iPhone Reviews: Chopper 2, Jet Car Stunts & Hell’s Kitchen

This week we review Chopper 2, Jet Car Stunts and Hell’s Kitchen

Chopper 2

Full kudos to David Frampton, a local chap from Wellington who has managed to crack that ever elusive US iTunes market. After he burst onto the scene with the original Chopper for the iPhone, which went on to sell hundreds of thousands of units, Frampton has spent the last few years working on the sequel. Already within a week of launch, Chopper 2 has rocketed to the top of Apple's US Top 100 iPhone apps list and is still going strong. Considering the first Chopper paid for his house, it’s fairly safe to say that Frampton will be able to retire off his follow-up title.

His success is twofold, in my opinion. The original Chopper was a good game, but it was released in the early days of the iPhone when apps were few. I can say fairly confident that if the first Chopper came out today, it would disappear from the charts in under a week. However Chopper 2 is without a doubt, a product of its own abilities, rather than luck and good timing.

The game is a side-scrolling, 3D shooter where players control a helicopter armed with machine guns and rockets. Players navigate left or right in order to carry out certain objectives such as taking out enemy soldiers or vehicles and rescuing troops. It sounds simple enough but the controls, once mastered, make the game extremely addictive. Moving your helicopter is as easy as tilting the device left, right or up and down accordingly. Targeting and shooting is a matter of holding one finger down on the screen to determine your angle, guided by a stylish projected crosshair.

Starting off with a simple tutorial to get you familiar with the controls, it isn’t long before players are flying over deserts, snowy mountains and even through cities. The graphics are beautiful and the crisp 3D models maintain a high level of detail despite the game running smoothly on the iPhone 3G. Chopper 2’s finest piece of engineering genius however lies in the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad combo where players can sync their handheld via Bluetooth to act as a controller. Using your iPad as a screen without needing to have fingers covering up the display made Chopper 2 feel close to a full-blown console game. Highly recommended and a great example of local lads doing us proud.




Jet Car Stunts

The title of this game sums it up pretty well. Basically you control a stunt car that has a jet-engine that allows you to drive or fly through a variety of obstacles and tracks. Immediately it felt a lot like Sidhe’s GripShift, both games that feature a lot of gravity defying vehicular acrobatics that take place in a floating race-track. Jet Car Stunts is a mix of puzzle solving, driving, racing and platforming all rolled into one.

But where GripShift relied on speed and lightning quick reflexes, Jet Car Stunts requires a bit more precision and a steady hand. The steering is entirely controlled by the accelerometer where players tilt left or right and even up or down when airborne to control your flaps to change altitude. The on-screen buttons consist of accelerate, brake and then turbo boost and air brakes (which activate flaps on your car to allow you to slow down and control your landings).

Even on the unwieldy iPad, Jet Car Stunts is a playable and addictive game. Some of the race tracks and objectives are bordering on sadistic, but there is still plenty of gameplay here for casual gamers. The game also features an impressive online component that includes downloadable tracks and a full OpenFeint system for leaderboards with replays, achievements and challenges.

The well-lit, 3D polygon visuals give this game that extra bit of charm and was reminiscent of one of my all time favourite games, “Stunt Car Racer” on the old-school Amiga. Not recommended for iPhones older than 3G however as some people are experiencing issues with the 1st and 2nd Gen hardware.




Hell’s Kitchen

When I first heard about this game, I was hoping it was a beat-em up where you got to punch Gordon Ramsay’s smug little fat face for an hour. Sadly, this game is more a simple simulator based around the reality TV show of the same name. You play as a chef whose tasks are to cook and wait tables without screwing things up and incurring the wrath of the notoriously hot-tempered git-face.

Firstly, anyone hoping to improve their culinary skills will be sorely disappointed. Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t contain any cooking techniques, instead you just drag and drop bowls of food around. However the urgency and number of things to worry about gives the game that high-stress kitchen environment that the show is renown for. To really compound matters, players are constantly reminded of the pressure by Ramsay’s furious looking face in the top left hand corner of the screen. A flaming thermometer next to him registers his level of satisfaction/burning hatred for you and your family. Ramsay is also full of verbal insults to keep you sweating as well.

The game was surprisingly lengthy for what I thought was a quick throwaway app. It contains two modes, Career where you start as a junior chef and try and build up your skills and reputation to please Gordo. The second mode is Arcade where you just try to maintain a kitchen as ingredients, customers and number of meals all get faster and more complex over time. Players also have to wait tables and ensure food gets served to their hungry diners at the same time as maintain a hectic kitchen.

As mentioned, the game does suffer from a lack of actual “cooking” and it would have been great to have allowed the user to slice, chop, stir and flip things using the relatively ideal touch screen devices. However Hell’s Kitchen the game does feature a limited database of recipes that will educate the more culinary inspired players.

A couple of other omissions knock a few points off the Hell’s Kitchen app, such as the lack of other chefs to compete against or to even work side by side with (as there are in the TV show). But the most glaringly obvious problem with it is how tame Gordon Ramsay himself is. Obviously the developers have opted for a PG rating, but even having “beeps” over swear words like “you’re f**king pathetic!” would have made Hell’s Kitchen a lot more authentic (and entertaining).