10 word description: What if a tiny pet hatched on your phone? (Copied from the app store description).
10 word review: Nice intro sequence followed by not a lot of anything.
You will like this if you enjoy: Very simple pet games where there is no challenge, no gameplay and not very much to do or see.
The good news: The intro sequence is nice (but it is let down by the rest of this app). Graphics are quite pleasant.
The bad news: Nothing to do, hardly anything to see. The Fugu (I’ll pronounce it Fugger because that’s quite apt) isn’t cute, it’s just there, with its 3 or 4 different random animations. The Fugger sounds like Mr Bean frotting a bucket of poodles. The frequently passed stools are sadly underused. The Fugger doesn’t feel like a pet, or a victim. Hatch has less in common with video games than a 5 year old’s crayon drawing of a space rocket.
Arcadelife verdict: See, I went into this with an open mind. I thought I’d give it a chance. What a mug. It’s the payoff of an empty promise, a coffee table app for the clinically gullible. In the advert, a 20-something career woman drops her car keys on the table, flops onto her sofa and starts tapping her Hatch app, which is a great euphemism but sadly it’s just her and her iPhone. Now this is just bollocks. She isn’t even looking at Hatch. She’s got that generic “career going nowhere, so glad my agent got me this gig” expression of scripted awe-struck wonder that you only ever see on the faces of young actresses pretending they like playing games on their phone.
I could improve this app very easily. For a start, I’d do a lot more with the excrement. Leave enough of it piling up and next time you visit your Fugger, there’s a giant shit sculpture of the Eiffel Tower, his gift to you. Starve him for long enough and, instead of running up to lick the screen in adoration, he pelts it with dung, initiating a mini-game where you have to wipe it off quickly before he writes “I HATE YOU” in the brown streaks.
Now that I’ve had it on my iPod Touch long enough to get some screen images and to prove to myself that it’s the sub-mediocre vacuum I suspected, I’ll be deleting it. Even calling my pink Fugger “Lemmy” didn’t add more than about 2 seconds of entertainment value. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. If you own this app and are somehow managing to convince yourself that it isn’t a dreary, pointless waste of your time, then I think you need to reassess your perspective on life.
Arcadelife rating
Presentation – 6/10
Visuals – 6/10
Controls – n/a
Content – 1/10
Fun – 0/10
Final rating – 1/10
Pretty Dull
Rating categories explained here.
Version reviewed by Arcadelife is 1.0.0
Impending.com website link