So, you have
seen the puzzle before, two pictures, side by side, but one is the original and
the other has "X" amount of differences that you must identify. I have seen them
in the newspaper, in magazines, kids; activity books, the cheesy touch-screen
game at the local watering hole and who knows where else. It is a tried-and-true
puzzle that I have never seen (until now) on the DS.
Ok, so Foto
Frenzy is just that, a game where you see a picture on the top screen and you
must tap the differences you find on the bottom screen. Now this would be a
pretty good idea, as each puzzle has five differences, but the game does have
one major hurdle that is difficult to overcome – the DS screen is too dang
small. Don’t even get me started on using the different DSs, the older style is
hard because the back light is too weak. The DS Lite is the best way to play
because you can boost up the screen brightness to give you the best chance to
beat a puzzle but the DSi has a smaller screen so that causes a bit more
difficulty as well.
Even when
you are playing on the DS Lite, the game almost has a formulaic difficulty to
each puzzle. Three of the differences are usually easy to spot, the 4th is more
difficult and the 5th is usually very frustrating as it is a missing shaded area
of a statue or the ninth whisker on left side of a tiger. I suppose true fans of
this style of puzzle will relish this with open arm as there is a high degree of
difficulty in this game, but sometimes the differences aren’t even fair. There
is a magnifying glass option but it almost seems like a disadvantage since the
game is timed and things are much more slow when examining the picture
magnified, I rarely used it.
Now when you
do see a difference you tap the screen and a small red circle appears. But to
combat people who think they can just scratch across the screen and find them,
you should know that each puzzle is timed. And each time you touch the screen
incorrectly, time is eaten up faster. So before you can make one or two swipes
the round will end due to the quickly decreased timer. If there is one fatal
flaw to this punishment it is that sometimes it seems you must touch the perfect
pixel or that tell-tale "X" appears and signals you just lost some additional
time. Moving the stylus one/one millionth to the side usually results in a
correct guess, but there clearly were some errors made when the quality control
folks got a hold of this one.
The game is
very family friendly as the pictres are all very safe looking, nothing
controversial or upsetting here. In fact you can choose to play themes that
focus on animals, landscapes, art and such. The game does have some modes that
allow you to mix and match and present their own set of unique spins on the
basic gameplay, but in the end, it is still just you finding differences in the
pictures.
However, I
did think the multiplayer mode adds some additional depth to what was shaping up
to be a rather shallow (not bad) title. Multiplayer mode can have you trying to
spot as many differences in a three-minute time span before your opponent gets
their chance to do the same. I don’t know how it works, but the three minutes in
this game is the fastest three minutes I have ever experienced, it feels like
one minute but due to the panicked strain I felt to find more differences than
my niece I could feel the weight of the situation bearing down on me and it was
over before I knew it.
The graphics
aren’t horrible by any means, since the overwhelming majority of the pictures
are really just photos of an animal or the coliseum or whatever, it all seems to
fit just fine. Sure the developers Photoshopped in or out five subtle
differences so I can imagine there wasn’t too much dev work to be done, but hey,
that’s what the game is all about, no moving parts, just subtitles. The dev team
did, however, phone in the annoying looping song that plays throughout every
portion of every part of every single, solitary puzzle. It became quite tedious
and, in fact, does nothing to benefit the game; I turn it down now. If they had
gotten some Beethoven, then I think they may have been on to something as
studies have shown people do better in thinking situations when classical music
is playing.
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Gameplay: 7.0
While it is
a simple game, the touch function can be spotty and quite frankly, it has no
business being so.
Graphics: 7.0
It is a game
with about 200 pictures in it of a bunch or different… nouns (person, place or
thing). Pretty simple.
Sound: 5.0
It gets
boring listening to the same upbeat little ditty that slowly plans on driving
you insane; turn it down.
Difficulty: Hard
It is hard
because some of the differences are very slight and minute, plus you are staring
at a very tiny screen.
Concept: 6.8
I gotta tell
you, I’m surprised it took this long for a game like this to come out on the DS.
Multiplayer: 7.2
Adds a bit
more depth to this title, some really competitive action can occur when one
member of the family starts talking trash to the other, bring it on kid!
Overall: 6.3
It’s a value
title and you could certainly do worse than buying this game, but it is such a
simplistic game, I could only play it in short bursts.
