Under the ocean lives a bunch of mermaids and deep sea diver guys, and they’re all happy together.  Until one day a meteor crashes nearby and somehow traps all the mermaid girls inside groups of blocks.  Now you, as one of the diver guys, must leave the comforts of your underwater dome home and your loving mermaid wife, and bounce around a tiny meteor with a giant shell to break blocks and free all your mermaid daughters.  Blowfish Meets Meteor is a unique take on the brick breaking, ball bouncing, BreakOut and Arkanoid style of gameplay, and you can download it for iOS devices (reviewed on iPad here).

In each level you must break enough bricks to free trapped mermaids.  When all are free, you win the level.  Play control is easy.  Just move your finger left and right on the touch screen to move your diver on screen to reflect the ball.  If you miss once, your mermaid wife will throw the ball back up to you, but miss again and the meteor will break your dome home below, and you’ll have to start the level over again.  At the end of the level, you can earn gems depending on how many blocks you’ve broken, how fast you’ve beaten the stage, if you took no damage, and if you completed any side missions.  Collect enough gems to unlock secrets later in the game.

There are some power-ups you can nab, like a clam that can make the meteor stick to your shell as you move, or a bubble shield that’ll let you miss once.  If you rebound your meteor from blocks to your shell quick enough, you can earn up to three TNT guys that’ll follow you on the bottom of the screen.  Tap around the top part of the screen to activate one of these TNT guys to help you blow up hard to reach blocks.  And if your bouncing meteor gets stuck, tap and hold above your diver to call out a seal who can retrieve your ball for you.

Nearly each level is unique and different, and offers all kinds of new gameplay elements.  Sometimes you must use your shell to defend your home from cannonball fire or falling stalactites, as well as bounce the meteor around.  There are even giant bosses to battle!  Only problem I had with the game is that they don’t always explain the controls very well.  There are instructions, but I think they could be better written.  But one good thing about the game is that once you buy it, you don’t have to worry about purchasing anything in the game to continue enjoying it.  Everything’s already there and complete, and that’s how games should be, I think.  While it’s not a totally original gameplay idea, Blowfish Meets Meteor is still entertaining with a unique premise.

Kid Factor:

Everything is fairly non-violent.  Some sea creatures pop or explode when you hit them, but that’s it.  On the results screen, two drawings of mermaids force open a fish’s mouth, and then feed him stuff until his tail explodes and gems come out.  It’s not too bad, but a tiny bit disturbing in a funny sort of way.  Parents won’t have to monitor their kids’ in-game app purchases with this game, as there are none.  But younger gamers might get frustrated at some of the tougher levels, especially since you only get two ‘lives’ per level usually, and they may need some help.

Tags: Game Reviews