Kahoots Review
By Gaetano Prestia
Kahoots is yet another arcade puzzle title for the iPhone. While the genre is definitely crowded on the platform, this refreshing experience is plenty of fun and quite the challenge. The tricky level design makes for a highly difficult gaming experience that should please fans of the genre.
The objective is Kahoots is simple: guide your little blue man through an environment to safety. That’s easier said than done, as you must shift the environment in order for your character to move through the world with ease. There are a whole bunch of bad guys and traps placed around each map ready to ruin all of your effort, so you have to be constantly on your toes to ensure your little blue creature is safe and sound. Some boxes on the screen do absolutely nothing, while others act as trap doors or springs to help you in moving through the level with a bit more ease. The developer has really been able to balance out the experience by implementing a number of great countering elements that help you avoid any obstacles on the course. It makes for a consistent and free-flowing experience.
The actual environments in Kahoots are strangely off-balance with how the game actually plays; the colours and characters (including Pegbeast, the game’s tutorial narrator) are all quite clearly aimed at children, but the gameplay screams for an older crowd that can handle its at-times mind-numbing difficulty. At first glance, Kahoots seems like a simple game that holds your hand, but it’s actually quite the contrary. The inconsistency between gameplay mechanics and environment don’t dampen the experience at all, instead helping distance the game from others in the genre.
While Kahoots has been around for a while now on PC and PSP -- and there’s a chance that if you’re a dedicated puzzle gamer you’ve already given it a go -- its showing on the iPhone is a good one. It plays well and offers plenty of challenge while blending in cute and bright environments. There are multiplayer challenges to add a bit more worth to the experience thanks to the OpenFeint leaderboards, and with plenty of challenge and levels to move through, it makes for a very worthy addition to your iPhone game collection.
We say: GOOD BUY