Fruit Ninja had better watch out, because the App Store now has a new graduate of the Cordon Bleu School of Deadly Arts. Veggie Samurai, for all intents and purposes, is an unabashed clone, but it makes a few slight improvements to try and balance out the utter lack of creativity.
Fruit Ninja, for those who haven't played it, is a simple high-score game by Halfbrick Studios with a unique concept: Slice up fruit as it flies through the air, and avoid the bombs. It soared to the top of the iTunes charts after it was featured in Apple's New and Noteworthy section, and it has remained a top seller ever since.
She's choppin' broccoli.
The creators of Veggie Samurai, Quantum Squid, noticed Fruit Ninja's success and thought, "Anything you can do, I can do better." They set out to reverse-engineer Fruit Ninja, adding "dicing" to the slicing action (allowing you to chop veggies four times instead of twice), a few extra combos, and a Harmony mode with no bombs and a time limit. Oh, and you're chopping up a completely different type of healthy foodstuffs.
As reviewers, we have to give a big fat F for originality to Quantum Squid for this unabashed rip-off. We think creativity should be rewarded and imitators shunned. But then again, we've given iPhone "clones" of Diablo, Grand Theft Auto 3, and Halo our highest ratings-- and Game of the Month status. At least those games set their sights a bit higher than Veggie Samurai has.
Cooking with Wolverine.
While we wish Veggie Samurai had taken more than a half-step away from Fruit Ninja, Quantum Squid still did a pretty admirable job of ripping them off. The veggies animate quite nicely, especially on the high-res iPad, and you can use extensive multitouch to turn your fingers into a Cuisinart. A few little touches, like exploding pea pods in Harmony mode, are simple but clever.
In the end, we are disappointed that this game is so closely related to Fruit Ninja, but it does make an effort to top it. If you already own Fruit Ninja, you probably don't need to own Veggie Samurai as well. We're sure that with the added competition, many of Veggie Samurai's minor innovations will soon end up in Fruit Ninja as well.
11 Comments
A lot of people with ipad's don't give a **** if it's just like fruit ninja, fruit ninja isn't iPad native and many iPad owners would rather have an iPad native game. If it's a good game is the only thing that matters, and Veggie Samuarai is a damn good game on it's own, giving it a 2 because its like another game is really low on your part.
I thought this was a review site; not a propaganda portal! I like fruit ninja for the iphone and I like veggie samurai for the ipad... why would you give veggie samurai a bad rating because it is a clone of another game? What does that have to do with the fun factor or quality of game? Review fail.
They even ripped of the "zen" game mode. Really? Guys, how about give us at least 1 original game mode. Don't copy EVERYTHING ffs. The only new thing here is "dicing". E for effort.
I agree with Karma32. You're job is to review the game and say if it's good and worth buying. There is no iPad fruit ninja. Review FAIL indeed.
This is a pretty bad and unprofessional review. Should be removed and re-reviewed by another reviewer.
Very untrustworthy.
Your brain is untrostworthy
Docking points for a game being a complete and total rip off of another game is 100% reasonable. Long live Fruit Ninja!
Agreed with Karma 32. Such a horrible review.
Gave it a 2 because it's a Fruit Ninja-like game? I like Fruit Ninja ado, but this too is also a REALLY good game and just be reviewed accordingly.
How is anyone supposed to take Andrew's reviews seriously from now on? I definitely won't.
Thank god the reviewer is not a car industry journalist.. most of his scores will be pretty low since all cars now are ripoffs of each other..
One of the few unfair reviews coming out of STP every year... someone please re-review this.
The point of a review is to show weather the app is a good game or not. This review and its score does not reflect this at all and thus as others have pointed out, this is absolutely an unprofessional & horrible review.
Please do your site a favor and get rid of this review. Maybe get rid of the reviewer from your site while you're at it.
I disagree with all of the supporters of this game (probably the developers I suspect) and agree with this review. Fruit Ninja is such a great game, I think that not only should Veggie Samurai lose points in this review for completely ripping off Fruit Ninja, but they should lose more points for doing such a crap job of it.
The veggies look crap, the audio is crap and Fruit Ninja looks just as good when scaled up x2 on the iPad. I can't wait for Fruit Ninja HD... does anyone know if this is coming soon or what is happening on this front??
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