Super 7 Review
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.0
Graphics / Sound Rating:
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[rating:overall]
I took a nap the other day, the kind of nap that is taken out of necessity, not out of boredom. About an hour later, I was woken up by the horrific thought of a 5 and a 3 colliding, a real tragedy given the circumstances. I had previously been playing Super 7 for a few hours and had just gotten into the global top 100 before a stray 5 hit a stray 3... it was time for a nap, my brain was done.
It's not often that I get so caught up in games that they give me nightmares. I think I had an Orbital nightmare a few months back, but that may be it. Much like Orbital, Super 7 mixes intensely simple gameplay with complete unpredictability to create a "time waster" that will have you blowing hours of your life instead of minutes. Super 7 might be on the same "addict" scale as Minesweeper, and that's saying something.
The idea behind Super 7 is that you must mix heptagons together to get to the number 7. You are given an open screen and right off the bat, the game starts (albeit slowly) shooting heptagons out. They come at you in a variety of numbers, from the negative numbers all the way to six, along with x2 and x3 multipliers and a +/- multiplier. To bring them together, you use line drawing a la Flight Control, allowing you to move multiple shapes together at any given time. While the game is simple at first, it quickly becomes very difficult once you realize that when you mix numbers together, the heptagon gets bigger. Fortunately, the larger the heptagon is when it gets to 7, the more points you get, but it's daunting to see a monstrous heptagon that is made up of 9 heptagons blended together floating across the screen like the Hindenburg, just waiting to burst into flames.
Also like Orbital, and this is oddly important to me, is a constant reminder in the top right corner of your highest score. Super 7 takes this one step further though by showing you the next highest score on your local high score list and, once you've beaten all of those scores, shows the next highest global score than you can try to beat. Being a super competitive stat junky, it drives me crazy when I don't get into my top 7 (the game only tracks your top 7, going along with the 7 theme). It's also nice to have a game with a global high score that seems obtainable. It's never nice to get into a game only to realize that the high score was obviously hacked. I'm still quite a ways off the top score, but I'm holding out hope that one day the stars will align and I will be sitting on top.
All in all, I would say that Super 7 is a must buy game, particularly at its 99 cent price point. I personally haven't seen a more addictive experience on the iPhone in 2010, and given the amount of games I play, that's really saying something. The only thing that I would add on if they decide to do a major update or a sequel would be some sort of battle multiplayer mode. I could just imagine getting a 11 part heptagon completed and seeing my friends screen get swamped with heptagon 6's. Oh the joys of beating your friends.
Go on and pick this one up today, you won't regret it.