Zuma's Revenge

Summary

"Zuma’s Revenge"’s protagonist is an amphibian who is stranded on an island where he must confront evil tiki forces in order to discover the island’s secret…

Think you’re up for the challenge of "Zuma's Revenge"? Read the review to ensure that you’re fully prepared.

This review was written by Paulina Gegenheimer.
 

Test device: G1
Android version: 1.0
Root: None
Runs as of: 1.6
Authorizations required: None

A frog is stranded on an island and doing its best to survive. There’s one adventure mode and an option to activate a second game.

At the beginning of the game the frog is sitting on a platform in the middle of the screen. He’s surrounded by a bunch of colorful balls rolling along a sort of track. There are red, green, blue, and yellow ones and they’re all tumbling out of the mouth of a creepy looking statue. There’s a skull monument at the end of the track.

The goal is to prevent the balls from reaching the skull—if this does happen the level is terminated and you have to start over again from the beginning.
So how can the balls be prevented from rolling all the way to the monument? Well, that’s where the frog comes in: it can shoot out balls of its own from its mouth. They’re the same color as the ones pouring from the statue’s snout. It’s your job to catapult the balls and color-coordinate them. If you manage to hit three or more balls of the same color they will explode and disappear.

The level is over when you’ve managed to destroy all the balls before they reach the skull. You also have to destroy fruit and little signs that pop up along the way, as they can slow down or speed up the flow of the balls. Some also give you extra fast ammunition power.

Bottom line:
I quite like "Zuma's Revenge" on the whole. My biggest critique would be that this is the type of game that you can get tired of fairly easily as it isn’t a very diversified game and the balls roll along at quite a slow pace.
 

Controls are relatively simple. The app is available is several languages and it comes with brief gameplay instructions.
The first time you play you’ll find that little tips and tricks pop up along the way; this makes it easy to get into the flow of the game.

When you want to aim at something all you need do is touch the target spot with your finger.
The color of the next ball is displayed on the frog’s back.
The screen’s design is also pretty straightforward: your score is displayed at the top left hand side of the screen.
There’s a pause button located at the bottom right; you can use it to set the level back or jump to the main menu.

Sound settings are available (provided they’ve been activated) and you can pick a game mode.

I really like the way the menus in "Zuma's Revenge" are designed. The app’s look is very Maya/Inca inspired, with a good dash of tiki thrown in for good measure.

 

I didn’t experience any trouble with the stability of "Zuma's Revenge". The app’s speed is also pretty decent, though you will have to deal with a brief loading period the first time you play.

The lite version of  "Zuma's Revenge" can be downloaded for free from the Android Market.
The full version costs EUR0,74 and Zuma’s Revenge HD is yours for EUR1,49.