Game Reviews

Darts

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Darts
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What is it with all the darts games lately? Did we overindulge on variety with all the Olympics-themed sports games, and now feel it's time to come in doors for a pint and to chuck a few arrows? Then again, darts is the athletic outlet for the working classes, who admire a sportsman's ability to drink and excel at the same time.

It also stands up to close scrutiny that darts, rather surprisingly, translates well to the video game arena, particular mobile platforms. Most darts games naturally focus on precision - the single most important aspect of this kingly sport - but that's one of the few aspects of modern control systems the iPhone doesn't really boast.

The touchscreen requires a living finger to activate it, not an inanimate stylus, and the lack of physical buttons means there's no option for a cursor-controlled dart. Darts features a pretty intuitive system to represent the propulsion of those sporting missiles, requiring you to flick your finger up the screen to direct your darts.

The direction in which your finger moves across the screen determines the trajectory, so flicking up and left aims toward the '6' side of the board, while up and right takes the darts toward '11.' For the most part you naturally refine your throws to slice straight up the middle of the screen toward '20', but that doesn't necessarily mean a straight throw lands you an elusive treble.

The speed of your flick influences how high up the board the dart aims, so landing an arrow in the treble 20 is a case of drawing a straight line up the centre of the touchscreen at just the right speed. This method therefore accounts for both the X and Y axes that make for a professional pub athlete, and does so with more fluidity than almost any other video game interpretation has previously managed.

Unfortunately, the level of precision is even greater than playing real darts. Without too much practice, most able-handed drinkers can wring enough aptitude from a set of darts to hit the number they're aiming at - even if nailing the doubles and triples remains fairly elusive. Darts requires such delicate control that simply hitting the relevant quarter of the board (other than the relatively easy, straight throws toward the 20) is barely achievable. To be fair, your aim does improve with practice, but actually finishing a game by landing a double is consistently down to fluke.

Aiming into the two lower quarters of the board is prohibitively tricky. As such, the graceful throwing mechanics essentially go to waste when amusement gives way to frustration and apathy. It's an inherent flaw in the otherwise excellent aiming system. The game takes no account of the lateral position of your touch. Flicking your finger straight up the left hand edge of the iPhone and the dart still aims for the 20, for instance.

One final sore point is the lack of any two player action. Not that we're expecting wi-fi multiplayer or anything (though we wouldn't complain if such a feature were available), but a pass-to-play option is surely a given. Darts is restricted to single-player practice or playing a leg against the CPU (or DartBot, as it's wittily called), and although there are a few options for adjusting the game to suit, the only variation is playing Cricket instead of 501.

Essentially this is a great demonstration of how a game of darts could work on the iPhone, but the unrefined and overly critical aiming system means you'll never land a 180, and most likely won't even finish a single game without waiting for the DartBot to finally hit a double.

Darts

Half way toward a superb digital darts game, Darts misses the mark with a prohibitively unsympathetic aiming system
Score
Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.