Fragger Review

Fragger, one of the many popular games featured on Miniclip.com, has found its way to the iPhone. The backstory is that the world of Fragger has been invaded by various enemies and players are tasked with throwing/launching frag grenades to kill all the enemies in each level. Doing so will progress the player further into the game, unlocking progressively harder challenges (40 levels in all).

Fragger has 3 difficulty levels: Normal, which is available at the start, Hard and Elite, both of which require progressing into the game to unlock. Players can track their scores online through the app or at Miniclip.com. Players also have the option to turn the game's music and sound effects, both of which interact nicely with the game play, off and listen to music contained in their iPhone library, a feature I like to call Fragger Rock.

Playing Fragger is fairly simple and intuitive: Players use their finger (or another appendage) to control the trajectory and velocity of each launch and thus, the landing target of each grenade. Players increase their score as they blow up enemies and get extra points for blowing up power ups and/or hitting enemies with their launched grenade.

When first playing Fragger, I used my thumb for targeting, but quickly learned it inhibited my view of the launching arrow and part of the screen. This issue was quickly resolved, however, by simply using a finger (I use my index finger) to target/launch grenades. Those players needing additional instruction can view the game's in-app tutorial.

The game play screen consists of the level view, the player's score in the upper, left corner and menu, reset, grenade count and grenade abort (you can cancel thrown grenades, but your counter will still decrease) along the right side of the screen. Levels become increasingly harder as the game progresses, requiring players blow up certain obstacles/objects to get to a particular enemy, etc.

As stated earlier, the sound track and effects are nicely done. Hitting an enemy with a grenade will invoke an "umph" just before he's blown to bits. The graphics aren't as nice as the Flash version, but they're still quality.

Fragger is a solid, well-developed, addictive pick-up-and-play title that should appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers alike. While the game does not use OpenFeint, the ability to track your score in-app or on-line is a nice feature. At only $0.99, having the option to carry Fragger around with you wherever you go is well worth its asking price and if you're on the fence about purchasing this game, you can always go to Miniclip.com and play the free, online flash version. Hopefully, Miniclip.com will follow suit with more of their popular titles.