YuckFu

First impressions&#8230- they’re always important but shouldn’t be considered the MOST important factor in determining if you like something (or someone). My first impression of “Yuckfu” was that of an ok game, with no storyline&#8230-. Then I read the description on iTunes. It’s an Arcade, suddenly the game made sense!

The game is played by controlling “Bo382&#8243- which has a limited supply of fuel, so you have to float around and collect crates. If your fuel runs out or you hit a wall the game is over. The crates remain open for a certain amount of time, if you take too long they close and become obstacles which will make you explode if you crash with them. After grabbing certain amount of crates you “level up” which does two things. One it gives you less time to grab each crate making the difficulty increase as you progress, and two, it changes the background slightly. The game has an autosave for your score should you happen to be interrupted, it does not however, support a continue feature (if your iPhone or iPod closes the game).

The highscore menu has an option that I personally don’t remember seeing recently in other games, which is that you can post your highscore globally WITH the replay, allowing players around the world to see how you did. The page you see when you get a game over gives you the option to write you’re your name, so no special account has to be created. The name doesn’t seem have a limit on the number of characters, but it WILL get cut off at around 16 characters when displaying in your iDevice or around 26 on the website, which displays the All-time top 10 scores (yuckfu.net).

You control Bo382 with the accelerometer in your iDevice. The game takes place in space in some sort of chamber in a spaceship. Because the game is in space the robot has a small delay when you move which I think gives it a bit of a challenge and makes the game more interesting. The movement of the robot reminded me of back in the day with “Asteroids”, the faster you’re going the harder to switch direction in which you’re traveling (so I advice you, don’t tilt the iDevice too much, you’ll crash or start moving the iDevice like crazy trying to stabilize)

The graphics are good for an arcade style game, they look clean, but could be polished a bit more. The description in iTunes claims that one of the features is having a “Cute Robot”. The only way you can see the robot in detail is if you open the tutorial, or if you visit the game’s page, because during game play Bo382 is pea-sized.

The Sound overall is good, and the game includes 3 original tracks. The songs are good, and you can’t really tell when they start or end. When you pause the game (by touching anywhere on the screen) you have option to put the songs on random, selecting one of the three specific songs, or muting the songs. I haven’t found a way to mute the sound effects, which iPhone users often need to do.

My overall impression of the game was good, it gives what it promises in its description. It has good graphics and pretty much all it says on there. The loading time is excellent with an average loading time of 2-3 seconds to open the game, and about 1 second to get playing. I would recommend it if you like arcades (like I do) if you’re more of an only storyline type of person then this game is not for you&#8230- but you’re missing out. And last but not least, I would like to see some sort of calibration option in a future update, because sometimes the angle at which you have to play isn’t the most comfortable, but you soon forget about it once the game starts.

THE GOOD
Virtually no loading time
Local and Global Highscores WITH replay
Good sound effects
Automatic Save

THE BAD
No Calibration Option
No Autosave (to continue) if interrupted.