balls are inserted randomly into the playing field, making everything just that little bit more complicated. With the game play increasing in speed as you progress things can become very hectic, very quickly.

The graphics are clean and bold and whilst the main menu seems a bit cluttered with the large music and sfx volume controls, overall the presentation is nice, and once playing you forget about the rather strange main menu. I can’t say I was as impressed with the music, some kind of dance / trance track, which I had to turn off right away and play my own music instead, but at least I can play my own music.

With auto-save if you are interrupted this game almost offers the full package. There is, regrettably no on-line score board so you are only playing to beat your own score. I do feel that every game really needs the inclusion of an on-line leader board to help increase the re-playability factor.

That aside, this is a good game with some lovely touches and if you are a fan of this type of game you could find yourself spending quite a bit of time playing it. But, without the on-line leader board and a rather high price tag, I just feel that I could not justify awarding anything higher than worth a look, and even then, only if you have got the cash to spare.

Current Status: Worth a Look

Reviewed at: v1.1
Reviewed on Firmware: 3.1
Download size: 8.1MB
Released on: 24 July 2009
Retails for: £1.79 / $2.99

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G / iPhone 3GS (requires OS2.2 or later)