Game Review: Waves (Mobile – Free to Play)

Prolific mobile developer, Voodoo’s latest free to play offering continues their trend of easy to pick up and play, very addictive but light on content games. Waves puts you in control of a boat with the simple aim to make it as far as you can before you run out fuel and without flipping the boat.

This review is for version 1.2.1.

Press the screen to start the boat moving and hit the first ramp. The boat will be launched into the air and as you hold your finger on the screen, the boat will start flipping. Make sure it’s the right way up when you land to keep going. Should you get a perfect landing the speed of the boat will increase and you’ll get some additional fuel.

The further you make it and the more flips you manage will gift you with coins that can then be spent on levelling up your boat. This is an interesting idea from Voodoo and surprisingly, the game is very generous with coins. You can level up the speed of the boat, the fuel tank capacity, how many coins you get for flipping and your offline earnings.

You’ll really notice the difference in gameplay once you do start levelling the categories up. Some flips launching the boat so high in the air you’ll be able to flip into double figures!

It’s fun and its addictive but there is absolutely nothing else to the game. No new boats to buy, no new stages to play, no challenges and missions to complete. Set a high score, earn some coins then spend them. It’s one of the lightest Voodoo games out there.

That wouldn’t be a problem mostly as it’s a free to play game however, Waves has some of the most over the top ads seen in a while. After almost every turn is followed by an ad. You’re talking about 10-20 seconds of gameplay before an ad starts. When your fuel runs out or your boat flips you can continue briefly by watching an ad. Ads everywhere. It’s so over the top but of course you can pay to remove them.

Sticking to type, Voodoo ask the shocking and hilariously high amount of £2.99 to remove ads from the game. Now bear in mind everything that was written above…how on earth can they justify that price!? No-one in their right mind would pay that and after a short while of being assaulted by the constant ads it’s more likely this is a game that will be deleted. It’s not like there is much else to do once you’ve reached a certain distance and level.

The addictiveness and simplicity of it is worth praising. However, the over the top ads and bare-bones content make this one to avoid ultimately.