Author: Andrew Hayward

Shattering a pane of glass can bring a moment of sheer joy — or abject terror, depending on intentions — but the resulting expense and hassle rarely balance out the fun. Smash Hit provides a remarkably vivid simulation of splintering glass, letting you toss metal balls at shiny digital sheets and watch the shards fly, but it’s not a gimmick app. That sensation instead forms the core of an entertaining and smartly balanced survival game, wherein precise timing and aiming let you continue crashing ahead through the colorful levels.

Viewed from a first-person perspective with a thankfully light UI overlay, Smash Hit propels you steadily forward through minimal block-based worlds, where large panes of glass — most moving or popping up from out of view — and little blue crystals await your attention. Tapping the screen heaves a metal ball, which removes one from your tally, and you’ll keep moving ahead so long as you have at least one sphere at hand. Clearing crystals adds to your stockpile, while hitting 10 crystals in a row triggers a multi-ball modifier, which adds an extra one to each toss (up to five total) without further draining the count.

Smash Hit only tallies your total distance — there’s no score awarded for smashing glass or throw accuracy, for example — so resisting the urge to break everything and focusing on managing inventory becomes paramount. Some panes of glass might not be in your straight-ahead path; don’t waste tosses on those. Only the panes in your path need to be cleared, as running into one deducts 10 balls, which will cut down a solid run in a hurry. Conserve tosses, be vigilant, and maintain the multi-ball effect, and you’ll push on and on through each uniquely designed area. Later locales introduce a spinning screen effect or amp up the speed, and the intriguing twists keep this free-to-play offering exciting.

Starting over from scratch each run can turn a bit tiring, since the early areas are slow-paced, simple, and never-changing, so it’s worth paying the one-time $1.99 fee within to unlock use of checkpoints, which let you pick back up at a previous spot with the same number of balls you had back when. That makes it a lot easier to learn individual areas, and lets you focus on the more enticing later content — though it’s still worth starting from scratch from time to time to improve your overall run and then dig deeper into what Smash Hit has to offer.

The bottom line. Smash Hit turns the simple pleasure of shattering glass into an enjoyable arcade-style cruise through abstract terrain.

Most notable stealth-action games — including Metal Gear Solid, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and Mark of the Ninja — make sneaking about and leaving enemies undisturbed merely an option, also providing the ease and capability of dealing out death as desired. Not so in the first episode of République, which follows Hope, a teenage girl held captive for possessing revolutionary materials within the school of a totalitarian regime. Aside from wielding the occasional pepper spray bottle or a one-time-use taser, she’ll need to creep around every corner and stay totally unseen to avoid being recaptured. And unlike in the average stealth affair, you’re not even directly controlling her actions.

Instead, you’ll take the role of a disillusioned security worker, who helps free Hope and shepherd her through the facility by viewing her surroundings via closed-circuit video cameras and sending directives to her device. It’s an approach well suited for a touch interface, as you can simply tap to direct Hope towards her next destination (including leaned up against a wall, or crawling through a vent opening), switch cameras, “hack” open locks, or trigger a contextual action, like pickpocketing a guard when his back is turned. You’re essentially still controlling her in the end, but that kind of context helps explain why the touch-centric mechanics are simpler than in the average genre entry.

It’s all very streamlined, but there’s still room for tactical thinking — and it’s a necessary level of simplification to make a console-inspired game like this work comfortably on iPad and iPhone. Navigating the world via cameras has its clumsy moments; the slow panning and limited views mean you may swap between a few such feeds to get through a single area. That may help build atmosphere, but it’s still kind of a pain. Yet aside from the occasional misplaced movement marker, République does a stellar job of reading your taps and giving you solid control of Hope, even without active movement inputs. That said, the depth of interaction seen in this initial episode had better be just a taste of what’s to come, or else things could get repetitive very quickly down the line.

We don’t see all that much of République’s world in Exordium, the first of five planned episodes; mostly sterile hallways and security rooms, plus a more lavishly decorated library and surrounding areas — but the detailed visuals still impress, aside from the occasional animation glitch, and the voice acting is also excellent. Exordium unfolds a few small bits of narrative across its three-or-so-hour runtime, but it’s never quite clear what that’s all leading to. Like most initial entries in episodic series, it’s content to set the table for the later chapters, but what it teases is plenty enough to generate intrigue and keep you around for further installments. And we love its unique personality amidst what could have been a very dry kind of environment; the little jokes keep things lively, while collectable Atari-esque game cartridges based on other iOS games are a wonderful touch.

The bottom line. Streamlined stealth and an intriguing premise blend well to get République off to a promising start in Exordium.

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