Halos Fun Review

Halos Fun is a kid friendly app that's also aimed to spotlight Halos California mandarins. The combination of an orange with an angelic twist is a bit odd, but who knew peanut better and jelly could taste so good? Whether you're in a heavenly state or just have a bit of citrus on the brain, this game is free to play, and that's great news from the get go.

Life is good for these mandarins, until a bunch of raccoons decided to steal all their halos. With the aid of a slingshot, slide and hold your finger to aim your orange at your target. Releasing your finger propels the orange into what is hopefully a collection of halos. The goal of each level is to grab all the halos with the use of the minimum amount of mandarins. Even though many of the stages should be solved within seconds, certain levels will require a healthy amount of oranges to throw, especially puzzles that have way too many blockades in the way.

The actual game play is, as the title suggests, absolutely fun. Slinging oranges unto the target may get boring after a few minutes, but they also have the power to leap even higher if they hit the right pin or bumper. Once they ricochet off any of these objects, press on your device to have them leap even higher. Often your mandarin will collect halos by simply bumping and jumping around from pin to pin, giving the app a pinball element to the action. To unlock bonus levels or extra surprises, such as getting the chance to have raccoons pop in and out of your puzzles, make sure you leap as high as possible and grab the golden sticker. It took me several stabs, but my mandarin eventually bounced in the right direction.

Although the visuals are less than inspiring, Halos Fun effectively captures a sunny and colorful atmosphere, an environment best suited for these adventurous mandarins. This is also a free to play app that has no in-app purchases, a rare occurrence in iOS gaming. Add in a solid enough puzzle play experience, and this app is worth the download, especially if you have children in need of a calcium fix.

Still, don't expect too much from this kid centric app. After playing over 49 levels, very few curve balls were thrown may way. The mandarins may have shifted their halo hunt from a lush green field to the desert, but the difference is way too slight to hold my continued attention.

Halos Fun is an enjoyable enough experience that should appeal to physics puzzler lovers. It's also an entertaining teaching tool for kids, so that's also a huge plus. I may have wanted a bit more pulp in my gaming juice, but I'll return to my mandarins now and again, especially since grabbing a few halos can only help my karma.

6.5 out of 10 arcade sushi rating