GW Helmet
by Eric March on January 2, 2009 at 4:58 pm
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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App Name: | GW Helmet |
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| Developer: | Mobile 1UP |
Version: | 1.0 | |
| Publisher: | Mobile 1UP |
Size: | 438 KB | |
| Category: | Casual Games |
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I had to write this review because it was clear that there were a few idiots on the App Store giving this bad reviews because they were clueless and obviously too young to remember where that Nintendo DS glued to their hands really came from. (Kids, lawn, get off.) I set them straight in my own review posting (which is currently under review at the time of this writing), but now I want to give it a proper review here.
GW Helmet is an iPhone version of the Nintendo Game & Watch game “Helmet,” and it does an exceptionally faithful job of reproducing the original game — so faithful, in fact, that I’m actually afraid that Mobile 1UP might be getting a cease & desist order from Nintendo soon enough. There are some very slight variations in the static graphics, such as colourizing the balconies, ground and trees, slight differences in the “miss” characters at the top, and a slightly different pattern to the ground, but these certainly wouldn’t be enough to differentiate this game enough from its predecessor to make the Big N turn a blind eye. Time will tell on that front though. (Lest you think this game is too old for N to care, remember, they did release digital versions of their G&W games on Gameboy Advance a number of years ago under the “Game & Watch Gallery” series, which did enjoy several renditions, so to them this is still a viable IP.) On the other hand they’ve done a number of these conversions, and they’re still going strong so who knows?
Potential leagle tussles aside, like I said, this is extremely faithful, from the classic LCD display and piezo sound effects. Control can be accomplished either by tilting the device or tapping the edges of the screen to move your character. The object is simply to get your dude from one side of the screen to the other. The catches are first that there are tons of falling tools hurtling toward the ground that you must avoid (someone fire that clumsy worker!), and you can only move your dude to safety when the door on the right is open.
By all accounts this replicates the feel of LCD gaming almost exactly, except for the lack of physical buttons, so for any retro fan who loved his portable LCD games back in the day, it just doesn’t get more accurate than this, so kudos to Mobile 1UP for their attention to detail, as it has been with all of their G&W simulations. If this sort of thing tickles your fancy, they have done simulations of Chef, Octopus, Parachute, and Fire, too, each for a couple of bucks, so there’s plenty of G&W love to partake of. I just hope Nintendo keeps letting them do their thing.
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Posted in Games: Casual
