Here is a game that in general is geared more towards children, but adults might find it useful. Especially those who want to improve their knowledge of geography. It’s called Pinpoint and does require you to try to have pinpoint accuracy when locating countries and cities for the best score.
Pinpoint – main screen
The initial screen is a nice welcome to the game. The countries and cities fly by in the background as you see the world map in the background. You get easy access to which type of game you wish to play, find countries, cities or POI (Points of Interest – by far the most difficult I think). It has its own internal leaderboard and achievements. Plus easy on/of switches for sound and music, to find out how to play or email the developer. The only thing I was turned off by was the music. It sounds like you are in a circus at some points, other times it sounds like a game show. The game does related to a game show in some ways I guess, but still not a favorite. Of course turn it off if it bothers you.
Pinpoint – missed by too much
No matter which game mode you choose, the one you need to find next shows up in the lower left with the “host” telling you how you are going in the lower right. I like the information provided about each location (not that I had much time to read it) but I do wish it was done as a banner across the top. It is awkward to look in the lower right and then orient yourself to zooming in or out and moving the map find it. It isn’t awful, just would prefer it more front and center. Moving the map around is fairly quick using the mouse. I can’t try touch, and while the keyboard works, not my favorite method at all. The keyboard method is slow and you still have to use the mouse to choose the country – don’t use the keyboard (nice it is provided though). The one odd thing about the directions for touch, it tells you to use the “zoom in/zoom out “gesture. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to say “pinch” and “un-pinch” since that is the proper gesture?
Pinpoint – very close
After you make a choice for an answer, the game will provide you are score, unless you are hopelessly too far away, then you score nothing. The “host” in the corner also will offer up its commentary on how you did and how much you missed it by. It will also show you with flags on the map where you clicked, with a dotted line tracing to where you should have clicked. Again this is most helpful if trying to learn geography. Of which you can pause the game and click for the Wikipedia entry to learn more. I admire that aspect, but do you really want to interrupt the flow of the game to go read about a location? All the locations you visited should be on a summary page so you can look at after your game. There are some odd sounds when you make selections, I’d like to hear someone say “Legendary!” or “Meh” instead. I think it would up the fun factor.
Pinpoint – achievement unlocked
The game provides its own achievements to reach in the game. It has its own in-game type notification when you reach one. Very simple ones like “Find a country” to others that challenge you to find all 10 cities in a round. There isn’t anyway to brag here, so more for own personal goals. The leaderboard though is online. So you have the option to submit your scores to appear for overall, daily, weekly or monthly. The score above is in fact ranked #12 for today, woohoo! I admit that is on the Easy level. Each category has 3 levels of difficulty, but hey I’m on the board.
It has a few options, music/sound are available from the main screen the rest aren’t. The ones that aren’t simply provide which country you are in, to change your name that shows in the leaderboard and which language the places will be in. You get one final option, and that is to remove the ads. This charge is $2.49, a big steep in my opinion as it doesn’t get you anything extra in the game. Perhaps the extra points of interest not available now, will be part of that price in the future?
Summary
I found it challenging to locate cities and points of interest especially. I’m better with countries, so most of them were easy, though I had more difficulty with African and some European countries. I can definitely see the learning capabilities of the game and children should get some fun out of it. As mentioned the music isn’t so great and I think it would be more fun to have some fun sounds for getting answers right or wrong. The graphics fit the game well, nothing fancy, but nothing fancy needed. Finally the Wikipedia portion at the end of the game rather than during it and perhaps an added difficulty with just images for the points of interest. It could even be expanded to flags, lots of possibilities.
Rating
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Category: Games > Family |
Download size: 8.06 MB |
Age: 12+ |
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Publisher: Big 3 Software |
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Nice Review!