iPad Review: Blokus HD - Addictive Multiplayer Fun

With the hit-or-miss nature of App Store games every purchase is a game of chance in itself. Luckily, when App Store games are great, they are really great. Blokus HD is one of those great games, with addictive gameplay, various modes and multiplayer done right. You won’t want to let this award winning board game go un-downloaded.

For those not yet on the Blokus fan bus here’s a quick overview of what you’ve been missing. Blokus is the award winning strategy-based puzzle game. In fact, it’s officially the most awarded board game of the century. To play, four players compete to fit as many of their “Tetris” shapes onto a board. The catch is, pieces can only be placed at the point of a shape, where two sides meet. It’s part Tetris, part chess, and a whole lot of fun.

Gameloft’s Blokus HD excels in just about everything most other App Store games fail at. For starters, newcomers who have never even heard of Blokus, let alone played a round, will quickly get the hang of things after a few minutes spent with the title’s in-depth tutorial system. Which is important because chances are you’re going to be playing Blokus HD with friends and family and if they don’t know the rules they are going to need a quick rundown of the basic strategy.

Whether you’re playing with friends or by yourself Blokus has a mode for you. Single players can have fun participating in round-after-round action in Tournament mode or play a quick 5 minute match in Quick Play.

Where Blokus HD really shines though is in its Multiplayer modes. There are 3 types of mutiplayer fun based on where and how you wish to play. Hot Seat mode is similar to Pass N’ Play mode in EA’s Scrabble where one iPad gets passed around up to 4 players. Local Mode is used for when players (2- 4) all have iPads and want to play a round on a shared Wi-Fi connection. Online Mode, the most exciting multiplayer mode by far, allows players all over the world to play a round of Blokus HD together.

Not many App Store games make use of online multiplayer, which is a really horrible thing, considering you’re not always going to be on the same Wi-Fi network as the friends you want to play with. What makes Blokus’ online multiplayer standout though is Gameloft’s very intuitive invite system. In order to play with your friends online all you have to do is have their Gameloft screen name and send them a quick invite and you’ll be playing in no time. If you’re a console or PC gamer the invite system should feel very familiar to you. There’s no need to be your Aunt’s friend on Facebook just to play a simple round of Blokus like EA’s Scrabble forces you to do. Gameloft makes things simple, like everything on the Apple devices are meant to be.

Blokus HD isn’t perfect though. The game’s most irritating elements are found in its controls. Moving, flipping, and especially rotating a Blokus piece doesn’t work as smoothly as it should. Rotating a piece in any way always takes a couple of tries. This is easily fixed with an update and isn’t anything that should prohibit you from purchasing the game.

I’ve played some decent iPad games and many awful ones since launch day and none have been remotely comparable to the amount of fun as GameHouse’s Plants vs. Zombies HD. Playing Blokus HD has changed that. It is easily one of the best iPad games in the App Store, second only to Plants vs. Zombies HD and rightfully deserves to take up a spot on your iPad desktop.