Ah, casual games. I love to hate you, yet, you keep coming up with clever gimmicks to hook me back in. Cows vs. Aliens is the latest of your ilk to find its way into my iPhone and I have to say -- you have me begging for more.
As the title implies, the game has two main characters: cute cows and semi-cute aliens in spaceships. While nowhere near as attractive as Angry Birds' wingless birds and pigs, they're deliciously adorable as well. Plus, the gameplay makes it hard to put down.
In Cows vs. Aliens, you get waves of cows appearing from the bottom of the screen that you'll have to herd into a barn located at the top. To prod the cows along, you touch parts of the screen, creating temporary circular barriers that push the bovine away (hopefully, towards the barn). Complication is provided by aliens that are trying to get into your barn -- you need to push them to the sides while managing your herd. If an alien gets inside the barn, the game ends.
Time constraints and an ever-increasing number of cows add challenge to succeeding levels, while the aliens also become more aggressive and harder to whisk off. The scoring system is clever -- different points are assigned to each type of cow you can wrangle into a barn, with multipliers given for herding multiple animals at the same time.
While there's no more variation to Cows vs. Aliens beyond that, it is quite the addictive little time waster. I'm sure I'll be sick of it in two weeks. For now, though, it's a 99-cent download that I'm still enjoying.
[iTunes]
