There are now over a thousand games listed in iTunes and they vary greatly in quality and price tag. So its can be a real nightmare trying to find the good ones. Over the next few posts we will be reviewing some of the recently released games. For now, we will stick to those targeting the Christmas season.
There are eight Christmas-theme games listed in iTunes – six released in December and two in November. All carry a price tag! What is troubling about these – and other recently released games – is that in many cases the support site and/or game home sites listed for the developers don’t actually have information (or even mention) the game! The game will get a solid rave on itunes, but when we follow the link – nada!
Take Rudolf’s Revenge – released at the beginning of November. In this case, clicking the link to the site results in a “The url is not valid and cannot be loaded” message. The support link works but does not send us to the support page on the site. OK there is a clear tab at the top to “support” BUT, the game itself does not get a mention anywhere on their site. It’s been two months, dudes. If you don’t think its worth a mention, why would we buy it? (No, not a freebie)
And much the same can be said for Christmas Trivia (they do have a site – if you count half a page and a few short sentences as a site, but no support). They do mention their game – sort of –
apparently, however, its too much work to list the game by its full title, so they haven’t! Nuff said!
Macphun have done a few games for iPhones – but their current offering – Christmas Puzzle – also does not get a mention on their site! For Christmas Swap, we get “New site coming soon”, and its support is “coming soon” as well! Christmas Season also has a “coming soon” for the game details and support. Poor show for games that have a price tag.
AND NOW:- THE GOOD NEWS….
On the bright side, there are three games in the list that have good site back-up. These games are also well developed and are, we think, the better games in the bunch. In fact, the iPhonegizmo team have found that the quality of the site backing up the game is an indicator of game quality.
Three out of eight aint bad? Well, unless that reflects the results for all 1000+ games…….!
The three games that get good site/product support are: Christmas Spell, ELFrun, and, to a lesser extent, SnapIt – Christmas Edition.
We give the prize for best site support, to ELFrun which goes the extra mile and provides a video trailer for the game:-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZKzmPQCTso[/youtube]
The iPhonegizmo team wishes all its readers a happy holiday season.