iPhone Game Review: Eliss

If you have approximately an infinite amount of patience, Eliss will be one of the most original, unique, and addicting games you can add to your iPhone game library.

If you have anything less than an infinite amount of patience, Eliss will be the most sadistically frustrating game that you ever really, really wanted to like.

Sadly, I fall into the latter camp.

Still, with that said, I would recommend giving the game a try (especially as it seems to be on sale for $0.99 for a short time as of this writing - making this, frustrations aside, an absolute steal). I will now attempt to explain these contradicting emotions of mine.

The actual gameplay in Eliss is remarkably hard to describe. Nothing short of playing it for yourself will really tell you what’s going on (and there is, thankfully, a Lite version so you can try it before you purchase). Stated simply, however, the game is set in a stylized universe where you guide differently colored planets around the screen with your finger. Touching similarly colored planets to one another combines them into a bigger planet, while touching differently colored planets makes you lose health (quickly).

The goal is to match these planets to similarly sized receptacles, called squeesars, in order to form supernovas which make the planets disappear. You must form a certain number of supernovas in order to finish each level. Combining planets to form bigger ones and splitting them apart with a pinching motion is key to matching planet size with that of the squeesars.

The challenge, and I must again stress that there is a lot of it, comes from juggling supernova creation with elements like adding more colors of planets, a faster rate of new planets appearing on the screen, vortexes that pull planets toward them forcing you to hold your planets in place lest you lose them, and black holes that erode your health when planets collide with them.

Upon clicking Eliss’s icon on your iPhone and watching the game start up, you can often hear the game sigh with contempt at having to actually interface with the user. You get the distinct feeling it would rather be hanging on the wall in an art gallery with a pretentious tour guide explaining to eager visitors what statement it makes about humanity.

Eliss makes absolutely no attempt at user friendliness in any aspect of its design. The “how-to” section is almost comically cryptic and useless. There is no sort of tutorial whatsoever, and nothing short of trial and error will introduce you to the game’s concepts. Once you get acclimated, the difficulty curve will kick you to the curb within an alarmingly short number of levels unless you have a truly respectable amount of patience.

As I understand it, an update released before I purchased the game gave it a gentler difficulty curve than it had originally. I don’t even want to fathom what that must have been like.

All that said, if you go into the experience with an open mind and a willingness to put up with the game’s shortcomings and maddening difficulty, you will experience a game unlike anything else you’ve ever played and one that is only possible on the iPhone platform, making it a terrific showcase for what Apple’s device is truly capable of bringing to the gaming scene.

If you can put up with it, that is.

The most striking thing about the game initially is its visuals. They are highly stylized and minimalist, unlike anything else on the App Store (or elsewhere, for that matter). The planets and vortexes and black holes aren’t exactly what you’d call visually stunning, but they’re both pleasing and creative. Coupled with a great, soothing soundtrack (that makes for a suitably ironic backdrop to the absolutely frantic, challenging gameplay) and the presentation is decidedly one of the game’s strengths.

Once you’ve actually managed to figure out what’s going on, however, the thing that will keep you coming back despite the frustration is the multi-touch gameplay. Only eight or so levels in and you’ll be placing your iPhone on a flat stable surface and controlling the game using at least four fingers at once if you want to stand any hope of surviving. You’ll be flicking the planets all over, holding them in place, and trying to keep track of a whole lot at once and it really is absolutely frantic and fun. At least, until you’ve lost for the hundredth time.

It is, yet again, a frighteningly challenging experience, but one that just might keep you coming back because of how truly original it is. Eliss could literally not exist on any other gaming platform to date because of these multi-touch controls, not to mention that its niche nature means commercial failure on any more “mainstream” platform would be all but guaranteed.

The 25 levels included with the game may seem like a low number, but length probably won’t be an issue here as the sheer challenge will keep you occupied for many an hour unless you’re truly skilled. For reference, I got stuck, and hard, on the eighth level after only twenty or thirty minutes of play.

I desperately wish that Eliss were easier because I would love to add it to my list of must have games for iPhone gamers. Its pure originality almost gets it there even now. As it stands though, I simply can’t recommend Eliss to a general audience because the difficulty curve is far too much of a barrier for most.

For the hardcore set, for those that love a challenge, or for those that are simply willing to shell out what is still a relatively small fee (only $3.99 even after it goes back up to its regular price - still a steal) to experience one of the best showpieces of a truly iPhone-exclusive experience, Eliss might still be worth a look.

Despite my harsh criticism of the difficulty, however, I do want to stress that I did keep coming back to the game. The game has a draw, an addictive quality, due to its unique nature that might just hook you even if you’re normally not the challenge-seeking type. So download the Lite version and if it intrigues you at all and you’ve got a few dollars to spare, give it a shot. Even if it’s too hard for you, you’ve at least gotten a taste of the qualities only an iPhone can bring to gaming and you’ve supported a truly unique title while you’re at it.

