Today on The Gamer With Kids I had a chance to review Monsters Love Gum for the iPad, developed by Sorta Precision.  Prior to reading any descriptions of the game, I decided to fire it up and see what it was all about.  Obviously the first thing that comes to mind and my initial impression was, this is Hungry Hungry Hippos with a twist of (warning not kid friendly word to follow) LSD.   The idea and goal of the game is almost identical to that of the infamous board game, however, the game features several different twists that are just impossible to pull off in a real world scenario.   These twists are the equivalent to what we consider to be power-ups: bombs, lightning, hammers, tilt and a field clearing pigeon tornado of sorts.

The game allows up to 4 players to play head to head simultaneously on one iPad (while i can see this being a real challenge, unless they are all pint sized).  However, if you don’t have any kids or friends for that matter the game does allow you to play alone against the AI.  The game features  6 kid friendly modeled monsters that each have their own individual attributes, some being faster than others or some having a wider spread to take in the gumballs.  There is two different modes for the game, hoarder and battle mode, I will cover them both separately.  Hoarder mode is the more difficult and overall challenging of the two modes that you can select from.  In hoarder mode, the objective is to only grab or take in the gumballs that match your assigned color.   Taking in the incorrect color of gumball can lead to a subtraction of points and your character spitting back out one of your good balls that you may have already collected.  Battle mode is easier to play and therefore much more fun, since your character can take in any of the balls regardless of color.  The overall objective of both modes is to take in the set amount of gumballs (10, 20 or 30) as fast as possible, with the first player to achieve this being declared the winner.  Power-ups in the game are acquired by taking in the random power-up gumballs that are thrown out on the board.  Using the power-ups is as simple as clicking on the one you want use, however, you are unable to send the attacks to any particular player.

The game remains somewhat fresh each time when playing with family or friends but may slowly lose its luster in single player mode.  Gameplay is obviously very random in the game, but that’s what Hungry Hungry Hippos was all about.  At the going rate of $2.99 for the app, it’s a decent investment for the family or even for the kids to enjoy with their friends.  Monsters Love Gum is a good adaptation to the childhood favorite and with a few tweaks could really stand out.  What I would really like to see from this game would be: the ability to direct attacks towards specific players and maybe even some additional game modes for the kids to enjoy and give it some long term replay value.

Rating: 3/5

Description

Everyone knows Monsters Love Gum right?
Up to four players fight for monster supremacy as they unleash bombs, stuns and hammers and kamikaze pigeons.. yes, pigeons in the quest for GUM!!

Features:

★ 2 Electrifying Game-Modes
★ Built-in Tournament system
★ High-performance 2D graphics
★ Meticulously crafted and polished gameplay
★ Challenging single player action
★ Intelligent AI
★ 6 unique monster types
★ 4 unique weapon types
★ Openfeint Leaderboards & lots of cool Achievements
★ Hidden Bonuses
★Frequent upgrades

[via App Store]