This week’s App of the Week is the popular game by Halfbrick Studios, Fruit Ninja. It is clearly a classic of iOS and has been on the store for years. If you want a game that is completely addicting
Image from the iTunes Store
and fun to play, I recommend that you pick this one up. One of the issues that I noticed is that it is not completely compatible with the iPad. I opened it up on mine and it was in the iPhone app compatibility mode. Given the point of the game, it doesn’t effect the play much, it even makes it easier if you enlarge the app. Most apps these days are built in high resolution to make use of the high resolution retina display so it doesn’t look too stretched.
The point of the game is to slice fruit that is thrown up from the bottom of the screen. You get extra points if you slice three or more pieces at once. There are two modes that I am familiar with, Zen and Classic. Classic mode is what it started out with. You can’t let any of them fall to the ground in Classic mode, and if three fall the game ends. You also have to avoid bombs which will end the game as well. Zen mode is just basically trying to slice as much fruit as you can in a fixed amount of time. Fruit Ninja is a simple game like Angry Birds and usually it is a game that could cost a little bit so take advantage of the free version. There are in-app purchases to make the game easier but they are not necessary unless you are very serious about the game.
Overall, the only issue I can see with it is that it isn’t completely compatible with the iPad, and that there is an annoying pop up that you can move past easily advertising Apple’s “game center” where you can share scores with others, basically a game social network.
To end this post, and to make up for the lack of an App of the Week post last week, remember this trick: If you buy an app on your iPhone you can download it for free on your iPod touch and iPad and any future iOS devices as long as the app is supported by the App Store. On the iPad, you automatically get the iPad version of the app if the purchased app has a specialized iPad version and is not iPhone/iPod touch only.
UPDATE: It seems that a free version of this app for the iPad has been released in the iTunes store. Good idea on the part of Apple and Halfbrick studios, people will keep the app on their devices if it is designed for that device. The app is called Fruit Ninja HD on the iPad.
Cheap and Tricky 