It’s free-to-play week here at GamerDad.  In Blowie, play as a little Q*bert style critter as he shoots bullets from his nose in this simple vertically scrolling shooter for mobile devices (reviewed on iPad here).  Use the touch screen to move your character around, and he’ll automatically fire.  Shoot all the enemies within the time limit and you can move onto the next level.  When you get hit, you must start the stage over again, and when you get hit three times, it’s Game Over.  You can continue where you left off if you watch an ad, though.

There are power-ups you can nab, too, like a shield or a screen clearing bomb you activate by double tapping on the screen.  There’s also a high score leaderboard as well.  Aside from it being a bit amateurish and not holding my interest for very long, there’s really nothing wrong with this game.  It’s got an interesting rock soundtrack at least.

Kid Factor:

When you shoot enemies, they just kind of splat into puddles.  And when you lose all your lives, you fly up and smack the screen and leave a yellow puddle splat as well.  But that’s about as violent as it gets.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the menus, but not necessary just to play.  Parental supervision is recommended for the in-game ads.

Tags: Game Reviews