iPhone Game Pick: The Blocks Cometh (Halfbot)

February 27, 2011 7:25 PM | Michael Rose

The Blocks Cometh is a bit like that nightmare where you're in a game of Tetris, and all the blocks are falling down to crush you, and you need to clamber up them and make sure not to get trapped. Anyone? Just me? Oh well.

Blockman has some skills up his sleeve, from double jumping to reach great heights, and his trusty laser gun for tight situations. He can also grind and wall jump off the side of blocks - even blocks that are still falling. If he just splatted or falls too far off the bottom of the screen, then it's all over.

There are online high scoreboards via OpenFeint, extra characters will different abilities, and some pretty interesting achievements to bag that put restrictions on how you play the game - for example, getting the 'climb 150m without using your weapon' is entertaining and frustrating in equal measure, thanks to the randomness of the drops.

The Blocks Cometh is for iPhone and iPad and will set you back $1.99 from the App Store. There's also a free browser version to try out, although it doesn't feel as tight.

Tags: browser,halfbot,iphone,The Blocks Cometh

Categories: Mobile

mobile

14 Comments

I picked up this game pre-patch and enjoyed it even with some control issues, now it has been patched to address the issue (larger buttons and no double jump glitch) I'm all the more hooked...although now I have nothing to blame the fact I suck on :-( but still, good game and well worth getting :-D

Timbo | February 27, 2011 10:08 PM

I found the browser version disappointingly slow, especially since you can just destroy as many of the blocks as you want and keep the playing field pretty level. That means the game ends up feeling like any other very basic, crappy iPod "run from side to side to avoid being crushed"-style game.

I don't understand the point of the wall-jumping acrobatics they were showing in the trailer -- sure, it seems fun to be able to climb still-falling blocks like that, but once you miss a block you'll just fall back to ground level anyway, so what good would getting that momentary height do you? Ultimately you have to sit around way too long waiting for blocks to fall and raise the ground level. The climbing aspect really wasn't well done and I didn't feel any urgency to the whole proceedings.

AdamHC | February 27, 2011 10:16 PM

just bought this game, i think it's pretty ballin'. i feel like ipod games don't need to be super involved anyway, since most people are just gonna play them while they're waiting in line at chipotle. it's simple fun and i like it

UltimateWalrus | February 27, 2011 10:31 PM

@AdamHC : The iOS is a lot more urgent, the flash version is quite dated in comparison.

Point of getting higher even if you don't make it back there is whatever height you jump to is the height you register as your current best, even if you don't land up there. It can prove useful for a desperate final attempt to top your score or beat somebody elses ;)

Chris Geehan | February 28, 2011 12:37 AM

Flash version was fun. Another game that makes me wish iPhones games could be played on the PC.

Anonymous | February 28, 2011 1:44 AM

Great pic, if only it wasn't a rip off of, erm, the original The Blocks Cometh...

http://www.halfbot.com/?page_id=279

No, the developers of that aren't involved so please don't support. They actually started developing it for the iplatforms themsevles when they discovered the clone.

It even has ripped graphics...

Alex | February 28, 2011 5:56 AM

Disregard the above (maybe?). Just noticed this one is "by halfbot" which is the original creator so I guess they managed to put their game on there as well? Is the clone removed? I don't have an ithing so I can't really check.

Alex | February 28, 2011 6:01 AM

This is a pretty good game, but I would love to play it in full screen, and not on Iphone..

Kaps | February 28, 2011 6:08 AM

Alex, this is the game that was ripped off, not the clone.

M Rose | February 28, 2011 8:19 AM

@Alex: There was a rip off and it's been off the app store for over 2 weeks now at least. This is a legit one, and the HalfBot team are obviously devastated by the clone and what it's done to their games reputation before it even got a release.

Luckily its out now, has even had it's first patch update improving the controls to a really comfortable state, and is looking to release more updates in the future I believe.

Chris Geehan | February 28, 2011 10:16 AM

Yeah just didn't notice the "by halfbot" at first, and saw that the sprite was different than the original flash game, which was about the one thing the clone had changed, so I hastily assumed it's the clone, lol :S

Alex | February 28, 2011 1:12 PM

And so i hope that someones gonna gift me an iphone so i can play all those great, exclusive indie games. But at least we were given a browser version :)

Metalhead | February 28, 2011 1:25 PM