Fantastic Mr. Fox ($.99)

Version 1.0

REVIEW – “This game is a great start but leaves you wanting something more.”

This game is one that takes great advantge of the accelerometer of the iPhone and turns it into a very interesting and challenging game. I thought the characters and the premise was very cute and something that young children would enjoy. But there are enough detractions to the game to make me almost reluctant to pay the $.99.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is actually an advertisement for a new movie that will be released in November of 2009. It is the first animated film from director Wes Anderson and is based on the best selling book by Ronald Dahl. This leads one to think the movie is going to be something good to see but the game does not give the same amount excitement.

The premise of the game is that Mr. Fox needs to rescue his young nephew Kristofferson. In order to do this he must outsmart the farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean. The farmers have left out a number of traps for Mr. Fox and he must therefore use his skill and cunning in order to get past the traps and save his nephew.

The way to get through the traps is by tilting the iPhone screen in order to move Mr. Fox in one direction or another. This can be trickier than it sounds because the accelerometer is sometimes not as fine tuned as you need it to be in order to accurately avoid the traps. It also has a very small margin of error and sometimes getting Mr. Fox to move upward when you need him to can be tricky.

The game features 18 different levels that take you all the way through the world of Mr. Fox and even into a full on raid of the farms, which leads up to the daring rescue of Kristofferson. I personally was not able to get past the first few levels before I started to get frustrated with the game. It gets hard quite quickly which is troublesome for a game and movie that seems geared toward younger children.

The graphics were cute but they were smaller than I would have liked considering the obstacles you need to navigate. The game shows the entire level at once but I felt like it would have worked better in a scrolling format. That way the level itself could appear bigger, the margin of error would be bigger and then the screen would simply scroll over to show more of the level when you reached a certain point. I also feel like this would lead to much better graphics and entertainment value to the game.

But considering the game is little more than an advertisement for a movie I was slightly disappointed by the pricetag. Personally I got too bored and frustrated with the game after the first few levels that I had no desire to continue trying to move on to the other levels. I think with some changes it could be worth the larger price tag and it would also be a much better advertisement for the movie. Right now the game gives me very little sense of what the movie will looks like or feel like.

All in all I like the idea and the story behind this game but I was very disappointed and frustrated with the execution.

-Stephanie S.

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Developer – Fox Mobile Entertainment Inc.

URL: http://www.fantasticmrfoxmovie.com/

DEVELOPER NOTES

Releases in the United States on November 13th, 2009!

Check back soon for global release dates!

Welcome to the world of the Fantastic Mr. Fox. Your mission: to help Mr. Fox outwit the farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Pull off the greatest mission of all time and rescue Mr. Fox’s nephew Kristofferson!

To play, simply tilt your iPhone to move Mr. Fox through 18 action-packed levels. Avoid the farmers’ cunning traps and medicated blueberries as you go. Game levels will take you on a journey through Mr. Fox’s world. You’ll start in the idyllic countryside before launching daring raids on Boggis, Bunce, and Bean’s farms. Only then will you undertake your final, daring rescue mission!

Your goal: to complete your mission in the shortest time possible. And don’t forget: You can replay levels to improve your time!

About the movie…

Fantastic Mr. Fox is visionary director Wes Anderson’s first animated film, utilizing classic handmade stop-motion techniques to tell the story of the best-selling children’s book by Roald Dahl.
 
Mr. and Mrs. Fox live an idyllic home life with their son Ash and young nephew Kristofferson. But after 12 years, their bucolic existence proves too much for Mr. Fox’s wild animal instincts.  Soon he slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken-thief. In doing so, he endangers not only his beloved family, but the whole animal community.  Trapped underground and with not enough food to go around, the animals band together to fight the evil Farmers – Boggis, Bunce and Bean – who are determined to capture the audacious, fantastic Mr. Fox at any cost.

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