Posted by Derrick Sanskrit
I am almost certain that over the past three months I've played more downloadable games on my iPod Touch than on my home consoles – and I've been all about Lumines Supernova lately. As expected from any hip new platform that just about anybody can develop applications for, a majority of the iPod games I've tried have been decidedly uninteresting and derivative of other, significantly better, games that I've already played. Thankfully, though, there are small studios putting time and thought into iPod games now and the media player finally has some truly excellent games, even if they still borrow from established franchises.
Just as ngmoco's much-hyped Rolando gives me what I always wanted from LocoRoco in the form of tilt and touch controls, Mobigame's Edge gives me what I always wanted from Marble Madness – a cube. Yes, yes, Marble Madness without the marble sounds boring and pointless, but that brings me to what is so awesome about Edge: everything else.
Edge's aesthetics have introduced a concept new to me: monochromatic electronic rainbow. Basically, the entire world is rendered in shades of grey with the cube, collectibles, end goal and edges of moving platforms all rendered in one color, but that one color is constantly cycling. At any given moment, they'll all be baby blue, but only for a split second. It's really quite beautiful in action and couples wonderfully with the animation, which is by far the smooooooooooothest animation I've seen on the media player outside of Pixar movie trailers. This all goes hand-in-hand with the absolutely perfect plunk, swoosh and click sound effects, delightful new wave chiptune soundtrack (which automatically turns itself off if you're already listening to music on your iPod) and eerie vocoder voice announcing the title of each new stage for an overall glorious presentation.
As a platform puzzler, Edge's 25 standard stages offer a good chunk of variety with a comfortable learning curve. Swipe your fingertip to push or pull the cube in isometric space (there is also tilt control, but I strongly recommend turning it off as it will only get in the way in the later stages that require precise movement or stillness). The only way to die is to fall into the vacuum of black space, and thankfully there are frequent respawn points and your cube instantly pops back there, no "try again" prompt necessary. There are fall-away tiles and moving platforms of varying speeds, tiles that rearrange themselves like self-aware and ambivalent train tracks and tiles that reform themselves into robots that walk across the stage as you ride atop them. The most interesting and addicting part, though, is the titular Edge mechanic, delicately balancing your cube on one of its eight edges against another platform, suspending itself in mid-air between 90-degree angles. Not only is this procedure awesome once you've become comfortable enough with it to make it more than halfway through the game's challenges (many a gap require this mechanic to be crossed), but it also subtracts the "edge time" from your overall level time, making it an essential skill for speed runners.
Collecting all of the mini-cubes in all of the stages also unlocks a final 26th stage. I mention this because its the one part of the game I haven't experienced yet. Some of those mini-cubes are hiding really well, but I haven't come close to giving up on retreading those stages just yet. Between those collectibles and the ever-present speed-run instinct, there's more than a fair amount of replay value in Edge. Between that and the absolutely top-notch presentation, Edge wins my pick for must-have iPhone/Touch game. The only shortcoming is that when it's over, you want more, and that's a good shortcoming to have.
Final Score: A
Previous reviews:
Game & Watch Collection
Valkyria Chronicles part 1 & part 2
Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2
Prince of Persia
LittleBigPlanet part 1, part 2
Dead Space
LOL
Dragon Quest IV
Ninja Gaidan 2 part 1 & part 2
Metal Gear Solid 4 part 1 & part 2
Wii Fit
Grand Theft Auto IV part 1, part 2 & part 3
+ DIGG
+ DEL.ICIO.US
+ REDDIT