There are two ways to go about playing Kona’s Crate on the iPhone, the first one would be with finesse, and the other would rely just on brute force and plain dumb luck. You see, in Kona’s Crate, players are tasked with moving a crate on a jet-powered platform through some really tight levels and deliver it to the native chief Kona.
Controls are really simple, tapping on either side of the screen will activate one half of the thrusters on the platform. Casual game fans should know the drill, press too long and the platform will skyrocket, and at this point some players will resort to tippy-tappy finesse play to get the platform (and the crate) to the chief.
This is also where some players will just blast through on a wing and a prayer, but upon reaching level 15, some finesse will need to creep into their style of play as Kona’s Crate is no pushover. In fact, the levels are out to give you an unpredecented amount of challenge and re-playability. The same cannot be said for most casual games these days as those just concentrate on dumping a huge number of levels at the player to give the illusion of “value for money”
But no worries, Kona’s Crate has the whole number of levels thing covered as well, with 60 levels spread across 3 campaigns. Players unlock levels by doing well in previous ones and players are actually rated by how fast they can deliver the crate to the chief, with the ubiquitous three star rating system that seems to be everywhere these days. An additional bonus is awarded when a level is completed without the platform bumping into anything.
3D graphics are the order of the day at Kona’s Crate and I must admit, the game looks really nice (finally some 3D stuff after all the 2D games I’ve been looking at these couple of weeks). The game features both Game Center and OpenFeint for online achievements, and unlike most games, these social gaming elements can actually be disabled from the options screen.
Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates Kona’s Crate with a 4.5 out of 5 for being a totally fun and challenging experience, although the level of difficulty later on in the game is bound to frustrate some people; here’s a pro-tip: you’ll need to be all zen-like or just be a Jedi :P.
Kona’s Crate is available on the iTunes App Store at a sale price of USD 1.99. Check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/konas-crate/id434278123?mt=8. A review code was provided to Nine Over Ten 9/10 for the purpose of this review.
