karl: Android Game Review: Pocket God

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Android Game Review: Pocket God

Pocket God, I'm not sure where to place you. You're definitely a well-made game, but your lack of purpose makes me feel powerless to accomplish anything. That's a sad irony, because Pocket God is all about making you feel powerful.

If there are any questions about what Pocket God is about, look no farther than the name. You're the big man on campus, with near unlimited powers and a whole civilization of pygmies to save (or destroy). Really, it's all up to you

There's various locales you can jump around using the map, each with its own special perks. Underwater, for example, you can create whirlpools to torture your pygmies or skewer them with a harpoon. In the graveyard, you can turn them into ghosts, zombies, or have them get eaten by a spider. There's a lot of little goodies slipped into Pocket God that you'll totally miss if you don't just try and touch everything.

The game settings are fairly thorough and unique to each location on the map. Most of the things you'll be looking to do (ghosts, zombies, etc.) are revealed to you through these settings because you can turn them on or off. For things like items, tapping the item "on" will drop one on the play area. These can range from baby T-Rex eggs to spears (to defend against said T-Rex).

The one issue I had with the actual game (besides wondering what I was supposed to do with it) was the consistent force closing. Maybe I just wanted to add some pygmies too quickly, but when I went to town on the + button, I force closed out. It didn't necessarily need to be spam-fast, either. Sometimes I'd take my time, sometimes I'd rush it, but despite the speed, I'd force out. Only niggle I had, but still irritating.

Pocket God still escapes me as far as Android games go. For what you can do, it's fun. I'm not a "microgamer" and I don't really geek out on hidden/endless minigames, so besides being able to zap pygmies with a lightning bolt, Pocket God didn't really do it for me. However, for those of you ready to try your own hand at being a supreme being, it's only 99 cents in the Market.

Download links are after the break.