Lie Swatter Review

Lie Swatter is a pretty neat idea for a quiz game, requiring players to pick out the lies from a series of wacky statements, carefully avoiding the bizarre truths. The way it's been implemented is a little lacking, though.

With solely online multiplayer options, rather than local multiplayer, players find opponents through Facebook, email or username. It's then straight into the action with a series of three rounds dictating play. Each round, the player gets a choice of category ranging from things such as Michael Jackson, search engines, specific countries or sports, as well as more vague topics such as Internet Dating. It's a suitably varied bunch and each category provides some intriguing questions. For instance, does North Korea block Google searches for cute kittens? Find out during this game.

Hit a lie and gain 100 points, while one loses 50 points for incorrectly tapping on a truth. It can prove pretty challenging with the truth sometimes proving to be stranger than fiction, and lies sounding far too sensible for their own good. Boosts can be used to help the player, such as showing how many truths remain or doubling the points gained or lost. These are conducted through the acquisition of tokens after completing a match.

It's potentially fast-paced stuff, but playing against random opponents can slow this down, as is often the case with such games. Each round might only take a minute or so to complete, but it can take quite a while when waiting for other players. That there's no timer also means that an unscrupulous sort could easily google for answers, rather than play properly. The lack of other functionality also provides a disconcertingly sparse experience. It's possible to pay $1.99 to remove the ads and play an unlimited number of games, rather than the four that the free version restricts players to, but there aren't any other features included.

Still, Lie Swatter offers plenty of humor as one would expect from the makers of You Don't Know Jack and, to an extent, that's all that really matters. Just make sure to encourage friends to join in for maximum enjoyment.