When asked to review Smack a Seal the first thing that went through my head is that the developers were simply trying to sell more titles by making their game provocative and in essence they may just be doing that.
The story is straight forward, you are a penguin and you are protecting your whale friend from a horde of starving seals by hiding him in your igloo and beating the snot out of any seals that try get to him.
The gameplay is just as simple with you using your left thumb to control your penguin on a faux analogue stick and your right button smashes a virtual button to bring your club down to split open some seal skulls which come at the whale from a multitude of paths.
As you progress you can pick up boosts such as a bottle which helps you run faster and smack harder and a mine which allows you to… well place mines.
Basically it’s a tower defence game with you as the mobile tower.
The controls work but to be honest they are not great and my penguin often ended up running all over the place instead of down the path to beat the closest seal to a bloody pulp.The beating itself is straightforward but if you aren’t facing in exactly the correct direction then you end up smacking the floor over and over without doing any harm or noticing which can be frustrating.
It was these controls that eventually made me stop playing and hopefully the developers can retune those a bit as the idea works and it is a good stress reliever if you have 5 minutes between meetings, just don’t let PETA see you playing it.
Is it worth the price on entry? Hell it’s only $0.99 and it’s not annoying so yes it’s worth giving it a go if you have a $1 or R8 lying around in your account and want to own a game where you get to bludgeon seals for a good cause.
Score: 6/10
Platform: iPhone
Last Updated: February 3, 2011
