Carnival Games Volume 2 Review

Carnival Games Volume 2 is not unlike its predecessor on iPhone or its console brethren. It plays more like a full-fledged game than it does a typical iOS app, but at its heart, it's a mini-games compilation.

You start the game by creating your character. You get to choose your character's face, hair and clothes. At the start of the game, there are a limited number of these options, but by earning tickets that you get from winning mini-games, you can purchase new shorts and shirts, for example. Once you've created your character, you enter the world of Carnival Games, which consists of a fairground with different mini-games scattered about.

All together, there are a little over ten mini-games in Carnival Games 2, which is comparable to the first iPhone version. 2K Play hasn't been lazy here. Mostly all of the mini-games in the app are an original effort, borrowing few if any ideas from its predecessor. Like any compilation, some of the mini-games are considerably better than others.

Hoops -- a basketball-throwing game -- for instance is one of the better ones in the title. You use the touchscreen to throw a basketball at a hoop – just like the real-life version encountered in so many fairs and carnivals across the country. In Quack Shot, you're tasked with tapping ducks moving across a background to shoot them and earn points. It's kind of easy, but it's one of the better mini-games. I also liked Go Fish, which challenges you to catch as many fish as possible. It's one of the more challenging mini-games too.

On the other side of the fence, though, there are the mini-games that just aren't so good. For example, there's Mini Golf, which just doesn't work well on a touchscreen. Your finger blocks your view of the course, and the whole experience is just awkward and not well-designed. Clown Splash is a mini-game in which you have to charge up enough water and then spray it into a moving clown's head. It's just kind of lame. There's also Day at the Races – a horse race in which your horse's speed is determined by playing a skee ball-esque game. The experience just doesn't carry over to a touchscreen too well, and it's not particularly entertaining.

In the end, Carnival Games 2 is a typical mini-games compilation. It's got its fun mini-games, and it's got its not-so-fun ones. Unfortunately, the game runs for $3.99, which is just too much for what you get.