iPod: Bullseye

Version reviewed: 1.0.3

Compatable with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, iOS 3.0 or later

Social: Openfeint (Brig Bother)

iTunes preview link

The ever popular “kiddies” category there. Wot, no ‘spelling’?

How do you open a review like this? “You can’t beat a bit of Bu…” No. “Super, smashing, gr…” Uh-uh. A completely cold open? Yes, you got it IIIIIIIN OONNNE (dies)

Bullseye is a game of darts and trivia. Let’s be honest, trivia is easy to do, so the quality and point of the app is going to lie entirely on how well the dart throwing aspect works.

And actually, it’s OK. You have the option of dragging a target reticule using your iDevice or tilting it to move it which is slightly more difficult but has a lightness of touch that feels reasonable, then it is all down to timing – arrows zoom towards and away from the target, the better you time it (so that the arrows are near the reticule), the more accurate your shot is going to be. If your “knower” is taking a shot, or if the shot is a pressure one (i.e, you’re going for the third element in a 180 sandwich, or you’ve only got Bully’s Special Prize left to collect) then the arrows move much quicker, making it harder to get an accurate shot. There is a relax button which centres the reticule over the middle, but it also has the habit of recalibrating the tilt which is a bit irritating. As a system it works fairly well, although a little bit of practice and you’ll be hitting your shots pretty much all the time. Phil Taylor would be proud, whether being able to hit 95% of what you intend to hit is fun in the context of a game like this is a slightly different matter.

You’re so bonkers, Jim!

Your options: you can play The Show which has all the rounds from the TV show (although they appear to have invented categories for the category board, and even then it’s a bit easy to just spam the Bullseye for an easy 200 points most times, and then the questions aren’t all that difficult and certainly don’t increase in difficulty with each round, and then you can’t buzz in and steal if an opponent gets it wrong, and then all the questions are multiple choice, and then Jim Bowen only apparently speaks in words that begin with a capital letter). You don’t know what prizes you are playing for on Bully’s Prize Board are until after you hit them, and even then Bully’s Special Prize is, like, just a microwave.

You can play the show with 1, 2 or 3 players, and if you are playing against the computer you very wisely have the option to skip what they’re doing and get an edited textual highlight.

What’s red, black and has darts thrown at it? No hang on, that’s not how it goes.

In other options, you can play any round you like, with a choice of how many players you want (in the first two rounds), or very sagely they’ve included a number of dart variations – 101, 301, 401, 501, Round the Clock, Call three (pick three numbers, opponent tries to hit them) and Tic-tac-toe (the darts equivilent of which I had never heard of, but it’s here and it works. Just about.)

The graphics are rather jolly (Jim Bowen’s mouth moves and everything) and the prizes are in the hilarious 80s stylee. It’s got the theme tune (well, it seems to have a version of the theme tune, which is either the Challenge one or a slightly off-synth version of it) and one of the Pounds for Points tunes, both of them on a combined loop will have you going mad. Tony Green shouts “it’s a Bullseye!” every time you hit a Bullseye.

It’s Bullseye.