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Tic Tac UltimatePosted in Board on 29 Dec 2008 |
 Reviewed by Steve Litchfield |
  (6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)  Loading ... |
Editor’s rating: 
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Boy, oh boy. Tic Tac Toe on an iPhone. Don’t the developers know how boring this game is, and how it always ends in a draw? But hold on, this implementation takes Tic Tac Toe and thrusts it into the 23rd century. Literally. You remember the 3D chess that Mr Spock liked to play on the starship Enterprise (in Star Trek)? – This has similar mind-mangling potential, lifting it from a pointless puzzle to a cracking challenge.
You see, not contenting itself with the traditional 3×3 grid, there’s also a 3×3x3 grid – yes, Tic Tac Ultimate takes the game into the third dimension – this alone makes it a bit more interesting, since it’s more of a challenge to keep abreast of which lines might be formed where, but the blocking out of the central position means that combinations are still reasonably simple. Incidentally, the block is because a piece on that position would be too much of an advantage to either player.
So far so average. But now ramp things up to the ‘4th’ degree, with a 4×4x4 grid. And no blocked out positions. So there are 64 possible positions to place your first counter on and 74 possible lines of four and general combinations. Most importantly, the mental gymnastics needed to keep track of what’s going to line up with what means that Tic Tac Ultimate in 4×4x4 mode is for someone who really fancies a challenge. Some may head for ‘Brain Training’ exercises to keep their brain working, day to day – I’d wager that Tic Tac Ultimate provides a much stiffer workout for the old grey matter, at a tiny fraction of the price. And, with its emphasis on 3D geometry and spatial awareness, there’s a healthy balance of left brain/right brain activity, too.
Extras include four ‘themes’ (counter sets, backgrounds, board styles), two scoring methods (one includes a timer, with points being racked up for moving before the countdown runs out), three AI difficulty levels and a lovely set of built-in Help screens. The only missing feature is online play, but this is easily forgiven, for now.
I can’t quite believe that I’m giving five stars to version 1.0 of a Tic Tac Toe game but, trust me, they’ll still be playing this in space on the Enterprise in two hundred years time.
