Sweep Review

It’s always a little strange when you read about the amount of time you will spend doing things like sleeping, eating, working, etc. in your life. It boggles the mind to think that you’ll be spending years doing some of these things. But what worries me is the thought that when I go to the Pearly Gates they’ll show me the amount of total time I spent playing games… especially games like Mine Sweeper.

The games are so deceptively simple. Touch a square and you’ll see how many bombs are adjacent to that square. Through deductive reasoning you should be able to know where the bombs are and avoid them. Then you just have to clear away the rest of the area and your rewarded, usually with a big yellow smiling face.

But that was then… this is now.

Mine Sweep games are a good niche in the App Store. It’s a simple concept and pretty much anyone who has fooled around on a computer has felt the sting of clicking on a square they thought was safe only to get a bomb blast.

And this brings me to “Sweeps!” a new entry into the field by Studio Mee. So the big questions is whether or not this game is big smiley face, or big bomb blast.

Let’s just say when it comes to Sweeps!, I’m smiling.

One of the first things you’ll notice about Sweeps! is that they’ve taken the game off of the normal grid. In this game you’ll be trying to clear bombs away from an island, which in itself makes the game a little more fun. But it’s also great to see that we’re not just dealing with square boxes here. Your island is broken up in many different shapes which means that you could have one piece that touches several other pieces (the most I’ve seen is 8, but there could be more). This provides a lot of challenge to the game.

From here the game is simple. Tap on a piece of land and see if there is a bomb. If not you’ll either get a blank spot (meaning that there are no bombs adjacent to it) or a number telling you how many bombs are near by. You can also mark places that you think are mines with a blue flag so you know to stay clear.

One little bit of advice that I noticed is that the game won’t really let you tap on pieces until you’ve zoomed in a bit. You’ll want to do this anyway so you can see the board better, but just don’t get frustrated (as some have) by not knowing this little fact. The only hint you’re given about this is a note that says “zoom more” in the upper left hand corner.

Perhaps the best part of the game is the “Compete” section where you can go up against the best scores in the world on every map. This gives the game a lot of replay ability because just getting the screen clear is not enough… you’ve got to beat the high scores.

Oh, and here’s a last bit of news that makes this game worth a look – you’ve got over 2,000 different levels (or islands) to go through. That’s a lot of land, and a lot of mines! The game has three different difficulty levels, which really breaks down into the frequency of the mines.

There are a few (very simple) things that I think could make this game better. For one thing it would be good to know just how many bombs are on the map. Has it stands now you don’t know you’re done with the game until you either get a bomb or a “victory” signal. The easy way would be to have the number of bombs shown and then whenever you place a flag you’ll know how many are left to plant.

The other way would be to have the ability to put your name on a scoreboard when you’re the one holding the best time for a map. They give you a nice recap of the percentage of failures for the map, the average time taken, and the best time, but being able to put your name on the list would be great. In fact, I’d really like to see the top five scores (or there abouts) for each map. I know that’s a lot with so many maps. But it would really add a nice value to the game and push up the replay ability factor.

Mine Sweeper games fall into the “you know what you’re getting” category of things. Thankfully Sweeps! has made it at least a little different and with a few more updates this game could be really something special for fans of the genre.

There is a Lite version available for Sweeps! so give that a shot and see if it’s worth it for you to dig deeper into the minefield.

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There is a Free Version here to get you hooked as well

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Tags: Mine sweeper

Category: Games