Li-Nuggz

Reviewed on 14th December 2004 by: Alex

Précis:

This game is simply excellent, providing hours of entertainment arranged in bite-sized bits for easy mobile enjoyment. Based upon a simple gameplay concept, which has the player busting balls, this fast-paced action game is a must-have for the Symbian S60 platform.

As a bonus, Elements Interactive has just released a special holiday edition, which is probably very suitable to try, just to see if you like the game. Try that now!

Review:

The worst thing about Li-Nuggz is it's name. This might just be me, but I have no idea what the name is supposed to evoke. Play a mini-game: look at the screenshot just below, and try to figure out what Li-Nuggz is referring to. (I'm just going to assume Li-Nuggz is the name of the protagonist, for whatever reason) However, the name affects nothing else at all about the game, which is excellent. The game is so good that you should really just go ahead and buy it. Don't waste time reading the review.

If you're not convinced-

The game is what has been categorised as a "platform" game, similar to Mario Bros and Sonic. You can move left and right and jump. However, Li-Nuggz is not really as fast as either Mario or Sonic- partially, I'm sure, because of the phone's directional pad control. Thankfully, he can shoot, upwards. The main thing Li-Nuggz shoots are harpoons, although he has a gun alternative. The gun fires far more quickly, but has very limited ammunition, while the harpoon fires unlimited shots, with one caveat: only one harpoon can be on-screen at any one time. This adds strategic depth, and makes you very careful when you shoot. As noted briefly above, basically you're busting balls. The way you bust these balls is via carful application of the harpoon at appropriate moments.

This will cause the ball (or whatever else it is you happen to be shooting at) to break up into multiple smaller balls. If the balls are small enough, they burst into nothingness. The graphical actualization of all this is very pretty. As you can see on the right, there can be very many balls on-screen at the same time, and sometimes the balls look like apples and lemons (besides the more standard looking fire/ice/rock). Those half-lemons break up to look like cheese slices. It's all rather funny. You also get periodic power-ups (increase number of harpoons, etc etc)

The game itself is 2D, with 3D pre-rendered backgrounds. For the most part these are rather excellent, and provide a decent backdrop to the action; while not being too distracting. This is a good thing - the game itself requires quite a bit of concentration to complete. This is especially true for the final boss, which is a huge huge fire breathing dragon of enormous proportions which is *really difficult* to kill. You can do it though. I have faith in you.

As can be seen from the screenshots above, what Li-Nuggz is doing is traversing an island. This island is broken up into 5 sections, and each section has 8 or more individual levels, each of which must be completed to get to the dragon boss. Unlike a certain other game, your progress is saved, and you can continue each time where you left off. The fact that there are more than 40 levels, 4 instant games, and that there is an added incentive to do well on each of the levels (you get a gold dot, instead of a silver dot) means that the game will occupy plenty of your time. As we speak, I have completed all the levels (41, exactly) but have yet to be able to unlock some secret portion. I get the sick feeling that this is because I need to get more gold dots. I'll try to do that, later.

Moving on; the sound is good, overall. The sound effects are nice, but unfortunately there are only two pieces of background music. One for when you're walking around the island, and one for when you're actually in the game. This is not as bad as it sounds, because the music is quite nice, and I haven't gotten sick of hearing it. Also, concentrating tends to make you tune out the music, although the sound effects can be essential, especially for the dragon.

I'm sorry for fixating on the dragon so much, but it was really painful trying to kill him.

Oh - and a final thing to note about the scoring system: the game rewards you greatly for doing many things in a row. For example, if you're shooting balls, and you manage to down a string of them in a row, your bonus increases exponentially. 10, then 25, then 100, then 1000. It's all about timing the harpoon.

In conclusion, this is a fantastic game. The gameplay is excellent, and is helped along by the graphics, sound, and length of the game. Elements Interactive is obviously a development house to look out for. Try the free holiday-themed version, or the real thing; you won't be disappointed. (And the dragon is the best bit!)

Score: 93%

Buy & Try in our software shop (USD 9.95)

Buy at Handango (USD 9.95)

Other games by this developer: Quartz

Screenshots: