Pew Pew review

Review of Pew Pew for the Blackberry Playbook

Pew Pew is a fun little game for the Blackberry Playbook that really utilises the beautiful display of the Playbook by using bright colours and plenty of shapes to accent the deep tones and high-pixel density of the display.

The idea of Pew Pew is similar to the Xbox Live Arcade game “Geometry Wars” which is simply one of the most fun games I have ever played that didn’t involve killing people! It is similar to Geometry Wars, but NOT QUITE on the same level of crazy; it’s kind of what Geometry Wars would play like if you played it in slow motion! However, this game is still fun in its own way which is why I decided to review the game!

Let’s begin with the menus as always; the menus are set out beautifully and are actually one of my favourite things about the game! They give off a simple boxy retro feel, but the transitions between different pages and the simple colours really give off a nice and polished feel that wouldn’t expect when heading into the game. The menus slide from one to another seamlessly, all-in-all it’s a very nice menu system. Now there are quite a few options and game modes for this game so I’ve decided I’m going to categorise them and summarise each one shortly. Firstly you have Tutorial which shows you what each enemy does and how to play the game and the other option (except Play) is the settings. In settings you can change many a thing such as camera, screen orientation, where the joysticks lay and so on! Now when you hit Play, you get the option to select a game Mode or select a Ship. 

There are three ships which you unlock by earning medals by getting a certain score in each game mode. There are also three Game Modes, Pandemonium which is a game mode where you have to survive with the enemies flying around by shooting them and dodging them.  The next Game Mode is Dodge this which only uses the left joystick (so you can’t shoot) and basically you have to collect red boxes whilst not getting hit by the on-coming green enemies. And finally there is Assault which is very similar to Pandemonium but the enemies come at you in straight lines from the edges of the screen and you have to simply not die. All of the Game Modes are challenging, in fact I would say they’re too challenging as to unlock the first ship you need 2 Bronze Medals and 1 Silver Medal and I’ve only managed to achieve 1 Bronze Medal which was on a very long and flukey run for me! I think that you should just have to collect a certain amount of points over time, not just in a single game and then it would feel more rewarding to unlock the new ships

The Gameplay of Pew Pew is absolutely brilliant, it is a game that you can easily pick up and start playing! The joysticks are very sensitive and work really well and what I like is that the further you pull the joystick, the quicker your ship will move in that direction. However, I do believe it would be nicer if it was more like Geometry Warss in that the area you played in was bigger and there was brighter lights and smaller enemies and such things like this. Now I don’t know if the creator of this game was trying to base this game on the Geometry Wars series, but if they were then it would be nice to see a more colourful gameplay sequence.

The graphics and presentation of Pew Pew are hard to review really as the game plays really well, it is a beautiful game to have and one that there are no flaws with (except in-game additions that could be made). And so when reviewing these two aspects it’s hard to compare the graphics to the likes of Modern Combat 2 and NOVA as these games feature real life settings. Let’s just say the presentation of the game is beautiful due to the lovely flowing menus, however I would have liked a little more colour and pazzaz to the menus. And let’s say the graphics of the game are fair but could have been made better with more colours and flashy things seen in the game Geometry Wars.

Now I know I have massively compared Pew Pew to Geometry Wars and it’s probably wrong to compare a handheld device game to a fully-fledged HD XBOX 360 game, but this game is clearly showing signs of wanting to be similar to GW and so therefore that is how I’ve reviewed it. Overall the game is definitely one of my favourite games in the App World right now, even with the likes of Modern Combat and Asphalt still taking up a lot of my playing time. One thing that makes this game stand head and shoulders above these other two titles though is that this game is FREE! It’s definitely a game that ANYONE with a Playbook should check out and I can guarantee you that you’ll still have this game on your Playbook months later! I just can’t wait for Pew Pew 2 to be released in the up and coming weeks!

Presentation – 9.2

Graphics – 8.3

Gameplay – 9.3

Sound – 8.6

Lasting Appeal – 9.3

OVERALL – 8.9