Review by vyse_1986
"Not a Bomb Jack clone, probably the best Indy Game so far, and practically freeware"
Picture this: You are a man with an apple for a head and stuck in a deep pit in Norfolk. Washing machines keep raining from the sky, and you can pick them up and throw them at each other to knock them unconscious or, if the colors of their shields match up, kill them. Have you gone insane? Hardly. You are playing a perfectly normal level in Apple Jack, a 2D platformer recently released on Xbox Live's Indy Game service.
The basic premise is incredibly simple. You play as an applehead who wants to rescue his dog from a mountain. In order to do that, you play through 100 levels. Every level is relatively small, and you have to defeat every enemy in a level to advance. The controls are equally simple: A jumps, X picks an enemy up. Jump onto enemies to pick them up, but run into them and you die. You can only kill enemies in pairs by throwing an enemy at another one, after which both of them die. There are a few other random ideas thrown into the mix: Some enemies are protected by a shield, and they can only be killed if you throw another enemy at them that is protected by a shield of the same color. Levels loop vertically, and Jack can duck to transform into an apple and roll around. You can also press LT to enter aim mode and toss enemies around in an arc, much like shooting projectiles in Worms.
The enemies themselves are extremely varied in appearance and behavior. The most basic ones are pandas and washing machines, who just run straight ahead. Then there's bubbles covered in barbed wire that float around, stationary owls that shoot eye lasers, teddy bears that throw their stuffing at you and more. Every enemy has a clearly predictable behaviour, and more often than not, you have to use it against them.
What really makes Apple Jack stand out is the level design. The game is very simple in its concept, but the level design is incredibly varied and not a single level feels like filler. You never know what the next level will throw at you: Some are like an arena, have a simple design and several enemies that aren't protected by shields, so you can fight them as you wish. Others are puzzles, forcing you to take advantage of the enemies' behavior or use them as platforms to reach higher grounds or ride across death spikes. There's many other ideas thrown into there, but I won't spoil them for you.
Be warned, though: Apple Jack is not an easy game. I wouldn't call it hard, either: It's just really tricky. Levels are quite short and some have a checkpoint in them, so you never lose a lot of progress, but it's not unheard of to die several dozen times in a single stage. For some reason, though, it's never frsutrating: I'm very prone to cussing and controller-tossing, yet in Apple Jack, I can die 30 times in the same level and still sit there with a smile on my face. The game is never overwhelming and there's always an easy way to solve things: Even the hardest level only took me about 15-20 minutes to beat. Most levels can be completed in about five minutes, though. With a hundred levels, it will still take you quite a few hours to beat this game; the game's size would be more than acceptable on the Xbox Live Arcade. As an Indy Game, it's just amazing.
Graphics are amateurish (well, duh) but still do the job perfectly well and look very crisp. The soundtrack, though, is just wonderful. Just download the free trial and you'll hear it. The music prominently features an acoustic guitar and other "clean" instruments, and it's very soothing. It perfectly fits the earlier levels and later on, it keeps you calm and prevents you from flipping out when you die constantly. The soundtrack alone is worth the purchase, really.
When I started doing reviews, I thought that a perfect 10 from me is pretty much unattainable. Hand me any game, and no matter how much I like it, I can still give you a list of flaws and things that could have been better. Not so with Apple Jack. The only thing I'd want is a dedicated duck button, because rolling around with the analog stick is uncomfortable, but that's it. Of course I'm going easy on this game because it's an Indy Game and, most importantly, it's $1. That's almost a symbolic asking price, and if the incredibly creative level design didn't already give it away, this proves that whoever made this game simply enjoys creating games and doesn't really intend to make a profit. This philosophy shines through every facet of the game, and that's what makes it so much fun. And that's what you're looking at with Apple Jack: Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. And you get 100 levels for a buck. Buy it.
Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/10
Game Release: Apple Jack (US, 05/29/10)
http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbox360/997434- ... iew-141682