We have all seen our fair share of puzzle games for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad and i’m not saying that in a bad way, they seem to be churning them out better and better.
Geared is that game that comes to the App Store and you think why didn’t I think of that. It’s such a simple idea but as they say the simple ones are always the best and hardest to think of.
Your role in Geared is to make the gear boxes become functional by using gears supplied in various sizes and quantities. You need to decide where to place and which one to use and this like all games becomes more and more difficult as you progress from level to level.
As it gets more difficult you will run into force fields as I like to call them boxes and shapes which won’t allow you to place a gear directly inside. To get round this some of these force fields will move on fixed points so you may want it to move to left hand side to play a gear then back to the right to place a gear on the opposing side. But sometimes these force fields are static so you will need to use the games inbuilt gravity to drop gears at awkward angles and hope they get where you want. By allowing them to free fall they can travel through the force fields.
The controls are very simplistic. To move a gear you simply touch it with your finger and drag it to where you want it to be placed. Everything is touch based with no use of the accelerometer which would make a nice addition in Geared 2 if they make it. If you accidentally drag the wrong gear out onto the screen you simply drag it to the bottom of the screen with your finger so you can use it another time.
The graphics are nice and colorful and the motion of the gears spinning and interacting with one another is all done really well.
The sound? What sound? Geared lacks many sound effects which I think it should have such as grinding of the gears and sound for when they spin. This would probably keep children interested in the game for longer also. You have about three different sounds within the game and so you would expect to be able to listen to your iPod music but the developer never included that as a feature which is terrible.
Overall Geared is a worth while purchase for your iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s a seriously fun and addictive puzzle game that you won’t stop playing until you have beaten all levels.
