When it comes to two-minute games, the biggest differentiation between iPhone titles is control. How you control the $.99 title is the clearest indicator of what you do. That’s what sets Fruit Ninja apart from the rest: It’s all touchscreen swiping. There’s no character to move, no car to turn, nothing but your finger and the swipe of a sword.
With Fruit Ninja, ninja’s have returned to the iPhone and they’ve had enough of the bloody pulp that human targets leave behind. Instead, they’d rather turn their wrath against fruit. Tossed in the air, players must swipe fingers to halve the fruit before gravity drops them out of sight. Hitting three or more fruit simultaneously doubles the points earned, special fruits are thrown in at random for a large score bonus, and critical hits are also possible for bonus points.
However, the fruits aren’t defenseless. Thrown with the fruits are bombs, which will end the game immediately when hit. They’re thrown at random and often get in the way of the fruit, and with such a short time-frame to hit the fruit, bombs will act like a horrid ninja deterrent.
In the standard game, fruits are thrown continuously until players hit a bomb or miss three fruit, though every 100 points earned removes one of the misses. At the end of each game, an interesting Snapple-like fact about fruit is revealed, presumably because the developers expected players to be beyond frustrated after losing a game like this, and there’s nothing quite as calming as an obscure and useless fact (especially about fruit). Who knew that Hawaii provided so many Coconuts, or that Apple seeds were mildly poisonous (but not to humans)?
There’s also a Zen game mode, which has no bombs and lots of fruit. Don’t worry about missing fruit either, because this mode is all about scoring as high as possible with combos. And thanks to the Open Feint online system, you can share your high scores with friends playing other Open Feint ready titles. Don’t have any? Don’t worry, you can spam your Twitter and Facebook friends your latest high score just as easily.
Perhaps the best part is that this game isn’t even complete. A whole new game mode is expected to be released sometime in the near future, so you’re in fact investing in the game, which already costs practically nothing. So what are you waiting for? Go out there and murder some fruit!
