Posted on: December 16, 2010 Posted by: Jesse_Hayges Comments: 0

Tap Disc Review
By Jesse Hayges

Legal Radiation gave me a code to review their title “Tap Disc” a couple months ago, and I’ve been playing it heavily since I received it, but due to the nature of being a student, school work become more important than reviews. For this I apologize, however, much to my delight, after a recent update, a lot of my previous issues with the game have been solved, and the game is a better game for it. So, with that being said, I have a better review than the one I had previously planned. So, a delay in reviewing was just what this App needed for my purposes.
So, let’s get the short list going. Tap Disc, from here out TD, is a unique rhythm game of sorts. The basics of the game is this; you tap the screen and a disc appears wherever it is that you touched the screen. The disc changes color over time from white to orange, to red, and if you any bonus objects in play, to blue. Armed with this disc creating power, you are to save the pilots of tiny UFO’s that float around on the screen. Some are white, some orange, and some are red. Each color is a progressively worse state. If the enemy vessel in the middle crashes into the other crafts at a high enough speed the UFO can change color, reflecting its remaining hit points. If it reaches critical mass, red, it will explode and you will lose a life. So, in order to save your tiny men, you have to tap a space far enough in front of the little floating discs so that your Tap Disc will color match the incoming craft. If the colors don’t match the craft is launched out into the field kind of like bumper pool, or pinball.
There are, however, four modes of play. There was only three, but with the addition of the new fourth mode, I feel they have made this game a more solid title. In TD there are the four modes; Pre-School, Story, Standard, and the new Playground mode. In the story mode you are treated to a hand drawn comic about the UFO’s and their mission. In Pre-School the game changes from being a little more teenage-to-adult themed game, to a more kid friendly game with dogs, kitties, and other furry creatures. Except the piggy; he’s not so much furry as just cute. In Playground, you have a slightly better training model than what is provided in the in-depth tutorial. At first I had a hard time getting used to this game because I could not get the hang of the timing, but with the addition of the playground mode, which you have to complete now in order to unlock all other modes of play, they have included guides that appear if you’re having trouble figuring out where to place the Tap Disc, and just how far out in advance. A few rounds in the Playground got me into the groove, and I could finally move on from the beginners level of play.
In the recent update, Legal Radiation also included Game Center support to go along with the open feint support. Leader Boards for such games are a great way to make a one player game competitive and fun for in office competitions. Having both options is a good move these days because some people are holding out on more recent updates to iOS due to not wanting to loose their Jailbreak, or so I’m told. With having both available, you can have the choice of which leaderboard you’d like to have your score posted to, or if you’re a jailbreaker, you don’t have to upgrade just to enjoy this optional aspect of the game. Another part of the recent updates, I think, are some of the different bonus levels that load in to make game play more interesting, and not so monotonous. The bonus boards are different, but some include “shoot the 8 ball into the pocket”, where you are reduced to only one Disc on screen, in the form of an 8 ball (obviously), and you have to knock the ball into any hole via tapping the screen to act like a bumper. Another is the wall, where a wall will close in on you over time, and the longer you last while this wall constricts your movements the higher you can get in points. With all of these elements, this game is a solid game for your time wasting needs. TD comes in two flavors, a lite version, and a paid version. The paid version is only $.99 and is well worth the buck. I give this Game an 8 out of 10, which is pretty good for an independent developer. Keep up the good work guys.

Game receives an 8 on a 10 point scale.

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