WP7 Roundup: Roll, match and save some cash

August 15, 2011

This week, we match flowers, roll a sphere and do other things that don’t cost much.

Flowerz: This game’s similar to the match-three games Bejeweled and Hexic. The main difference? You’re now matching flowers. You start off with only matching red, blue and yellow flowers, but as you progress, you have to start matching more and more hues.

For a free game, Flowerz is great, but there’s just not much to do. There are only two modes, Standard and Expert, and leaderboards are the only extra feature. With more modes and robust gameplay, this could have been a great match-three game. Instead it’s just another average one. 3/5

ORB: ORB is a simple game that has you traversing a ball across tiles as far as you can. The “orb” is controlled with tilt controls, with you moving the phone left or right to move it. There are holes in the tiles that will end your game immediately. There are also jumps that will help you, but bombs that will destroy every tile around you. ORB features some very nice techno beats and visuals, and both actually fit well with the style of the game, even if most of your play sessions last mere seconds. Saying ORB is challenging is putting it lightly. The game generates new levels each time, and the difficulty ramps up quickly, adding obstacles and speeding things up.

ORB is not an Xbox Live game, but global and local leaderboards appear in the game, making you cringe at how low your score is compared to the rest of the world. What’s in the game is very well-designed and both feels and plays great for its $1.29 asking price. 4/5