Back many moons ago, a new board game dawned on us here mortals. It was known as Hive, a relaxing, somewhat challenging and an extremely addictive game. For years, families have played this game together in its physical form, but now it can be known as iHive, as it has officially come to the iPhone.
Hive is very intellectual, which is a major decided point for many people. You don’t see many intellectual Apps, so this one is a nice change. I love nice changes, and it turns out that this App is full of them.
One word that I tend to identify with Apps is “polished”. It basically defines Apple, the iPhone and the App Store and content. Hive is a perfect example. Polished is the perfect work here.
The game stems from a board game, but has a polished, clean and somewhat futuristic feel to it, but still managing to stick with the original roots the game has – which is nice.
The big question here is can all theses nice touches compliment the most important thing here, the gameplay? I would say yes … after about two hours. Why would I say two hours? Because this game has a shockingly steep learning curve.
You’ll spend literally hours trying to grab the idea of the App if you’re a newbie and the helpless tutorials give some light instructions on how to play it which, evidently, doesn’t amount to much.
Once you get over this however, you’ll realise you’ve battled your way into what can only be described as an addicting turn based strategy game. You’ll find yourself playing this on the bus, in a waiting room; I even played it walking down the street a few days ago.
Another downside however is the AI. The game, even on its harder difficulty, is pretty easy. This probably helps with the learning period, but if that’s why they made it so easy, then they made a vital mistake – they left out the core element of any type of game ever: competitiveness.
Without any challenge, who would want this? But don’t worry, it isn’t easy either, I just feel it could be a little more challenging.
Overall I think it’s a very good game, the only things that take away from it is the steep learning curve and the easy AI after you get through the learning process. Other than that, I can’t fault this as it’s addictive fun, and after playing it, you can boast to your friends your “intellectual”.
