Pocket God
+ Universal App
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Pocket God

Our Review by Kevin Stout on May 25th, 2009
Rating: starstarstarstarstar :: A GOD AMONG APPS
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Listen...you simply can't own an iPhone without Pocket God. Even if you're the weirdest person alive and hate the game, show your friends and you'll be a god of humor.

Developer: Bolt Creative
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.16   

Graphics / Sound [rating:5/5]
Game Controls [rating:5/5]
Gameplay [rating:5/5]

iPhone Integration [rating:5/5]
User Interface [rating:5/5]
Re-use / Replay Value [rating:5/5]

Overall Rating: starstarstarstarstar

Pocket God, the most underpriced application in the App Store. I say this because I honestly may have purchased it for $4 or $5 after playing it for a few minutes.

Have you ever had the urge to feed small villagers to sharks, order an army of red ants to devour someone, or punt a pygmy into a volcano? Pocket God is for you. Pocket God makes you the god of an island in which you can control the lives of the villagers who live on it. Is Pocket God a game? Not quite. There is no real objective to the app or an "end." But with a recent update, the app has taken a bit of a step toward the game category and a little farther from the entertainment category, but I'll explain that later. Exactly how do you control the lives of the villagers? I think this is a question that only pictures can do justice.

You can strike your villagers with lightning,...
[caption id="attachment_10846" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="shocking!"]

[/caption]
...cause a volcano to erupt by sacrificing villagers to it,...[caption id="attachment_10847" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="hot!"]

[/caption]
...go fishing,...
[caption id="attachment_10848" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="fishing..."]

[/caption]
...have a party,...
[caption id="attachment_10855" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="celebration"]

[/caption]
...go fishing,...
[caption id="attachment_10853" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="shark bait"]

[/caption]
...you get the picture. There are more pictures in the gallery below (I took over 30 good screen shots but I controlled myself and only posted 17). This game reminds me of how I used to play the Sims. Strange comparison, I know, but I never used to let the Sims I created live their lives - I used to create houses with death traps and come up with new and creative ways to watch my Sims die. A little violent? Yes, but you know you've killed your Sims for fun. Now you can kill whole tribes of Oogs for fun! I guess you can be nice to them. You can let them fish, control the sun so they can admire the sunrise and sunset, tap a beat so they dance, or even help them out by handing them spears when the T-Rex appears...wait T-Rex?!?! That brings me to the new updates.

Probably one of the more interesting things about Pocket God is the frequent updates. Bolt Creative comes up with new "episodes" almost weekly. Episode 1 was in January and 18 is expected to be coming very soon. This app has progressively become better and better. If I would have purchased Pocket God near the release, I wouldn't find myself as pleased with the game as I am. Some of my favorite features, I've just found out, were features added in recent update - the magnifying glass, red ants, and the T-Rex.

In the previous update, Episode 16: "The Tyrannosaurus Strikes Back!", Pocket God allowed you to break the egg in Episode 15's: "A New Home" map. This causes a baby T-Rex to pop it's head out, followed by a much larger T-Rex to jump onto the island and start eating villagers. This is entertaining in itself, but Bolt Creative gives you the option to allow your villagers to fight back in Episode 17's: "Return of the Pygmy." This, on top of the god stat screen with achievements (more apparently to come soon, the only achievement I was able to receive is each time my villagers defeated a T-Rex), is that step toward a game instead of just an entertainment app. When you toggle on the spear icon, the T-Rex gets a health bar and by dropping the spear on the island into the hands of one of your villagers you can eventually make the T-Rex fall into the ocean. This may seem entertaining, but honestly I rather enjoyed just watching the T-Rex devour the village. It takes 10-11 spear throws to kill the T-Rex. Not only does this cause the battle to drag on but it is also extremely repetitive - you have to pick up the thrown spear each time and re-hand it to the Oog. This might be a fun update for someone who plays Pocket God all the time and is just DYING for something new, but I personally find the rest of the features much better than this new one.

The new update may not be the greatest, but the app itself may be the funnest thing I've ever done on my iPhone. You probably won't ever see this happen from me again in a long time, but I was forced to give Pocket God five stars for everything - it's just that amazing!

The next update had been confirmed as Episode 18: "Surf's Up!". Give me a mini game with a surfing Oog that has to dodge sharks and other obstacles and I'll be happy - as long as when your Oog falls off of the surfboard some amazing and catastrophic death occurs!

iPhone Screenshots

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Pocket God screenshot 1 Pocket God screenshot 2 Pocket God screenshot 3 Pocket God screenshot 4 Pocket God screenshot 5

iPad Screenshots

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Pocket God screenshot 6 Pocket God screenshot 7 Pocket God screenshot 8 Pocket God screenshot 9 Pocket God screenshot 10
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