A Third Handheld Competitor, You Say? Madness!

I am fully aware that in most hardcore gaming circles, announcing that you believe a phone can be a truly capable gaming device will get you roughly the same type of odd stare as if you announced that you thought the box containing the pizza was just as tasty as the round pepperoni-covered treat within.

Here I stand before you, however, ready to face your odd stares (yes, I can feel them through the Internet - I’m special that way) and announce that I think a phone can be a capable gaming device.

In fact, I’m going to do one better.

I think that the iPhone can provide a satisfying gaming experience on par with or better than the PSP or the DS.

There, I said it. Now let me explain.

The key to this madness lies in understanding that all of these various devices have their strengths and weaknesses.

The PSP is a powerful little bugger. It’s essentially a PS2 in a much smaller container that you can hold in your hands. Its software catalog is a bit lacking and it doesn’t provide you with many experiences you can’t get elsewhere, but it does have some nifty titles and a lot of power in a portable form.

The DS has a much larger selection of titles and an interface that provides for experiences that can’t be had elsewhere, giving you a reason to play even if you don’t travel often. On the downside, it’s lacking in power and most games available for it don’t do much to show off the true potential of its innovative interface.

I fully believe that the iPhone carves out its own little niche in the gaming world that makes it just as viable a competitor as either of these two other systems. It may not provide the depth of gameplay or keep you hooked for as long as its rivals, but that’s why it works - it does something different and it does it well.

Perhaps its greatest asset is simply the fact that, unlike the other portable consoles, you’ll likely have your iPhone with you wherever you go. This makes it maybe even the ultimate portable gaming platform, as it provides a fully capable gaming experience wherever you happen to be without you even having to remember to lug around a separate gadget.

It should be noted that this is less true of the iPod Touch, of course, which is just as capable of a gaming machine, but lacks some of the natural convenience of its phone counterpart.

Why the iPhone works so well as a gaming device is simply that the whole experience revolves around its portability and its constant connection to the Internet.

Most of the games might be more simple than what you’d find elsewhere, but they work fantastically for small, pick-up-and-play chunks, which is exactly what you want on a phone. They’re also much cheaper on the whole (you’ll almost never pay more than $10 for a game, and most are $5 or less) so the simplicity is far more acceptable. If you dig around, it’s more than possible to find a game for under $10 that gives more gameplay value than something you would have bought for $30 on the DS or $40 on the PSP.

Additionally, since the iPhone is connected to the Internet at all times, whether that be through a Wi-Fi connection or the cell phone data network, it facilitates the ultimate in impulse buying (especially when you combine its ever-present net connection with cheap game prices). Simply browse the App Store and download a new game - from just about anywhere - right onto your phone and immediately begin playing it. It’s incredible how addicting this becomes, especially when there’s so much good stuff to play.

Interestingly, both the PSP and DS are putting forth efforts in the area of instant purchase, downloadable impulse buys, but neither comes anywhere close to what’s already available on the iPhone. The PSP Go will bring the ability to download full games to the platform, but their larger file sizes, the higher price of the device, and the lack of much interesting to play all hold it back. The DSi now has a download service of its own, but let’s not mince words here - it sucks. Nintendo has a lot of work to do here.

I’m not arguing that the iPhone is a perfect platform. No gaming device is. Like any successful platform such as the DS, Wii, or PS2, the iPhone has its fair share of crap cluttering the App Store. The fact that there’s no easy way to find the best stuff in the store right now is a shortcoming indeed, as most of my gaming finds are discovered with the help of external sites. Also, like its innovative gaming peers the DS and Wii, many titles try to cram experiences or control types that just aren’t suited for its lack of buttons and the titles that truly take advantage of the platform are somewhat rare.

Still, the iPhone’s focus on control via only touch screen and motion sensors is far from a detriment. Even I was skeptical at first, but the lack of options forces developers to be creative and, when approached correctly, can make for some innovative and fun experiences literally not possible on any other platform. Sure, there’s plenty of titles that resort to a virtual D-Pad (not all of which are bad, mind you), but there are others which use multi-touch, creative touch screen controls, tilt controls, or some of these combined, to make titles that wouldn’t work anywhere else.

Of course, the most important part of any gaming platform is its library of games. No matter how much I try to convince you that the iPhone should be taken seriously, none of it is going to mean anything until I can prove that its great features and convenience are also backed up by things you’d actually want to play.

With that in mind, keep an eye out for many more iPhone game reviews here in the future. I already have a number of them written and ready to go, and many more I want to write after that. I am anxious to prove to non-believers that we have a true contender on (or rather, in) our hands.

It may be different, it may be easy to dismiss as too “casual” or too simple, and it certainly isn’t perfect, but I’ve had more fun and spent more time gaming on my iPhone recently than my PSP and DS combined. Hopefully more people will see the light as I do someday.