See those adorable little pink blobs floating on the right side of the screenshot above? They’re about to have their eyeballs torn out and eaten. Just one of the many reasons Tentacles is the best Windows Phone 7 game I’ve played so far.
Proof positive that Kotaku is listening to your app review requests, I stole the Windows Phone 7 away from the mother of my children to give the latest and greatest game for the Windows Phone 7 a go. I don’t recall who in particular requested it, but I’m sure he’ll be pleased enough that I actually followed through to not get all angry about not being named here.
If not, I’ll just send Black after him.
Black is the three-tentacled creation of one Dr Phluff, a mad scientist with the head of a dolphin whose attempts to create the cutest being ever created backfired. Instead he gave birth to this goo-like creature with a voracious appetite for eyeballs… and revenge.
You see (until your eyeballs get eaten), in frustration over his failure, Dr Phluff upended the petri dish that served as Black’s birthplace, sending the hungry creature into the air, swallowing it in mid-anguished cry. Now he’s got Black inside of him, playing havoc with his innards.
THat’s the basic premise of Tentacles, the second game from Press Play, the developers of the award-winning Max and the Magic Marker.
Players propel Black through Phluff’s insides via a simple tapping mechanism. Tap a wall to shoot out a tentacle. Tap again to shoot out the second. Again for the third. It’s a very intuitive system of movement accompanied by some satisfyingly squishy sounds as this creature tears its way through the mad doctor’s internal organs, tossing out his fourth appendage — the claw — whenever a delicious eyeball presents itself.
Black’s journey is no simple walk in the scientist, however. The path to vengeance is littered with obstacles. Whirring saw blade-like growths, stinging plat-like growths, acid, and electrical impulses are just a few of the hardships it must face, with the odd boss fight sprinkled throughout the game’s 40 levels. Each level tasks the player with survival, gathering all the pickups, and one special challenge, which generally involves making it through a portion of the level undamaged or before time runs out.
Strip away the challenges, the enemies, and the obstacles and the heart of Tentacles is still there, waiting for you to feed him eyes. It’s the fluid, precise movement of the game’s main character that makes Tentacles so amazing. This is the perfect way to control a character on a touch screen device. In other words, once you go Black…
Tentacles [Zune Marketplace]
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