Fruit Rocks is a Windows Phone game that calls upon you to use fruit trees and rocks to defend Earth against an alien invasion. The game is a side scrolling action title where you hurl apples and oranges from trees to destroy a variety of aliens that have decided to invade Earth.
The game also includes bonus items that can be shot with your fruit to give you an edge in taking out the alien monsters. Game play is challenging, cartoon graphics aren’t too shabby, and overall, Fruit Rocks is a fun game to pass the time with.
When you launch Fruit Rocks, you are presented with the option to register with Scoreoid, which allows you to participate in the online leaderboard. If you would rather not register, just tap cancel and you will be taken to the game’s main menu. You have to deal with this dialog box each time you launch the game and it would be nice to cancel this option permanently if you prefer not to register.
Fruit Rocks main menu has options to view the leaderboard (again, registration to Scoreoid is required), view the help screens, mute the sound/music and view the about screen. If you are playing the trial version, you will also see an option to purchase the full version for $.99 on the main menu. I did have an issue with the sound/music settings not remaining in place when I exited the game. This can be a little frustrating to have repeatedly mute the sounds every time you launch the game.
Fruit Rocks has thirty-four levels of play spread across three scenarios. Game play involves shooting fruit from trees to bash aliens into smithereens. You also have swinging rocks suspended by balloons and carried across the screen by helicopters to use against the aliens.
With each level of play, the field of play will scroll by ending at a Safe Zone. Your job is to take out the aliens as they scroll by. The more aliens you take out, the higher your score. Just be careful, you will lose points for every alien that survives and if six aliens survive your fruit onslaught, you fail the level.
To shoot the fruit, just tap, hold and pull back on the fruit. An aiming guide will appear and when things are lined up just right, release your hold on the screen to launch your fruit. Most fruit (oranges, apples, etc.) simply smash your aliens but the bananas act as a boomerang, traveling out a bit and then returning to the tree.
To launch your rocks just swipe at the string tying the rock to the balloons or helicopters, cutting the rocks loose. You will have to time the cut to use the rock’s momentum to guide the rock on to the alien.
To keep things interesting some aliens are positioned in structures that have to be destroyed, some aliens require multiple hits before they will go down and some will duck-n-dodge the fruit. You do have a few bonuses that you shoot with your fruit that will help even the playing field such as strategically placed dynamite bundles and bombs suspended in the sky.
Taking everything into consideration, Fruit Rocks is a fun game for your Windows Phone. Fruit Rocks is a challenging game that is more likely better suited for shorter gaming spurts. The one downside to the game is the number of gaming levels. Thirty-four levels do go by quickly and hopefully the developer can update the game with more levels soon.
Fruit Rocks is available for both Windows Phone 8 and 7.x devices. There is a trial version available that has six levels of play. The full version currently running $.99 and you can find Fruit Rocks here in the Windows Phone Store.
