The iPhone 2.0 software brought with it the promise of innovative games utilizing touch and tilt control. Unfortunately, the image of monkey balls dancing in our heads was shattered with the release of Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone, as negative reviews stated that its controls were frustrating and anything but fun. While Sega works to patch the game so it plays properly, gamers feared they were left to demos, solitaire, and a plethora of tilt-based driving games. Fortunately, there’s a truly compelling game that’s every bit as stylish, charming, and challenging as the Super Monkey Ball series, minus the broken controls. That game is Dizzy Bee.

Dizzy Bee may not have the nice 3D graphics that Super Monkey Ball does, but it really doesn’t need them either. The wonderfully stylish, ‘cute’ 2D graphics of Dizzy Bee will win over any gamer ever intrigued by Loco Roco or Patapon. While the tilt gameplay is a bit reminiscent of Super Monkey Ball, there are stark differences. Dizzy Bee is to free your fruit friends and lead them to the goal while avoiding the variety of cleverly designed enemies. While Monkey Ball’s goal is to steer clear of the perilous edges and reach the goal, Dizzy Bee forgoes the edges, adds fruit friends that need rescuing, flowers that need collecting, and enemies that need avoiding.

The enemies work so well in this game because as you tilt Dizzy Bee around the level, you’re really tilting the enemies too. This is an interesting concept because some levels seem to require that you do nothing more than shift your attention in order to beat the level. In one difficult spot, I found that if I focused on controlling the enemy instead of the bee, I was much more successful. Each enemy is creatively designed with characteristics that frustrate your progress in unique ways. Some enemies just sit there, waiting for you to roll them into the bee. Other enemies have set movements that are influenced by the direction you are tilting the world. The fruit also play a big part of the strategy of the game. Some fruit, like the orange, are circles, so they roll smooth. However, the lemons and pears are odd-shaped fruit that require an extra push to get them going. This really does play a big part in how you approach the levels and try avoiding enemies. It’s little choices like this that show how much thought was put into each individual level.

Beating all the levels of Dizzy Bee is not a difficult task. To move on, you need only save one fruit. However, the real challenge comes in trying to perfect each level. You can achieve bronze, silver, gold, or perfect rankings on each level based on 3 criteria. The game takes into account what percentage of the fruit you save, what percentage of the flowers you collect (some are stationary and some float around), and what percentage of the fruit were ‘chained together’ in their escape. It’s relatively easy to get all the flowers, slightly harder to save all the fruit, and sometimes near impossible to chain them all together. See, to chain the fruit together you need to save them all at the same time. Sometimes you’ve got a huge group of fruit to save from oncoming enemies, and the darn things won’t stuff themselves into the exit quick enough. That means it’s back to the drawing board with planning and precision instead of speed and sloppiness.

The only negative thing I can really think to say about this game is the sound. There’s really no music to speak of and only minimal sound effects. While the sound effects were appropriate, I had issues with erratic volume. With my headphones plugged in, some sound effects were fairly quiet while others were deafening. For first-generation iPod Touch users, it’s probably best to forget the sound altogether and play without headphones as the headphones make a bit of a tangled mess when you’re tilting and turning the iPod around. I did enjoy the bee’s death sound effect though, that made me laugh every time. BzzBzz!

The game’s 50 levels should give you plenty to work on if you’re determined enough to try and perfect each one. Once you’re done though, there’s not much reason to come back (although I’m contemplating a second run through). I would love to see add-on level packs or a sequel because the gameplay never got old and the challenge really perfected the balance between frustration and reward. I could spend an hour on one level just trying to get a ‘perfect’, and I would immediately want to punish myself with the next challenge.

Dizzy Bee is the kind of game that makes me believe that the iPhone platform truly can hold its own in the handheld market. The game is so perfect in so many ways, I wish there were a dozen ‘Dizzy Bee’s in the App Store. This is by far my favorite iPhone game and a STEAL at $2.99. If you own an iPod Touch or iPhone, you MUST get this game. Kudos to Igoo Games for such a compelling, complete package!

