PopCap is well-known for their addicting and (mostly) family-friendly games. Two of my personal favorites are Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies. However, what are fun, strategic and addicting games without their…darker side? Enter a division of PopCap called 4th and Battery. Their newest and first hit to come to the iPod/iPad/iPhone App Store was slowed down with some resistance from Apple, but it’s finally here! And boy does it deliver!
Unpleasant Horse, like most PopCap games, is simple in its design. You have one goal: score the highest amount of points before you die. You can attain this a variety of ways but it mostly involves 2-parts strategy and 1-part luck.
The story is also pretty simple. You are an adorable black pegasus-type horse (that also looks pretty similar to “My Little Pony”). Despite the disarmingly adorable nature, you are quite unpleasant. In fact, you would really rather not look at all those, more pleasant, ponies flying around the skies. So what’s the logical option? Why, drag them to their deaths, of course! Lucky for you, the world where you live is apparently a land made completely out of meat grinders. How convenient for an unpleasant horse.
The game is mostly focused on getting the unpleasant horse to stay in the air for as long as possible, since falling to the ground means instant death. This is mostly accomplished through jumping from cloud to cloud and decimating little birds that can provide a boost of additional flight time. The longer you stay alive and the more ponies you kill, the higher your score will climb.
The game works pretty well for the tiny little iPod Touch screen that I have as well. Unlike a few other games, my fingers hardly get in the way as I leap and bound through the clouds and drag my victims to their deaths. Like most games that I enjoy from the PopCap team, the learning curve is easy for all kind of players and yet it still manages to be challenging time and time again.
I can’t wait to see what else 4th and Battery can come up with. Their first launch title seems to be a great preview of a whole line of addicting and macabre games for our tiny screens. Best yet, it is available for free in the Apple App Store, so be sure to pick it up and support this great new gaming division!