"There are bombs littered all over the city and your job is to stop them from exploding" that's the premise of Bomb Disposal Unit 54, a new game that I have been playing on my iPad before it's official release in the App Store on 6th May. When I read the name of the game, and saw the opening comic-style intro screens, I was kind of expecting to be defusing bombs somehow. I'm not sure how, but maybe some kind of touchscreen wire-cutting exercise was going to be the order of the day. Perhaps I would have to undo the outer casing of a bomb without too much of a shaky finger lest it exploded? Nope, actually all I had to do was remember the sequence that some colours flashed in and play a game or six of 'pairs'. At first I was, perhaps understandably, a bit disappointed.
But then I started playing the game, or rather games, and that's when I forgot about the slightly misleading title and just started to enjoy having a mini version of Simon (for you oldies out there) to play. Plus the pairs game, which is always fun especially when you are being timed against the clock. Ditto the number sequencing game and the one which tests your reflex speed by getting you to hit a button within a second of it changing colour.
Each mini game is accessed by choosing to defuse a 'bomb' from a schematic of the city you are meant to be saving. The fewer 'bombs' left on the schematic, the harder the games they reveal become. Harder in terms of more things to remember and less time to remembering them in, that is. Don't expect any great variety in game play, because you won't get it. What you will get is a lot of fun if these kind of time-wasting mental agility tests are your bag. And if they are, then 69p seems a pretty decent asking price for what's a good looking implementation of the genre.
Click here to watch a video trailer of Bomb Disposal Unit 54
