SmileVille

Do you like playing games which involve blocks and a ball a la Breakout? Well this game will definitely be of a lot of interest.

Smileville is a delightful little game which proves addictive as much as it does amusing. With a slight twist on the usual bat and ball look, you have a small pink chap with two arms stretched out to either side. To start the game you must press the key to launch the ball at colour coded faces. With every hit from the ball, the faces change colour (from red, to yellow, to green to blue to gone) until they disappear after sufficient hits. There are some blocks/faces which can’t be broken (these are grey coloured) and instead will ricochet the ball off and can be either useful or lethal to your progress. If you’re lucky the ball will bounce off these indestructible pieces and help to remove the faces. Otherwise, they can bounce the ball awkwardly downwards and indeed serve an ace – causing you to lose a life.

As the faces get hit and change colour some will drop items which will boost your chances of winning or give you a nightmare. Some of the power-ups include magnetic (who transforms your character into robo-cop), growth (which makes him resemble the Hulk), guns (to resemble Neo of Matrix fame) and another which I’m not sure what it does other than give you a cool Spiderman costume. The usual other power-ups are fast ball, slow ball, cancel effects, double ball, extra life, instant death and so on. For some levels the faces descend whenever the ball bounces from your smiling character – this helps to keep you on your toes as well as work extra hard on ensuring you hit the moving target before it hits you – again costing you the game!

Some of the targets will move without your assistance, all these characters move in predefined locations either up and down, side to side or in a circular motion. Again this can be very difficult for you to hit and as you are up against the clock in every round, it’s very tricky to hit these ones within time.

This game is definitely worth downloading for its entertainment and fun filled levels – of which there’s 15. You’ll keep yourself busy for a couple of hours trying to complete the game. It’s just a shame that your paddle doesn’t move that fast to cover the bottom area – and protect you from losing a life unnecessarily due to the ball whizzing past you. Also the control over the ball isn’t terribly great and for the levels where you have the faces descend towards you – this can certainly make you fret quite a bit.

Overall then, this is a brilliant little game which will keep you smiling as the name would suggest and entertained for some time – perfect for car journeys and just killing a few minutes between lessons or well, just about any other instance you can think of.

Rating 91%

Positives

Enjoyable and very addictive

Frustrating but not in a bad way

Entertaining animation

Cute characters

Negatives

Control over the ball would help more

The ball counts a hit even though it doesn’t hit the face (not that that’s always a bad thing)

Nearly impossible to complete game in one visit