Price: $0.99 Score: 9/10 Category: Games
If you can’t get enough puzzle games, the Perfect Balance Collection is absolutely worth having on your iPhone. Not since Amazing Breaker have I gotten so lost in a puzzle game on my iPhone.
For 99 cents, you get 340 physics-based balance puzzles to master, which seems like quite the bargain. The gameplay is simple to learn, but difficult to master: in other words, the perfect blend of attributes for a must-play puzzler. True, there are some puzzles that are easy to beat on your first go-round, but even these can be made more difficult by attempting to balance bonus pieces on top.
And like all good iPhone games, the Perfect Balance Collection has Achievements to get you even more immersed in the gameplay. The more you play, the more you want to play, if only to see what accolades you can achieve next.
True, the interface for picking your level is a bit cramped and ugly, but the game screens themselves are lovely and not at all cramped. However, the technique for rotating a piece is a little clumsy, and those of us with big fingers might find much of the screen blocked as you hold a piece in place with one finger and rotate the piece with another finger. Still, this somewhat awkward technique doesn’t stop us from loving the game.
With interesting environmental objects that rotate and generally make things more complicated, this puzzle is one of the most intellectually stimulating, wonderfully frustrating, completely addicting puzzler to come along in quite some time. But if you like your puzzlers to be a little less taxing on your brain, this collection of games may be a bit too tough.
For a puzzle game with something different you can also check out Imperfect Balance, another title developed by ttursas ltd.
Perfect Balance is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later. A small expedite fee was paid by the developer to speed up the publication of this review.