Axe in Face review

Arm yourselves! The vile, scummy, and generally rude villains have come to commit dastardly vile, scummy, and generally rude deeds! You are Red Beard. Protect what is most important to you and CUT those villain’s in half with your super axe! And what are you protecting!? What is so important to warrant a decapitation?!? Daffodils… Of course! Released by Blue Carrot Games, Axe in Face is available on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad for $0.99.

I laughed when I read the name. I laughed when the introduction cutscene played. I laughed when I first saw that my axe would slice a dude’s head off… for a bed of flowers. I got to admit, I never saw this coming and was taken by surprise by its premise. You draw a line on the field and your axe will follow your line after you let go. Enemies walk towards your bed of flowers and to defend it, you have to slice them with your axe. The key is timing your throw so that the enemies walk into the path. Remember, don’t attack where they are, attack where they will be. It’s a great system of defense and it’s extremely intuitive after the first time. Remember though, you only have one axe, so throw cautiously.

The art is well designed with short little characters and tiny mountains in the background. The field has enough decoration to feel detailed and the enemies come with a variety and it’s really fun to draw specific lines against specific units. For example, if the enemy is holding a tree (yes, they hold the entire tree), you have to guide your axe into a camp fire to grant it a flaming touch and then hit the dude with the tree to kill them. It’s a nice twist on the base defense style.

You also have a super power where you summon the powers of the gods to freeze or shock your enemies after you collect the blood capsules your enemies randomly drop after you slice their heads off. You gather points for how many enemies you can kill in one throw, how far away they are when you hit them, and depending on how efficient you are, you get graded trophies at the end of the level. It’s all very well put together and to be honest, it’s very motivating.

Outside its unique premise, Axe in Face presents nicely, has a decent music and sound, and has a solid gameplay design. So this is a proclamation for all readers of this review: Go grab an axe. Defend your daffodils. Grow a large red beard. Do it now or else AXE IN FACE!

Here is a video demo of the Axe in Face app on the iPhone

AppSafari Rating: 5/5

AppSafari review of Axe in Face was written by Joseph Ho on October 25th, 2010 and categorized under Action, App Store, Featured, Fun, Games, Line Drawing. Page viewed 4440 times, 1 so far today. Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page.