Sudoku is popular enough now that I don’t feel the need to explain how it works. This puzzle sensation has really become the new ‘crossword puzzle’, except you don’t have to deal with crappy hints for B-List actors who died before you were born. Sudoku is simple enough that it’s hard to screw up, but popular enough to have 35 variations already in the App Store. So is EA’s version worth that steep price tag? Let’s find out…

In this review, I really can only compare EA’s version with the free ‘Lite’ versions available alongside it. I wasn’t about to purchase 35 versions of Sudoku to find out which was best, but I was willing to download all the free ones I saw to compare. I’ll tell you right now that EA’s version was certainly the best of the Sudoku games I played. However, in terms of gameplay, it was right in line with most of them. While a couple versions had pretty backwards controls, the typical Sudoku game allowed the player to tap on a square to select it and then tap on the number at the bottom to fill it in. Pretty simple and effective. If this is all you want in a Sudoku game, the free ones may do the job. While the free ones are ‘Lite’ versions and have limitations (like only one puzzle per day), the paid variations are still cheaper than EA’s version, so the demos should help you figure out if that’s enough for you.

And therein lies the biggest problem with EA’s Sudoku: the cost. At $8, it’s EA’s cheapest game, but the most expensive Sudoku game available for the iPhone. In order for me to recommend this version, it would have to do some really amazing things to separate it from the pack. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. The main game gives you five levels of difficulty (two locked at the start), error checking (kind of cheating in my opinion), note-taking (essential for harder puzzles), ‘Hints’ (which are much more than hints as it actually solves squares for you), and Auto-Fill (which reveals all possible ‘moves’ for all squares). While the difficulty settings and note-taking features are essential, the other options are all frustrating to me. Yes, you can turn off error checking, but the Auto-Fill and Hints can’t be turned off and I occasionally pressed those buttons accidentally. This gives unwanted help and lowers your score in the process. At that point, I just felt like quitting the puzzle I had worked so hard on and starting over. If they felt the need to include these options in the game, they should have been implemented more like the error checking, with the ability to disable them from the start.

There are some little touches that help EA’s version stand out a bit though. A ‘Newspaper’ mode lets you enter numbers on a blank Sudoku grid to match the puzzle in your local newspaper, eliminating the need to get your hands dirty from the paper. This mode could also be used to create your own random Sudoku puzzles. One nice graphical touch is number highlighting. When you touch a square that already has a number played, all instances of that number are highlighted on the grid. For example, touching a number ‘8′ lights up all other 8’s on the board, making it easier to see where you still need to fill in 8’s. Also, when a row, column, or 3×3 square are filled, there’s a little animation showing you it’s done and giving you a sense of progress on the puzzle. These little touches aren’t things you’d find on a free version of Sudoku and they do give the presentation a nice professional feel, but then again, they aren’t vital either. The overall presentation is pretty nice with a traditional Japanese look and feel. Graphics are sharp and even the tiny numbers used for note-taking are easy enough to read. The music tries to match the Japanese theme, but has a beat that sounds a bit too modern, like it belongs in a hip hop song. Also, it’s a bit jarring when the song loops due to an obvious break in the music, like a record skipping. Finally, I’d like to point out that Sudoku has the same menu annoyance as EA’s other games, Tetris and Scrabble. The menu makes you scroll for ONE more item when it’s clear from the first screenshot above that there’s room for it!

So EA does a good enough job of making Sudoku play like Sudoku, but I can’t say it’s really enough to justify an $8 price tag. Had it included some Sudoku variations, time-based challenges, or incentives for competition through high scores or best times it may have been worth the price of admission. In the end, it just does a prettier job of what most of the other 34 variations of Sudoku do just fine: Sudoku. If you’re a real fanatic about Sudoku and care a lot about presentation, this won’t disappoint. On the other hand, if you’ve filled your iPhone with every free app the App Store has to offer, I doubt you’ll be giving this game a very long look.

[Update]: EA Mobile has reduced the price of the game from $8 to $5, a smart move in my opinion. While I don’t plan on changing the review score, it does bring the game more in line with other Sudoku games and should really be considered. Would the score have been different if the price was $5 when I reviewed it? It might have been a half star higher, but my initial thoughts about the game still stand. If you were thinking about buying the game before, now is your chance to save $3!

Let me start by saying that I’m a big Scrabble fan. I own four versions of the Scrabble board game including the useful Scrabble Folio Edition for trips to Starbucks with my wife. I guess I should say ‘formerly useful’ because the iPhone version renders it useless.

We’re all familiar with classic Scrabble rules and gameplay, but how often would you want to play an hour-long Scrabble game on your phone? Fortunately, EA Mobile recognized that a mobile phone version of the game needed other options, quicker ones due to the nature of the platform. There are plenty of ways to play, no matter the situation. Want single player? Sure thing, you can play against the Computer with 3 modes of difficulty or play alone and set up those Triple Word Scores without a pesky opponent to steal them away. Have friends? No problem, the game supports 2-4 players with its “Pass ‘n Play” mode. When you’re done with your turn, a “Next Player” screen appears for the following player to bypass so that no one sees an opponent’s tiles.

