Game Reviews

Fairway Solitaire Blast

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Fairway Solitaire Blast

For the first 20 minutes or so I was really enjoying Fairway Solitaire Blast. It's a neat riff on the mechanics of the original, with a twist here and an layer of polish there.

You're matching cards to clear them from a golf themed screen, deciding whether to lay a 6 or an 8 on a 7, for example.

Those first 20 minutes aren't exactly mind blowing stuff, but there's a neat bounce to the play that leaves you with an arcade-induced smile on your face.

And then things go downhill fast. The game is basically about the random placement of cards, in a deck in your hand, and on piles on the fairway.

But somehow around level 6 things become impossibly tough. You're trying to beat a score, and make sure all the cards are cleared, and things stop being fun and start being a downright drag.


How the worm has turned, and been chased by a golf ball

If you were of a cynical bent you might think that this sudden difficulty spike being jabbed in your ribs might have something to do with the game's shift to a more pervasive free-to-play structure.

You only have five retries, and while they regenerate over time, you'll chew through them in no time when you hit a hard level. So your best bet if you want to keep pushing on is to pay some cash.

Or you could use a joker card. These are wild, and let you place any card you want on them. Except if you don't have any you have to buy them, directly from the play space, for some real-life money.

It all feels grubby and sullies what was a reasonably entertaining slice of quick-fire gaming.

The new additions, which are all basically explosive cards that clear other cards horizontally, vertically, or the ones surrounding the bomb itself, make for some interesting new tactics, and there's a solid beat to the tap-tap play that builds compulsion.


It'd be better if I had some golf bats to swing at the critters with

But that compulsion gets beaten out of the door by an IAP system that stands in front of the fun and gives you the option of a miserable grind or paying a few pounds.

The end result is that you'll probably just stop playing. There are games on the App Store and Google Play that offer the same level of entertainment without pushing you over every now and then to wipe your face in the mud.

You're probably better off playing one of those instead.

Fairway Solitaire Blast

An occasionally bright game that's beaten into submission by difficulty spikes and shouty IAPs
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.