App Review No. 26 Fruit Ninja

Strong Points:
Great and innovative gameplay
All three modes are good fun
Lots of achievements
Lots of unlockable blades and stages
Premise of a Fruit Ninja is original
Lots of levels
Addictive
Competitive
Minigames and tournaments add more variety to the game (removed as of version 2.3.3)

Weak Points:
Blades/stages are only unlocked by spending the in games currency of starfruit (as of version 2.0 and removed as of version 2.3.3 - now unlocked by leveling up)

Besides graphically the blades and swords don't affect gameplay at all (no longer an issue as of version 2.0)
There aren't enough types of fruit!

In-depth Review:

Release Dates:

World Wide: April 21, 2010

Controls:

Swipe the touch screen to slice fruit

Touch the touch screen to activate menu controls and powerups

Why do ninja's hate fruit? Why can blades be brought with starfruit? Who is Sensei? These were the questions running through my head when first played the game. Then (after slicing a few hundred fruit) I realized that I no longer cared. All my questions had been overtaken by images of the spilt juice of oranges and the crisp sound of an apple's skin being sliced open. I was one with the ninja (the fruit ninja, mind).

The idea of the game is that ninja's hate fruit (for some reason) and want to slice as much of the stuff as possible. You do this by using your finger as a sword and running your finger over said fruit. While doing this, you have the option to do certain things such as slice so many bananas to playing a whole zen mode game while holding your phone upside down. By doing these things, you can unlock blades and stages for your enjoyment. There are also three modes (classic, zen and arcade) that change the gameplay of the game completely. 

In classic mode, all you have to do is slice the fruit without letting one fall or hitting a bomb. Sound easy? It is! But then you start to lose concentration. Your fingers get dry from slicing. And then... BAM! You get a bomb to the finger sword. I guess that's one of the main points of this game- don't lose concentration! But at least you gain one life back (lost after dropping a fruit, bomb=instant game over) after you get 100 points so it’s not that bad. Oh, wait, yes it is, 100 points is quite a bit in this game.

Zen mode is much calmer tasking you only to slice as much fruit as possible in 90 seconds. Drop a fruit and nothing happens and even better, no bombs! You have all this time to concentrate on combos and taking out your anger on fruit and... time’s up! Wait, what? That was quick, maybe 90 seconds isn't as long as I thought.

Arcade mode is the most different tasking you with slicing as much fruit as possible in 1 minute (and I thought 90 seconds was short) but then things get a little different. Bananas. Freeze, double and frenzy. Let's do this. Freeze does what it says (freezes time and slows the fruit down), double makes every fruit slice equal 2 fruit slices and frenzy chucks loads of fruit from the sides of the screen. Then at the end of the game, you get three bonuses that give you more points for doing things like not dropping any fruit, hitting so many bananas or not hitting a bomb. Oh, did I forget them? The bombs in this mode though are not quite as bad in classic. Instead of an instant game over it just minuses 10 points.

Finally, Gutsu and Truffel's cart. This is the newest update to the game and lets you spend starfruit (gained at the end of games and by slicing randomly appearing star fruit) in order to buy a choice of three power ups: bomb deflects, berry blasts and peachy times. Bomb deflects does what it says and berry blast means that strawberries explode when you slice them and give you five points. Peachy times gives you extra time in zen and arcade mode when you slice a peach.

Overall this game is amazingly addictive and makes you want to keep coming back so as to beat your score. Added to this is the amount of extra content in the game that makes the game that much more fleshed out. A must buy and it's time to slice some fruit!

Rating: 92%

Goodbye for now, Harry

Update: 4 new blades and whole new challenges (as well as a new background)! Start the New Year with a bang with the new challenges! Think you've mastered fruit ninja? Think again. These challenges act as missions making you slice 500 fruit or play so many games of arcade mode and so on in order to get starfruit. Oh, and the layout of the game looks much better now as well.

Update: two new blades (Soap and Autumn Gust) for all you ninja cleaners out there! Well, someone's got to clean up the fruit juice, haven't they?

Update: is it hot in here? Well if it wasn't before then it certainly is now. Why? Because of the new Magma and Laser Pointer Blades, that's why. But boy do they make it hot! That Ice Blade would be really helpful right about now...

Update: welcome novice to the biggest Fruit Ninja update ever! First of all, the menus have been redesigned using the Efficient Blade (patent pending) to make getting to slicing fruit more... well, efficient than ever before! Next up are some awesome blade and dojo powers, courtesy of Blades and Dojos. Inc. Unlock these powers with the new experience and levelling system from 'The Student becomes the Master.com'. Finally, introducing Fruitasia, the world that you've been slicing fruit in for all these years! And, not only that, but two new characters (Katsuro and Mari) have taken residence in the dojo! More characters are promised soon. 

Update: who you gonna call? Fruit Ninja's! Celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Ghostbusters with the Ghostbuster's Blade, Ghostbuster's Dojo and Ghostbuster's Fruit! Eerie fruit slicing is sure to follow. 

Update: the Ninjas are back and they've brought a Chainsaw Blade! It turns out that they felt that slicing fruit was too kind and, so, have decided to shred them instead. A (pretty good) side effect of this is that every hit is a critical. Also, local multiplayer has been brought to iPhone and iPod Touch!

Update: ninja's have now been slicing fruit for five years! And, so, let the celebrations begin! Introducing the Anniversary Tournament where you can defeat six iconic opponents to unlock a powerful new blade! As well as this, there are six unique mini games where you can practice your ninja skills and gather Golden Apples to use in the tournament! Oh, and as for that blade... introducing the Golden Ember Blade (and a nice score multiplier to boot)! Happy anniversary Fruit Ninja!

Update: the level cap has been raised and there are now another 100 levels to unlock, including some juicy surprises! Starfruit and Golden Apples are gone and your stockpile has been converted into xp! Completing missions now unlocks power-ups! The celebrations are over and the classic interface has returned and, with it, goes the mini-games and tournaments