Windows Phone Xbox Live Review: Breeze

Breeze Lead

While it's tough for indie games to go noticed on Xbox 360, several of them have found new life as Xbox Live titles on Windows Telephone. Breeze is the latest game to make the leap. Developed almost entirely by one person – Rob Hutchinson of Nix City Software, Cakewalk doesn't quite share the scale of near other Xbox Live games. Thankfully it's a gratis (and advertising-supported) game, and should go over well with a wide variety of gamers.

A-mazing gameplay

Breeze

Breeze is maze navigation game. While that might conjure images of coin-op classic Pac-Man, Breeze actually shares much more in common with Irritating Stick on PSOne and the obscure Kuru Kuru Kuririn series. Similar those games, the object of Breeze is merely to navigate through a serial of mazes while avoiding contact with walls and other obstacles. It's a simple concept that makes for some occasionally challenging gameplay.

In Breeze you play as a flower, or peradventure the wind that blows the blossom around. The goal in each level is always to reach the checkered exit, merely sometimes the bloom needs to collect varying numbers of sunlight orbs before the exit becomes available. Parts of levels may need to be opened by touching switches every bit well.

Ii ways to play

Breeze contains 60 levels (and one secret one) divided upwardly among the 4 seasons. Before embarking on the flower's journey, you'll need to select a control method: Touch or Tilt. Touch is interesting considering rather than touching where you want the blossom to go, your finger creates a wind source. Touch left of the flower and it blows correct, etc. Information technology'due south a lot like inverting both the X and Y axis in a first-person shooter.

Tilt controls, on the other hand, exercise not capsize the input axes. Tilting the telephone to the right moves the flower right, which feels much more natural to me. Of class, stopping the blossom in its tracks is a bit harder than with affect controls since you have to find the neutral position. While I enjoyed playing with tilt overall, a couple of poorly-conceived contrary levels marred the experience. These levels flip the Y axis but not the X axis. Adjusting to the sudden partial reversal is a frustrating experience guaranteed to event in the player's immediate death at the start of these levels. Y'all can't reduce the claiming by switching to touch either, because the game tracks impact and tilt campaign progress separately.

The difficult life of a flower

Breeze

Crazy reverse levels bated, Breeze's challenge comes from a variety of factors. Beginning off, every level has a time limit. While the limit is ordinarily generous, other times information technology forces yous to keep moving in gild to attain the goal. Wind (normally depicted as glowing arrows) and a few instances of varying gravity tin can threaten to blast the flower into walls or obstacles, costing one of the histrion's lives. Glowing vortexes create gravity-based danger as well, either pushing or pulling at the bloom when it nears. Retracting and rotating bars and furnaces that spew burn round out the list of dangers.

Environmental threats bated, the bloom's greatest enemy is momentum. You really take to manage your speed in order to avert collisions and flowery expiry. Somewhat alleviating this is the air restriction. Information technology can be used a few times each level to stop the flower common cold. Early on I barely used the brakes, but the technique tin can be invaluable in the tougher after levels.

Neither the prettiest nor ugliest bloom

I mentioned earlier that Breeze has the potential for mass entreatment. Artistically, information technology's invitingly generic. Players control a uncomplicated, lifeless blossom, after all. While the mazes are mitt-crafted, not-reality-based designs, they are dotted with outdoor-themed obstacles like copse and baskets. The backgrounds are blurry outdoor photographs which fit the theme but look fairly ugly in exercise. Hi-res, in-focus photos would have produced a more beautiful look.

Just equally Cakewalk doesn't strive too hard to stand out visually, the sound is purposefully generic likewise. A ameliorate word might exist banal, though. Different previous gratuitous Xbox Live games on Windows Phone, this i actually has several different tunes. Merely all of them (with 1 exception) are so bland, they belong in an elevator. Or mayhap the principal recordings belong nether the wheels of a bus, if you go my drift. The offending tunes come up from Partners in Rhyme – a royalty-complimentary music website. Well no wonder they don't desire royalties! I usually complain when a game has no music, but even silence would be preferable to music that no 1 could possibly like. That said, I did actually enjoy the endgame'southward more energetic winter tune.

Bannerific

Breeze

Previous ad-supported Xbox Alive games utilized a vertical screen orientation, with the imprint occupying the top portion of the screen. Since Breeze uses a landscape orientation, the standard banner size doesn't stretch all the fashion across the screen. Null City crafted some lovely ad borders that match the current season of the game'due south levels. The borders make the advertisements less of an eyesore than usual.

Achievements

Breeze is the terminal Windows Phone game to have only fifty GamerScore worth of Achievements, as shortly afterwards its release Microsoft decided to requite all games (free or not) the full 200 GS. Of these ten depression-paying Achievements, just two should provide whatsoever challenge: 'There is no cow level!' and 'Ray of sunlight.' The former requires players to achieve the secret level, which is tucked abroad in Level 43. The latter is awarded for collecting 100 sunlight orbs in a unmarried play session. Luckily, the hugger-mugger level has 150 sunlight orbs to collect, so you won't miss 'Ray' if you go 'Moo-cow.'

Overall Impression

Compared to other Xbox Alive games, Cakewalk would exist a difficult sell at three bucks. The uninspired aesthetics and snore-inducing music don't quite reach platform standards. Thankfully it doesn't cost anything, making those complaints much easier to overlook. The maze-navigating gameplay is fun, with curt levels perfectly suited to mobile play. All in all, it's another fine free Xbox Live game. Hopefully Microsoft keeps them coming!

Breeze requires the Mango update to play. Download the game here from the Market place.

QR: Breeze

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