Fruit Ninja (Windows 7 Marketplace/Apple App Store) Review

Windows 7 Phone Price: £2.49
Apple App Store: Cheaper

Mobile phone gaming has often been the subject of many jokes in the industry. Everyone remembers how great playing Snake on their Nokia 3210 was, and at the time this was one of the rare success stories. The Nokia N-Gage however was an embarrassment that nearly killed off the concept. It would be Apple and their app store that would truly revive the concept. Some dedicated independent groups selling apps on the cheap, yet still introducing new concepts to keep audiences interested. One of the main success stories has just had a port to the Windows Phone format. Fruit Ninja was originally developed by a small company in Australia called Halfbrick. But are we getting more for the higher price tag?

There are three modes included with roughly the same concept. You are a ninja who really hates fruit. In fact you hate it so much you just want to chop it and ruin everyone else’s chances of getting their 5 a day. To do this however you must drag your finger around the screen and slice the fruit. You can use two thumbs to attack twice at once and that is pretty cool. For me there were teething problems because the HTC 7 Mozart and most other Windows 7 phones are completely touch screen. This means should you be a little too aggressive with your fruit based massacre, you run the risk of pressing the back, start or even the dreaded Bing button. Perhaps an option to lock those buttons except the back button would be handy. Reloading the game takes a while, but your progress is saved. It’s a compromise, but not having that issue in the first place would be significantly better.

The classic mode gives you three lives to chop as many fruit ad you can before letting three of them fall to the ground. You also need to avoid swiping the bombs as this will end the game. You can try building up combos, but here it isn’t recommended as you risk ending the game prematurely. Arcade mode gives you 60 seconds to get the high score. Bananas now give you power ups which can either double your score for a short period, make lots of fruit come in from the sides or slow down the rate fruit moves. Having two appear at once is key. Bombs now reduce your score by 10 points and negate any active banana powers. Combos are very much the way forward and bonuses once times up grant you more points. The Zen mode just has fruit and challenges you to destroy as many of them as you can in 90 seconds; no power ups and no bombs allowed. Unfortunately, that is it. Three modes that are very addictive, but one feels Apple customers are getting more for less. Still, the concept to those who only have this phone is still worth getting. The game comes with many flavourful facts about fruit and for those Xbox Live nuts there are 200 reasonably easy achievements to obtain. The unlockable content merely consists of new backgrounds and new blade colours and effects. The conditions to.unlock everything are a new challenge once everything is sorted in the gamerscore front, but at this stage Fruit Ninja‘s supply of fruit to chop is running fairly dry.

If you have a mobile phone that is a smart phone and can get apps, then purchasing this game would be one of the better decisions you’ll make. As for which version though, it all boils down to what brand of phone you have. The Apple iPhone version is still the vastly superior one as it is cheaper and features more options. The iPad option is better still. The Windows 7 phone version is okay, but the hefty price tag – light content combination is a pity. If you have one of the other devices, you’re better off investing in that version instead.