If you like playing darts (and if you don’t why the heck not???), you should love the free Darts app for the iPhone …
I like playing darts. I spent a lot of time in London and, of course, in pubs in London. Drank an awful lot of good beer, and played a fair bit of darts. I’m a decent player, generally a bit more than decent after a couple pints 🙂 So I was very happy to find the Darts app for the iPhone a few weeks back.
Since installing it, it has rapidly become my favorite iPhone game, and one of my main distractions when watching (crappy) late night TV and using the iPhone 🙂 Read on for some quick thoughts on why I like it so much and more screencaps …
The first thing I liked about Darts is that it is very, very easy to get the hang of ‘throwing’ the darts, which I had worried would be awkward. Both aiming – via a rotating circle that you place over the spot (say the Trip 20 segment, for example) you want to aim for – and throwing (with a simple swipe gesture) felt natural to me within very few minutes.
When you first launch it, Darts lets you choose to practice, play against its AI, or get help.
The Help section is excellent – offering guidance on the game’s interface, as well as good rundowns on the rules of the two main darts games it offers, Cricket and X01. So even if you’re not too familiar with the rules, the app will get you going and understanding them quickly.
The two darts games it offers – Cricket and X01 (301, 501 etc) – are generally the most popular games when playing real darts. In addition to choosing which type of game you want to play, you can also set options like difficulty level (Beginner, Intermediate, and Master) and, with the 301/501 etc. games, whether you want to play straight in / straight off (no need to get a double to start the game or finish it), single on / double off (so a double is only required at the finish), or double-on / double-off (you need to hit a double to start scoring and a double to win).
I’ve played many games of both 501 and Cricket now, and the gameplay is excellent. The game responds quickly, shows just about no lag anywhere, and the DartBot’ you play against is not messing around refilling his glass when it’s his turn – he throws quickly every time so you can get straight back to teaching him how to play the game :).
Darts’ difficulty levels seem pretty reasonable to me as well, letting you ease into the game, but also providing a decent challenge as you move up the levels. You can also make it even more challenging by changing the throwing method (to ‘Original Flick’) from within the iPhone’s Settings app. You can also use the Settings-based options to set things like your player name, preferred dart color, whether sound effects are on, and so on.
Which reminds me, I also like the game’s sound effects quite a bit – the throwing sound is great, and I like the vibration effect you get when you hit a bullseye.
So far, I’ve honestly found nothing at all to gripe about with this app, and lots to love about it! The only thing that’s missing when I’m playing it is a lovely pint of Strongbow or Stella to improve my game just a little 🙂
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TAGS: iPhone App Store
