What good is an economic crisis if there’s no headline-making bailouts? And, with the iRevolution of iDevices, why not couple it up with an arcade game to boot?
Bailout America, by developer DoeDoe fills the gap with an interesting take on the recent US government bailouts.
A Lemmings-styled game, Bailout America tasks you, the player into guiding those little greenbacks towards the direction of the evil CEO, depicted by a fat, hungry cat. Each level pokes at a certain corporations like Morgan Stanly and Goldman Sachs, that benefitted from the recent government bailouts. There are a total of ten levels in the game, with each requiring a certain amount of money to be gobbled up in order to be successful.
Gameplay is pretty simple. Just like Lemmings, each level has got the greenbacks lining up from Uncle Sam, slowly walking towards the evil CEO cat. Lining up themselves to gobble up these greenbacks are obstacles like hospitals, schools, oil rigs, military tanks and even Capitol Hills. Your task is to eleminate them so that the greenbacks can successfully walk their way towards the evil CEO cat. Sounds very simple. Helping you achieve this task are some tools such as the hammer and water bucket. Hammers help remove those pesky buildings, while the water bucket lets you put out things that are on fire. Beware that if you let the greenbacks fall from too high a distance, they will crumble up and become another type of nuisance. Eliminate crumbled greenbacks by simply flicking them away. Once all these nuisance are away, an additional vertical bridge shall appear to complement the horizontal one. Use these to guide the greenbacks further.
Bailout America makes full use of the iPhone’s multitouch technology – you can actually remove more than one building at a time by simply tapping each of them. This trick is probably most important when you progress further in the game – they become harder to win. You could always try again if you fail a certain level. But if you find the game difficult, then feel free to tap on the upper right corner to initiate a menu where most of the game’s options are available for the tweaking. I find it a little weird that I have to actually turn my device everytime the menu is opened – it uses a different orientation.
David Hellman, famed for his work on the critically acclaimed Xbox 360 title Braid contributed to the game’s look with each level having its own backdrop. Music wise, the in-game sound track is engaging and may cause one to hum it throughout the day if exposed for a long period of time. Otherwise, you might find the iPod playback functionality that allows you to listen to your own music while playing the game, useful.
Bailout America looks good enough, with a high replayability value when compared to the crumbling economy and is a much better investment than spending it on a cup of expensive latte.
Get Bailout America from the iTunes Store for only $0.99 a copy.
Rating: 4.0/5.0 Taps
App Data
App Name: Bailout America v1.02 | Developer: DoeDoe LLC | Purchase via: iTunes App Store @ $0.99 | Released: Feb 05, 2009 | Reviewed on: iPod touch v2.2.1
