iPhone App of the Week: Tap Tap Revenge Coldplay

Continuing in the tradition of the Guitar Hero franchise, the popular iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge has had its share of focus in a specific band: Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, and now, Coldplay.

Also in the same vein as aforementioned guitar game, the game has you strumming (or rather, tapping as the name suggests) to the tune of a specific song- that's after you choose it of course.

But before you start singing to Viva La Vida, you have to select the difficulty you want to tackle with "Kids" basically being "Easy" mode but with the option of being able to tap anywhere on the screen without failing, "Easy" being easy, "Medium" being slightly harder than easy, "Hard" being... hard and "Extreme" being a notch higher than "Hard".

See that check, those circles and that lock at the right of the song's name, artwork and artist name (which is basically Coldplay)? They are basically markers that determine whether you've passed the 85% mark. If it has a check, you've passed, and if it doesn't, it's either you haven't passed it or you have yet to play it. When half of those blank circles become checks, the lock becomes unlocked and you can play the "special song".

So let's say we're still on our way to unlocking the special song, and you've started a song.

At first, the screen shows a faint picture of the band, and suddenly, the white tappers come in. Personally, I like the spherical tappers in the 3D plane better, but the 2D plane utilized by Coldplay is also pretty decent.

As you progress, the background color changes, the pictures change, and the screen lights up. It's a really nice effect. Garner enough points though and you can swing your way into Butterfly mode, aka, Revenge mode, aka, Overdrive, aka, Star Power which basically doubles the amount of points you can earn.

After the song ends, you're able to see how you did, as well as send your score to the online leaderboard, challenge a friend who has Tap Tap Coldplay, or if you're in a Wi-Fi zone, visit Coldplay's website, or buy the specific song on iTunes so you can sync it to your computer when you connect your iPod touch or iPhone.

After you play enough songs, you're now able to play the "special song".

Basically, the layout of the game becomes radically different from usual, the background becomes even more interactive (eg, the song's lyrics appear on screen) and... yeah, it's purely cosmetic.

But unlike Tap Tap Dance before it, you can now access any difficulty on the spot instead of having to play on Easy to unlock Medium then playing Medium to unlock Hard and so on. Personally, it's not much of a problem, but the compelling-ness of having to unlock the last song in a difficulty becomes rather moot due to the fact that you can play that song in the next difficulty anyway- except Expert, of course.

Aside from that, the same problems that these kinds of narrow-focused games have arise: no downloadable content, a premium fee (unlike Tap Tap Revenge 2 which is free), and no online play. There are also no band-specific gameplay mechanics at least, so basically, the game is very much identical to Tap Tap Revenge 2 in that front.

Obviously, this game is geared for Coldplay fans like me, who just want their Coldplay fix to be more interactive.

Rating: 7.5/10