But how about those quicker modes I mentioned? Of course the classic mode still stands, but it’s the inclusion of 75-Point, 150-Point, 8-Round, and 12-Round matches that really make this game shine. While reviewing the game, I happened to be at Starbucks with my wife and a couple friends and we thoroughly enjoyed a 75-Point match that took under 10 minutes to play. We even had a rematch while walking through the mall. The only gripe I have with these gameplay modes is the lack of additional customization. I don’t see why they couldn’t have allowed the player to choose the point limit or number of rounds themselves. Another tiny omission is not being able to pick a tile to see who goes first. Typically all players pick a tile and whoever has the tile with the highest point value goes first. This omission makes short games like the 75-Point game seem a bit unfair as the first player gets an automatic Double Word Score.

My biggest fear was that it would be difficult to see the entire board on the iPhone screen. Fortunately, the graphics are very sharp and vibrant on the iPhone’s generous screen. There are also some little animations when you hit special squares, nothing elaborate, but enough to make you feel good about your word choice. The game also has a nice graphical intro, but unfortunately you have to watch the whole thing every time you enter the application since it’s really a loading screen for the game. It’s not terribly long, but it would be nice to jump right into a game instead of waiting 10-15 seconds. The sound and music work well too, nothing annoying or overbearing, but you’d probably rather listen to your own music. I would too if that were an option. I’m really shocked that you can’t play your own music during the game, an especially frustrating omission when you consider that many free apps and demos include this feature. If you’re playing with others, chances are you won’t have the sound on anyway, so it’s not such a huge issue there.

As far as controls go, the game works just as it should. The normal view will show the entire board, but zooming can be performed in a number of ways. Multi-touch zooming is supported and works fine, but the simpler way to zoom is to simply double-tap the screen where you’d like to zoom in and double-tap again to zoom out. Panning while zoomed in also works quite well. In addition, placing a tile (by dragging it from your rack onto the board) will cause the screen to zoom right into that area. You can also rearrange your tiles manually (dragging) or randomly with the ‘Shuffle’ button or by actually shaking the iPhone.

One controversial addition is the ‘Best Word’ button. Pressing this will show you the best possible move you can make on your turn. I don’t mind this option so much except that there’s nothing optional about it. There’s no way to turn off ‘Best Word’ which means nothing prevents someone from using it (aside from a verbal agreement). You are limited to a maximum of four Best Words in a game which are indicated by hearts above your score (think of Link’s life meter), but I fear that the temptation might be too great for someone that’s struggling to make up ground.

So, clearly you can see I think this is a great game of Scrabble, but what’s missing? Well, aside from the few problems already mentioned, my biggest problem is the fact that there’s no ’score preview’. What I mean by that is, once you’ve placed your tiles there’s nothing telling you how many points that move will be worth unless you commit to playing them (and even then multiple words are added separately making it difficult to know how much that ‘turn’ was worth). This is a big problem in my opinion. I find that once people find a suitable place to go, they don’t want to figure out how many points the move will get them, so they just go with it instead of looking for a more valuable spot. Even if you were willing to add the points up yourself, this makes each turn take longer than it needs to. Hopefully an update fixes this omission.

The game also suffers from a couple menu issues similar to the ones Ray mentioned in his Tetris review. First, the main menu has room for seven entries, but only the middle five slots are used. Guess what? There are two more menu items that are below which require scrolling to access. This is baffling since there’s actually room for the two additional menu items, but they just aren’t used. The other problem comes in the Custom Play menu. When setting up the game, I really thought there was something wrong with the touch screen, but it turns out it was just the interface. See, next to each option there’s an icon of a rotating arrow inside a circle. To me this says, “Touch me and you’ll change this option to something else!” Unfortunately, it’s really saying, “Ignore me because I do nothing!” Instead you’ll need to actually touch the words to change the options. This seems trivial, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tapped and tapped on the options and they just don’t change!

In the end, I think we’ve got ourselves a real winner. Is it worth $10? I think so if you’re a Scrabble fan, or if you’re just looking for a fun multiplayer game to enjoy that doesn’t require an internet connection or a second iPhone. While there are a few things that could be tweaked a bit, there are no real major flaws that would prevent me from recommending this game. It’s an all-around fun game with plenty of options, a slick presentation, and unending replayability.