Review: Othello

Posted by Jesse | Filed under Games, Reviews

Rating: 1

Othelle for iPhoneI’ve been a huge Othello fan since I first discovered it years and years ago on my old Windows machine as Reversi. I’m a very competitive gamer (I hate to lose) so I spent many games on the hard difficulty losing horribly but picking up on the regular strategies until I got to be pretty decent. Now I consider myself a pretty well skilled Othello player.

I first downloaded Morocco, the first iPhone othello app, and have enjoyed it a lot, despite its lack of polish. I was excited to try out Othello for a more polished and visually pleasing experience. Unfortunately, Othello does not deliver.

The graphics are definitely pretty, but the gameplay is anything but. The AI in this little app is a mess. Once you get past the first 10 moves or slow things start to get extremely sluggish. You can make your move just fine, but it will take the game a solid 5-10 secs at least before every move it makes. To make matters even worse… when with this extra processing time - this game is dumb. Even on the “expert” difficulty, it was routinely making moves that anyone who plays more than a game or two knows to avoid.

Though the interface in Othello is much cleaner than that of Morocco, I much prefer a graphically rough interface over extremely slow response times and dumb AI.

Permalink | July 21st, 2008

2 Responses to “Review: Othello”

  1. olredeyes Says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 1:39 pm

    I did exactly the same thing! Played Othello a few times then uninstalled. I was not impressed by the poor gameplay and I didn’t like Morocco’s quirks and rough GUI. Then I downloaded Reversi by ‘kiss the machine’ and I was happy! Polished GUI, strong gameplay. Every othello player should get this. Well priced too, I would pay more for it.

  2. Jesse Says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 10:48 pm

    Nice, Kiss The Machine’s “Reversi” does look like a good mix of good gameplay, reliability, and clean graphics/interface. Though Reversi isn’t free like Morrocco and Othello are, at $1.99 it’s a pretty decent price.

    Guess what they say is true, you get what you pay for. =)

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