Each week the OWC Blog Staff picks a free iOS application to review. This week, we’re taking a look at Max Injury Lite from Box Shaped Games.
App Store Description
Max Injury is a simple and addictive game everyone can enjoy!
Meet Max, the state of the art Crash Test Dummy. Equipped with the latest in ultra-sensitive impact sensors, he is the ultimate tool for physical Punishment. Push, pull, fling, and throw Max in 16 exciting, mayhem filled levels that are guaranteed to never play the same way twice!
The harder Max hits, the the higher your score. The more objects Max hits, the higher you score. You get the idea.
Put Max to the ultimate test and rack up those damage points and compare your score with testers all around the world!
The game features:
- Advanced 3D Physics system gives Max the most realistic ragdoll motion.
- Elaborate injury score keeping and bonus system makes Max Injury fun and addictive.
- Multiple costumes to dress Max in!
- 16 Levels of addictive mayhem!
- Paste Photo of your friends onto Max’s face + Save the screen!
- Online Global Hi-Score. Can you be the world’s toughest tester?
- OpenFeint Support
OWC Chris’s Review
Everybody has at least one: that annoying politician/neighbor/co-worker/relative/random person that, sometimes, you’d just love to shove down the stairs. Unfortunately, doing so is illegal in many parts of the country.
Max Injury Lite taps into that subconscious desire and aims it at a more innocuous target: a crash test dummy. The focus of the game is to shove the dummy down the stairs/chute/series of blocks/etc. while managing to have it bash against as many obstacles as possible.
Gameplay is fairly simple. Touch a part of the dummy’s body, drag it in the direction you want it to go, and let “gravity” and the game’s ragdoll physics do the rest. On some levels, you get multiple drags. On others, there’s an moving bar that you have time your drag to in order to get the most velocity out of it. Add in various obstacles on different levels and you have 16 different courses to beat the proverbial stuffing out of the target dummy.
I actually like this game; I find it to be an amusing distraction. Somehow, the comic “bonks” and “squeeks” as the dummy hits various objects on its way down make me chuckle, and the opportunity to use a photo for the “face” of the dummy can be cathartic after one of those “high frustration” days.
Final Verdict: A pretty good app, especially for those prone to bouts of schadenfreude.
OWC Michael’s Review
I had downloaded this trial game once before when looking for an app worthy of review – and promptly deleted the app after a few minutes of play. I had absolutely no interest in what seemed to be a game with some issues. Throwing any of the the dummies was sluggish and unresponsive (many attempts at throwing the characters resulted only in being slumped to the floor); the four levels provided offered no real eye candy and proved to be easily completed even with the dummy-control issue I was experiencing. In short, I wasn’t suggesting this application be reviewed when we were just getting this blog feature started. There didn’t seem to be much to do at first glance.
However, now that we’ve been doing the reviews for a while and a colleague of mine suggested we review this application he found, I figured why not. Heck, I could spit out a scathing review based on memory and not really spend much time on it. I’m glad I didn’t just do that.
Apparently with the release of MaxInjury 2 the lite version of this app has been updated well beyond anything I expected. There are now all 16 levels to play with for free (interrupted by advertising at the end of each level, but playable). The dummy control issue seems to have been fixed to an extent. I still personally find it a bit difficult to throw the heavy crash-test style dummy (I probably just need more practice). But the zombie and the teddy bear seem to be progressively lighter and thus easier to maneuver down to the ground.
The only real glitch that I’m finding in the game has to do with the advertising bar at the end of each level. Simply put, many times I found it was just blank. It would seem that a developer could easily add a few lines of code without bogging down the game that if the ad is available, the black box ad field shows, if not it doesn’t. But really, 99 cents isn’t too much to fork over to get the ad-free version.
My Recommendation: If simulating the effects of pushing someone down a flight of stairs appeals to you, you won’t be disappointed.
OWC Grant’s Review
When a game makes one feel inadequate early on, it generally doesn’t bode well for a final impression. Level 1 introduces you to the concept of throwing your choice of crash dummies down stairs and into obstacles. Simple and entertaining, I looked forward to Level 2. Unfortunately, to start that level, you must perform an “up and over” move to get your dummy over a wall. This move is very tricky to master…and your success varies depending on your swipe direction and what body part you select. After failing to get the dummy over the wall on several attempts, I put the game aside for a few moments. But with an old “college try” I gave it another chance by selecting another dummy and using the head to throw the dummy.
Success…but for a fleeting moment because once you get to Level 4, the walls return…and this time with obstacles in front of them too. So if your dummy gets trapped under an obstacle in front of a wall, I can’t fathom how one can get the dummy back over the wall with the allotted “throws”.
Yea or Nay: I imagine the character Fred Sandford of the TV show Sandford and Son at some point uttering his classic line, “you big dummy“. Whether he would direct that at the dummy in the game, the developers of the game, or the person playing the game I’ll leave up to your decision after you try it. But my “Nay” may indicate where Fred’s ire would be directed…
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