iQuarterback

By Chris Hall on April 6th, 2009
Our Rating: :: ADDICTIVE FUN
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad

This game is about as addicting as it gets for a $0.99 app, but is quite limited in its play options. There aren’t many cheap games that are a better value in the iTunes store, but iQuarterback will certainly leave you longing for more.

Have you ever spent a weekend day playing video games, only to realize that you will never get that portion of your life back? Usually I can justify this by claiming that my video game played like a book and actually made me think. This usually works when I’m playing an RPG (Fallout comes to mind), but not so much when I’m playing Madden. Now boil down Madden to only the practice portion and replace all opposing and friendly teammates with moving targets. On a normal plane of existence, I would say, “that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard”. I in fact said that and still say that, but I keep coming back for more.

iQuarterback is an extremely simplistic target shooting game that happens to use a quarterback rather than ducks. It could very easily because Duck Hunt on the iPhone if you speed the ball up quite a bit. The game revolves around you, as the quarterback, pressing your finger down on the screen to determine how far the ball must go and then letting go to hit a target. The challenge comes in the fact that the targets are always moving and that you have to hit dead center on the targets to gain a respectable amount of points. Each game lasts one minute, while tracking your round score, total game score, and accuracy.

The game, as you probably can imagine, is quite simple… sometimes painfully so. The first time I played I really wasn’t sure what I thought of the game. I figured that, with all the other games I have on my iPhone (including Oregon Trail and Otto Matic) I would let this one stagnate and collect virtual dust, later to be inevitably deleted. I was wrong, really really wrong. Every time I turn on my iPhone now I compulsively hit the iQuarterback button and play a few games.

As fun and addicting as the game is, I can’t quite get over the games lack of depth. The entire time I play, I wish I could grab NFL Quarterback Club ’96 from my old Game Boy. This classic Game Boy game featured a similar target throwing game, but also had an obsticle running game (entirely possible on the iPhone), and a few more throwing challenges. If there were more game options, iQuarterback would easily be in my top 5 favorites on the iPhone. I also have a mega issue with the online leader-board that is driving me nuts. It’s quite fun to have online leader-boards, but the absurd scores that populate the top 10 are absolutely unobtainable. The high score for all games played, scored by the nefarious “Zero” is like 100 gatrillion (that’s a big number!) and will never be beat by a human. I really hope that this score came from the developer, because if it didn’t, the culprit must be examined for mental health. The game is quite fun, but it’s only been out for 7 days. Please sir, go see a movie or something, it would be good for you.

I will say that I have to recommend that you buy iQuarterback as soon as possible. At $0.99 the game is a steal and will entertain you for a good portion of time, although not quite as long as the guy that has the high score… yes, I am bitter. I do wish the game had quite a bit more depth, but for the price of a cheeseburger at McDonalds, I really can’t complain. Look for hallthou (for some reason the “g”,”h”, and “t” at the end were cut off) near the bottom of the leader-board. Good luck beating my ridiculously high score.

iQuarterback

Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Buy Now: FREE

Our Rating: :: ADDICTIVE FUN
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2009-03-26 :: Category: Games