Physics games are a lot of fun to play, as evident by the success of the Angry Birds franchise and other games on our 10 Best Physics Games list. Gamers love playing as birds or crazy creatures as they progress from one stage to the next. But what about a game where you play as an elderly woman trying to prevent a thief from stealing her apples?

Granny Smith was so odd I had to download it right away when I saw it in the App Store. A game where you play as an old lady on roller skates who crashes through buildings and walls? I'd play that for $0.99. Granny Smith has to collect all of the apples on each stage before some young hooligan beats her to it. Donning her roller skates and cane, she glides, flies, somersaults and crashes through each stage in order to retrieve them.

The physics work pretty good. It'll take some practice to get good at landing Granny after jumps. A simple two-button control scheme is all that's required to play. One button to jump, the other to hook her cane on a wire, pole, etc. Use Granny's momentum to your advantage to get ahead of the punk kid and snag the apples before he does. One forgiving thing about Granny Smith is even if you don't get any of the apples, as long as you cross the goal line, you'll have completed the stage. Which is kind of odd.

Granny Smith
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Graphics are bright with nice colors and they reminded me of some goofy Saturday morning cartoon. The music is pretty pleasant. It's actually jazzy piano music that an old person would listen to while sitting on their rocking chair on the front porch. Ok, I'll be honest, I have no idea what old people listen to while sitting on their porch.

Once you've passed the level, the game shows a replay of the race in black-and-white, with different camera angles and slow motion shots of Granny smashing through windows or houses. It's really neat because you see all of the expressions she makes, something you don't notice at first because the gameplay is so fast.

Granny Smith
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After you've cleared each world (there are three for a total of 36 levels) you unlock the characters of Scruffy the dog and Stanley, an old man. Their physics didn't seem as good as Granny's for some reason. I'm not sure if it's really the same physics with just a different skin, but I wasn't able to clear levels as easily with them as I was with her, so I just switched to Granny if I was having a problem. Scruffy seemed slow and Stanley seemed to have a harder time hooking on to things.

Granny Smith
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Power-ups are available for purchase in the form of hard hats to blast you through obstacles cleaner, baseballs to throw at the thief and banana peels to cause him to slip up. Fun to buy but you can clear most levels without them. Granny Smith is a pleasant distraction, even though you'll get through the three worlds in a day. But with the promise of new worlds coming, you at least know you're getting some more great content for your dollar.

 

App Store Link: Granny Smith for iPhoneiPad | By Chillingo | Price: Free | Version: 1.0 | 30.8 MB | Rating 9+

7.5 out of 10 arcade sushi rating

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