[REVIEW] iPhysics Lite

[spoonforknife]

As infuriating as it was, this forum loved iPhysics. We created levelpacks, hungrily awaited each update, and created conspiracy theories about r4m0n's death when iPhysics stopped being updated. Obviously, this was not the case.

iPhysics Lite was born and at the measly cost of $1.99, you yourself can have it too. It has a plethora of new features, and I plan to review it. This will be my second review, after my excellent review of Jared. That was a GREAT application.

Anyhow, upon downloading iPhysics Lite, it should pop up on your SpringBoard with a shiny, retouched icon. [See banner above] Upon actually opening the application, you're met with a splash screen.

The attention to detail is marvelous. The balls drop into place, music softly plays in the background, and the balls will continue to move ever so slightly after they have landed in their positions. If you don't want to wait through the whole process of the little balls falling, you can simply tap on one of them as they are falling and it works just as well. I'll start from the left. Let's go with Credits.

Gasp! We're mentioned! Marvelous! Just thought I'd point that out.

Moving onto the tutorial! The tutorial makes it easy for anybody to pick up iPhysics, explains each feature in depth, and then directs you to the tutorial levelpack located in the Play! section. Here are just a few screenshots of what's going on in that section. It also includes a few demos, involving utilizing the accelerometer, dragging, drawing, and creating joints. After that, it will direct you to the tutorial levelpack.

Next, is scores. First, scores will tell to register or login at iPhysicsOnline. With this feature you can submit your times on levelpacks and look at other people's times as well for each levelpack in iPhysics, including the coveted iPinball.

Next, Play! This is where the action happens. In this edition of iPhysics, there are 8 levelpacks. The levelpacks float around using the accelerometer, and to play one, simply tap it.



Some of our old favorites are in here: Rawd's Aquarium, iPinball, Sandbox, and H3X's Vehicular Pack. The rest are all new. Let's start with Phun with Physics. This is a fairly easy drag based levelpack, and things haven't changed one bit, gameplay wise. Drag, tilt, draw, and joints all work flawlessly, and erasing still works the same way. I've found the levels are a bit more challenging than on the jailbreak era, and some of the music featured in the game is just way too elevator-esque for me. Fortunately, they've included a preference pane!

Simply go to settings and you can turn off Sound Effects and Music! In addition, you can change how joints are created and how drawings are erased! Marvelous! I won't spoil it too much for you, but I definitely recommend this game.

Pros

• Inventive layout, gameplay
• Music/Sound Effects can be toggled off
• Gameplay challenging and engaging
• High Scores function
• Great tutorial
• Wonderful replay value
• Old levelpacks reworked

Cons

• That music gets really irritating
• Gameplay can get near impossible
• In "Laddy the Worm," levelpack, the spiders are nearly impossible to see and impossible to avoid.
• Graphics could be improved, but I like them.
• Could be cleaned up a bit aesthetically
• Default.png needs to be fixed (It shows the splash screen, which doesn't load immediately when the Default.png is dismissed)
• Menus can be very distracting (Falling Balls, Tilt based levelpack selection screen)...

8/10. iPhysics Lite. Great job guys.

[Baker5]

very nice tutorial
prolly gonna get this

[fyvel]

wow... great review.... lol.... im buying this now!!!!! GO r4mon!!!!!

[eng]

i'm sorry, but wasn't the lite one supposed to be free, i'm not moaning, you can charge whatever you want, but i thought it was......

[R I O T]

Looks good...but judging by those screenshots I'm not going like the menus/interface.

But whatever at least the gameplay isn't lacking.

[UltimatePein]

Originally Posted by eng

i'm sorry, but wasn't the lite one supposed to be free, i'm not moaning, you can charge whatever you want, but i thought it was......

yes, and it also means not the full version.
just think this if you are not sure about buying iphysics.

"R4mon and Rawd really did amazing things for iphysics back in the jailbreaking days. I think I'll help them out now by donating to them!"

and the best part is when you "donate" you get the app!

[MrFairladyz]

sweet dude

[Rawd]

Originally Posted by eng

i'm sorry, but wasn't the lite one supposed to be free, i'm not moaning, you can charge whatever you want, but i thought it was......

originally we had planned to make a free lite version. It was rejected by Apple because we were using it as our main platform to upsell to the full version. We had many references to buying the full version and the packs were cut-off in the middle. This was considered by Apple to be 'Limited functionality' and a demo (which they do not allow). We changed our strategy, completed the packs, and gave you a bigger game for $1.99. If you wish, you can hold off and buy the full version in around 1 months time.

And thanks Spoony for the review!

[spoonforknife]

Ooh! My review got semi-frontpaged!

[Joseph]

Originally Posted by spoonforknife

Ooh! My review got semi-frontpaged!

I'm guilty D:
I feel crafty today, lol.