Burn the Rope - Review - Whitesides Begicke

BTR Lead

One of the things I love about reviewing mobile games is that I become to play things that would never get released on consoles – at least, not unless they had already made a splash on mobile phones beginning. Burn down the Rope from Big Blue Bubble definitely falls into that category. While its gameplay could technically piece of work with an analog stick, Burn down the Rope is designed entirely effectually rotating the telephone in crazy directions.

Burn past the intermission for our full review.

Instant Entreatment

Burn Firepit

The first affair you'll observe when playing Burn down the Rope is the catchy lyrical theme song. It'southward almost as skillful as Parachute Panic's, and would make a great ringtone in a time to come Mango update. The title screen also features an adorable dancing flame character, though sadly he isn't really integrated into the game itself. There are no cinemas of the flame doing lightheaded things (beyond a cursory intro), which would have tied the many levels into a more cohesive whole. During gameplay, the flame looks just like a real flame, with the personality coming from the insect enemies (who make dizzy sounds) instead of the protagonist.

Structure

A farm setting serves (maybe inexplicably) as the hub globe of Burn the Rope. The game'due south 112 levels are divided up into seven groups of 16 each. While the levels within a group tin can exist tackled in any guild, the unabridged group must exist complete before players tin movement on to the side by side ane.

Gameplay

Each level consists of one or more rope segments, with the object beingness to burn every bit much of them as possible. Players have a unmarried flame with which to accomplish this mission; borer any part of the rope starts the fire a-called-for. The catch is that the fire only burns upwards, not horizontally or downwards. Thus you'll need to quickly rotate the phone around to keep the fire going and the rope going abroad. Unlike many games with tilt controls, Burn the Rope actually involves rotating the device completely upside downwardly and all around. I found the controls much more than intuitive than expected, every bit it really feels like you're turning the rope around in club to keep the flame alive.

Going for the gold

Burn Title

Simply sixty percentage of a level's ropes demand to be burned in order to articulate the level, simply only gets you a Bronze Medal, which is worth slightly more than spit and a fleck less than a pack of gum. The existent objective is to burn 95 per centum or more of the ripe in social club to earn Gold medals. Since the game but has Golden Medal Achievements and not completion ones, Golds are definitely where it's at.

At its centre, Burn down the Rope is a puzzle game. The play a trick on in most levels is figuring out where to actually start the flame, because it won't exist able to destroy plenty rope if placed poorly. Getting it in the right spot, twisting the telephone expertly in guild to avert called-for out, and hoping for the all-time will ordinarily consequence in success.

Trickier and trickier

Before long, levels start throwing colored ropes into the mix. These can only be destroyed by matching-colored flames; a standard flame just burns out when information technology reaches colored ropes. To modify the flame's color, yous accept to burn down ants. One time the fire passes through an ant, it switches to that insect'south colour. The color-changing mechanic makes tackling the rope in the right direction and order extremely important.

Entomology for dummies

Ants aren't the only kind of bugs players must destroy over the course of the game. Each insect type has a specific outcome on the gameplay:

Beetles: These rockin' bugs must be destroyed past a flame of the same colour, much like colored ropes.
Spiders: When a spider dies, it shoots out a web out at a xc caste angle. Webs function simply like rope and can bridge the divide between multiple rope segments.
Fireflies: Much similar a Joss Whedon sci-fi prove, these explode when burned. Fireflies tin can spread flames across gaps and take out large areas of rope at once.
Electric Bugs: They come in pairs, all Sith-like. Destroying one takes out its partner, spreading the flame to both insects' locations. These really complicate things when you're trying to burn down sections of rope in a sure order.
Water Bugs: A flame goes out instantly when information technology hits a water bug. You lot generally want to accept more than one flame going when dealing with these.

Exclusive Minigame

Burn Farm

The Windows Telephone version of Fire the Rope includes an all new bug-squashing minigame. It pops upward automatically after every three completed levels. In the minigame, hordes of colored ants run from the pinnacle of the screen to the bottom, plus a few electrical bugs. The goal is to earn points by consecutively borer ants of the same colour; accidentally hit an electric bug and the bonus round ends.

The new minigame might seem like a cool bonus for WP7 users, only information technology'south really not. First off, performance in the minigame has no affect on the rest of the game in any manner. It doesn't boost your rating on the previous level , and minigame scores aren't saved in a leaderboard… It's just pointless. Eventually I started going for the lightning bugs right away only to get back to the real game quicker. Also, the iPhone and Androids versions have a unlike problems-killing minigame that's missing hither. And so WP7 didn't really get extra content, only slightly different and worthless content.

1 buggy game

For a game that involves killing lots of bugs, Burn the Rope is ironically infested with a major crashing bug. This occurs when restarting a level. The game crashed more than twenty times on my style to completing the game, which is unacceptable in an Xbox Live championship. We notified the developers, who promised to investigate and try to gear up it in the future.

Achievements

Burn the Rope has two batches of Achievements: some for killing Ten numbers of each issues type (basically gimmes) and some for earning Gold medals on each set of levels. While gold medals should of form be rewarded, I'm surprised there is no Achievement for merely beating the game. Due to all the gold Achievements and some occasionally frustrating levels, I wouldn't call this game an like shooting fish in a barrel 200 GamerScore. Just if you become your caput around the fashion the puzzles piece of work, you should be able to get all the Achievements eventually.

Overall Impression

Burn the Rope is well-suited for portable play with short levels and great use of the phone's tilt sensor. I wouldn't call information technology a must-play every bit it needs a proper metagame to tie everything together. The worthless new minigame and frequent crashes also mar the experience on Windows Telephone. But the gameplay itself can be quite enjoyable (when the insects aren't randomly messing up your solutions by going the incorrect way), then y'all should at to the lowest degree try the demo and see if information technology hooks you.

Burn the Rope costs $2.99 and there is a free trial. Swing over here to the Marketplace to selection it up.

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