CarWash 3D

I've pushed this review to the top because the developers are having a content based on high scores in the game in which you can win a Droid. So what's the game about?

Simply put, it's yet another play on the often imitated, seldom replicated Flight Control formula. In this game you are guiding cars to a car wash. Now, my initial assumption was that this might be a competitor to something like Car Traffic Control that I reviewed last week. No. This car wash eats your cars when it's done... they never pull out of the other side requiring you to safely guide them off screen (as would have made more sense to me). As it is, there's a single car wash in the middle of the screen and as the game progresses more 'doors' are added for more vehicle types. When you click on a vehicle the door you have to guide your car into glows green. Drag a line to the door and the line turns from red to green indicating a valid path to the car wash for that vehicle.

The game offers three 'styles' of play... Texas, Gangster, and New York... each with its own music and graphics. The graphics are, unfortunately, drab and dull and even too dark in the case of Gangster and New York modes. The game itself is pretty well done with nice looking menus, good responsiveness, and a decent sound track. The game's early stages are also way too easy... my first game lasted minutes... and it would be nice to be able to start at a higher difficulty level.

But my core problem with the game is that it's a "me too" title and doesn't better the previous attempts at this genre on the Android platform. Flight Frenzy and Heli Rescue are the elite in this genre from what I've played and I also liked Car Traffic Control as a third. It's not that there's anything totally wrong here... just there's nothing special. Except for the contest (that expires at the end of July 2010)... at $1 if you want to play for a prize maybe this has your name written all over it. And with fewer than a hundred downloads so far there can't be a lot of competition. 4/5 stars for a game that would have been much better received if it came along earlier.