By Andrew Reeves
Groovin' Blocks is a Tetris based hybrid with arrangeable multi-colored
blocks and a musical twist. On the surface, this game is simple: Arrange and
drop blocks to match three of the same color and use the beat to activate
multipliers. But as you play further in and encounter more of the power up
blocks and oddly paced songs, you begin to realize that Groovin' Blocks takes a
considerable amount of skill and planning to get ahead. To get you started,
there is a text based tutorial with an explanation of how to play and a few
in-game screen captures to give you a visual heads up of what's to come. From
there you can decide your starting level of difficulty (Casual, Experienced, or
Hard) and song selection to jump in. I only had one minor issue with the menu
system, and that was related to its smaller buttons and how some of them to
don't give any indication that they've been pressed.
I wasn't blown away by the graphical presentation of Groovin' Blocks. There
are so many developers pushing the envelope of the iPhone's graphical limits
these days that I'm always disappointed when I can easily notice lower
resolution textures throughout the game. On the flip side of that, the game does
posses a fair share of visual effects, so even though it's not the highest
quality I've ever experienced on this platform, it's also not the worst (by far)
so I can't really ding it for too many points there. One area it should shine in
is music and Groovin' Blocks doesn't fall short here at all. I was pleasantly
surprised by the quality of audio in this game, and how the non-mainstream
selection kept me engaged rather than annoyed. The controls have a nice layout,
that doesn't follow the menu systems minimalistic design, and should be simple
for both left and right-handed people to pick up.
If you're a fan of the original Tetris and are looking to branch out into
hybrids, this may be a good starter for you. While the idea of putting some sort
of twist on the tried and true game type has been going on for years, Groovin'
Blocks does a decent job of applying its variation properly. I would almost say
that anything more than $1 for this app wouldn't be worth it, but the attention
to audio quality is something that simply can't be ignored and helps to justify
the price.
Final Rating: 72%
