NY // Tony Karakashian // Aug 31, 2009.

Ski ball typically just entails getting the ball down the lane and trying to skillfully get it into one of the higher-point valued baskets at the end. There’s a couple of games in the AppStore that duplicate the game, but it’s not a game that translates well to a portable platform. Ramp Champ gets around the potentially boring interpretations by combining ski ball with a carnival style shooting gallery.

The game comes from the AppStore with four different variations on the game to play. Each one has little moving targets that you’re supposed to hit with the ball, with harder to hit targets being worth more points, as expected.

Eye-candy

The four different games are beautifully rendered and this is easily one of the best looking games I’ve seen on the platform so far. Game play varies a little depending on the incarnation as well. The Space Swarm version, for example, plays a very loving homage to the classic Space Invaders. It even has a flying saucer that speeds by from time to time. Game play is very smooth, and those thinking this game looks too easy really need to give it a try. That was my opinion on first seeing it, but it is a lot harder than it looks to get the ball to go to exactly the right spot….just like in the real game.

Tickets

But, throwing a ball down the lane isn’t the whole of the ski ball experience, is it? There’s also the thrill of winning tickets that you can then take over to the bored guy at the prize booth so you can get really crappy prizes for your effort. The Iconfactory and DS Medialabs didn’t forget this critical part of the experience when designing this gem. At the end of each round of balls, a line of tickets will spit out.

The number is, of course, dependent on your score. Once you’ve amassed a sufficient quantity, you can hit the “Redeem” item on the lower bar and you’re taken to the in-game prize counter where you can spend those tickets on everything from a plastic kazoo to a little Tron lightbike model. Each version of the game has its own page on the prize bar, so there’s a lot of crap to choose from. New levels purchased (more on that later) also bring their own themed prize page.

The prizes don’t just stop at redeeming tickets, either. Each level will have a number of goals you can try to meet like “Destroy First Wave” in Space Swarm or “Score over 10,000 PTS.” in Clown Town. When you meet these goals, you’re given a trophy that you can put on your loot wall to show off your prowess for everyone who looks at your iPhone to see…which is probably just you, but who cares? I got a trophy!

In-app purchase

Ramp Champ also takes advantage of OS 3.0’s in-app purchasing abilities. For $1.99, you get the four levels included with the game, but for just 99 cents each, you can get add-on packs, each of which adds two more games you can play (Did I mention you can play any game at any time? You’re not limited to doing them in any kind of order.) 99 cents for what amounts to two additional full games is not a bad value at all, and the in-game purchasing works really well indeed. Just a couple of taps, enter your password and you’ve got more games to play.

Conclusion

Aside from one minor issue, I really have nothing bad to say about this game. It’s beautiful, entertaining, just difficult enough to be fun, encompasses the entirety of the ski ball/old time arcade experience and even allows you to get crappy loot that you don’t have to fill up a junk drawer to hold. That being said, those magnificent graphics must be memory intensive as I found game play to be spotty from time to time.

It was apparent the issue wasn’t with the game itself, just that there wasn’t enough memory to run it, a limitation everyone who still has a 3G has to live with. If you have a 3GS, which has twice the memory, you shouldn’t have any issue with the game. I found a reboot helped, as is usually the case. I can’t penalize the authors for that, though.

Rating

5 tickets out of 5, with a bonus trophy for the ease with which one
can get additional levels! Unfortunately, you need 32 tickets to get
the plastic kazoo…