Super Cricket: One Day Wonders 8/10



What Indian game maker can resist making cricket games? Mauj’s Super Cricket: One Day Wonders makes for good company on long trips, and is surprisingly fun even if you’re not a cricket fan.

The controls are simple and are workable with one hand: while batting, use different number keys to play different strokes, and play a little mini-game to place the ball while bowling. You can play a quick match, an ODI or a knockout, depending on how much time you have on your hands. You get to choose your country, but not your opponent. The latter would have been nice, even though it’s inconsequential—the only difference between teams is the colour of their clothes. If you find yourself fumbling too much, you can sharpen you batting and / or bowling skills in the nets.

Good stuff, this, and gets our seal of approval. Just turn the music off—it’s awful.

Site: www.Mauj.com
Price: Free (plus service message costs)


Brain Challenge 2 9/10



Ever have one of those days when you’re feeling unnaturally dumb? When even the most mundane tasks seem like mountains to your dulled brain? Now you can measure that dullness!

Brain Challenge 2 puts you through a bunch of challenges to see how sharp you are today—all mini-games that last a few seconds, at the end of which you get statistics like how much of your brain you’re using, how much stress you’re under and so on (we’re suffering at 90 per cent stress right now, incidentally). It’s perfect for when you want to take short breaks from work, and since your first score is usually shameful, it’ll be a long while before you decide to stop competing with yourself. The result is (so the developers claim) that you end up stimulating your brain, which will lead to your overall well-being, or something to that effect.

Our verdict: BC2 is easily one of the best mobile games we’ve played so far—the only thing that bothers us is that it gets hard if your screen is too small.

Site: www.gameloft.com
Price: $4 (Rs 160)


Prince Of Persia Classic 8/10



Confession: I’ve never played through the original Prince of Persia (PoP), and given the games available today, it’s hardly likely that I’ll ever play it on my PC again. This is, however, one for the phone. The name is self-explanatory: good old PoP, brought back to life in your pocket. The graphics have been updated to look better, but the game controls exactly as you’d remember it (or not, depending on your age). Your princess has been captured by the evil wizard Jaffar, who has given her an hour to either marry him or die. You must rescue the princess within this hour, or deal with the guilt of her blood on your clumsy hands. Theoretically, this means that the game is only an hour long, but it’s quite unlikely you’ll be finishing it in that time. The prisons are labyrinthine, and if you don’t fall into a chasm eventually, you’ll walk into spikes. Such is the prince’s life. Whether you yearn for nostalgia or you want to see what the big deal was with PoP, this is one game worthy of your phone.

Site: www.gameloft.com
Price: $4 (Rs 160)


Against All Odds 6/10



In Against All Odds, you play Malaika Rudeski—a female Indiana Jones—whose fascination for all things Egyptian leads her right into a pyramid with all sorts of cool ancient gadgetry. Obviously, she trips on something she shouldn’t have, and unleashes the Pyramid’s Curse.

This is your good old side-scrolling platform game, and isn’t far from what you’d expect—walk around the pyramid, avoid obstacles and fight scorpions, mummies and other miscellaneous nasties. There are some parts that can get irritating, though. Ms. Rudeski is quite delicate, and dies from the shortest fall—which happens a lot, because as soon as you ascend a platform, there’s usually a mummy waiting there to push her off.

Against All Odds isn’t an outstanding game, but it’s still better than sitting and doing nothing at all.

Site: www.mauj.com
Price: Free  (plus service message costs)