X-Space

I got X-Space earlier and this game, for me, is maddeningly addictive. I never even knew I liked Qix/Jezzball style games until 2 years ago when I got my first iDevice. The genre fits a touchscreen system like it was designed for them. If you've never played one of these type of games there is a pretty good one that was free last I knew: Jezster. Check it out to get an idea of gameplay. My personal favorite is Zone Out and I think it's 4 or 5 bucks. Now back to the game at hand, X-Space. The controls and everything are fine and to my liking. Graphics are simple, but that's no problem, the cleaner the playing field the better my concentration is. At first when I fired it up earlier, besides the graphics being minimalist, I felt something was missing right off. Well, there is but there isn't. See X-Space has no power-ups, no gimicks, just sheerly you and that damn flying emoticon. It took me a few games to realize just how much I like the way this plays and is presented. It also seems w/o all the boosts and freeze rays & such the developer is forced to find a very solid balance of the smiley face's movements and behaviors. I find, so far, the devs have done a very nice job striking a challenging balance. One thing I have noticed the AI of smiles if somewhat predictable at the start of each game/round in that there are multiple angles in the bottom right quadrant of the game board where he'll start. I'm not sure why the devs did this, but if , as I suspect, it's to keep the player from being too overwhelmed then hopefully they'll keep that pattern in tact as a "normal" mode and institute a completely randomized enemy entry as an advanced difficulty. There are two single player modes: challenge mode and level mode. There is also p2p through Bluetooth. As I said this is about my favorite genre of gaming on the iDevice and as i've played over the last couple of hours, X-Space is running a close second to Zone Out as my fav. These levels/boards in X-Spaceplay somewhat quicker than ZO and I feel each represents two totally different play elements within the same genre. I like it. and hope the developers continue to support this great game. It is OpenFeint enabled with a leaderboard for each single-player mode. Richard