Inside Social Games

Tapulous’ game series Tap Tap game series has been a hit on the iPhone, modeled after the popular video game Dance Dance Revolution. We had wondered why we didn’t see very much competition, but with the introduction of Rock Band a few days ago, well, now we do. Of course, Tapulous isn’t a company easily ousted from its top rankings, and so we take a look at its latest game, Tap Tap Revenge 3, introduced earlier this month.

For those unfamiliar with the series, the game is a rhythm music game that has players tapping multi-colored orbs as they stream down the screen, in sync with the song that is playing. Players can further increase the immersion by turning on options to tilt and/or shake the device as well (though most seem to prefer it off), and all of this was wrought with fun, original song recordings from both indie and popular artists.

To that end though, many people and reviewers seem to have found Tap Tap Revenge 3 a downgrade. The game costs about $1 to download, but players are only granted a rather limited number of tracks. There are more than 100 different songs to download (as well as a new song every week), but most of these free songs are unknown indie artists. That isn’t to say the music isn’t good, but it is hard to get a player interested if they have no idea what they are downloading.

As for known and popular artists, these too are, thankfully, available. However, don’t let that thanks go too far, as these have to be purchased in packs of two for $0.99 or packs of five for $2.99, and anything that was purchased in past games must now be repurchased. If this wasn’t enough to irk the player, advertisements and paid content are everywhere, which quickly becomes obnoxious and has driven many players to simply forsake the latest version and download Tap Tap Revenge 2 for free.

This isn’t all without hope, however, as the game has seen a few quality upgrades too. As far as the UI goes, many elements, such as the star power, the score multiplier, and a tap accuracy bar, are now conveniently always visible. Furthermore, the social play has also seen some improvement.

As with previous renditions, the game still has online, head-to-head play. Unfortunately, it is often too slow and unresponsive to be played well. Nonetheless, a new battle system makes up for this by adding a great asynchronous challenge mode that pits your high scores against your friends’. Moreover, players can now level up as they play and buy clothing and items for a customizable avatar.

In the end, the core game play of Tap Tap Revenge 3 is still a ton of fun to play. Yes, there are a lot of overbearing issues with it, but Tapulous does say that they are listening to reviews and complaints, so perhaps things will improve. Furthermore, even with all the user complaints, the popularity of past versions has carried this third title quite far as a vast majority of players are still ranking the game at five stars. The only question now is whether or not it will be enough to deal with the iPhone version of Rock Band from EA. There is still time to make improvements, but either way, they will be interesting numbers to watch.