iPhone App Reviews

The Ogre Hunt experience from developer DGC can be summed up in two words: simple and frustrating.  The instructions tab in the main menu failed to mention that the accelerometer is used to point your gun instead the single D-Pad on the screen. I spent a good minute wondering why my character was just going in circles instead of moving in the direction I was pressing on the D-Pad. Needless to say, the ogres that spawned in the starting area owned my ass with their hatchet things before I could get my bearings.

When I actually could move around I found the level designs to be awkward. The textures used to make the cave walls were the same ones used through out most of the levels. This made navigating in Ogre Hunt frustrating… because everything looks exactly alike!  The same could be said for the character design. On the first level, one character design is used for all the enemies you encounter. I spent a good chunk of my time wandering around the first level killing ogre clones with a pistol that never ran out of ammo. It’s a good old fashioned FPS game like this that brings me back to the days of James Bond on the N64. 8) Some of you older players know what I’m talking about.

While Ogre Hunt isn’t the best game on the platform, it’s a mindlessly simple game with a ton of potential. A few good updates (a storyline and a second joystick!)  and this game could be a serious contender on the app market. Sadly, this game is hindered by what seems like an extremely premature release. It never got a story line or anything story related. You can go on forever killing hordes of axe throwing ogres and never really know why you’re supposed to kill them or how you got in the cave to begin with. Personally, I enjoy the fact that you can just boot this game up and start killing things with no strings attached. If you’re the type of gamer that likes to play a simple game by all means pick this up at the app store for a buck.

Version 1.0

Reviewed on iPhone 3G 3.1.3