Pillowfight Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

Crouching goose, hidden feather

We've played a lot of mobile games over the last three years and as the count approaches 700, Sexy Pillowfight is one of the more original games out there. The art of the Pillowfight has been around for as long as squabbling siblings but it has never been brought to the gaming arena before.

The fight has been taken from the bedroom and transferred to the squared circle where you must lead your character to victory and become the undisputed Pillowfight champion. The game is focused around the career mode but there are a couple of unlockable modes to discover.

Fighting games on mobile have been notoriously difficult to replicate on mobile but as Pillowfight has no previous form, the developers have a little more freedom in its design.

All good fighting games need excellent controls and all your fighter's moves can be controlled via the Dpad - no button sequences or double taps required here. Push back to dodge and down to block. Up and right are the high and low attacks and pushing the middle button executes your special move (once it's charged). There's no jumping, sidestepping or moving forward/backward to worry about. In an arcade, such a simple game would be laughable and probably demoted to the 10p credit range; but on mobile it works quite well. The simple controls have created a fighting game that's all about timing your counterattacks and very little to do with tactics or button mashing.

Once you have learnt your opponent's attacks it is just a case of anticipating them, dodging and then attacking with the right pattern of high and low shots. This is not to say that the game is easy. The difficulty level starts about right and gradually takes you on a pillowfighting path of excellence. Along the way you will unlock better pillows and even a few skimpy outfits befitting of the 'sexy' tag. Career mode sees you tackle 18 fights. At first, it will be a struggle to complete all the fights. There are rematches and continues available but if you are truly rubbish you will get chucked out and have to start from scratch. There are 5 main fighters to contend with and each has their own styles. With a bit of practice (or reading our hints) it shouldn't take long to knock the stuffing out of them.

Once you have mastered the game, the replay value is still high. The game is great fun to play and is a pure time killer. Hitting people with pillows has never been that taxing and after a bit of practice, neither is Pillowfight. There is always something new to unlock even if it is just a Legend or Superstar title and it does encourage you to strive for the perfect match and career.

There are a few issues with the game. Firstly, you can only play as one character. Admittedly, game memory is undoubtedly the cause, or at least we hope so. While your opponents develop new skills and complicated combos, your beloved character is stuck with the same three hit special for the whole game which can lead to a slightly robotic game of dodge, hit three times, dodge, use special, watch the carnage and win! The game heavily relies on the gamer to repeatedly play through the career mode. The other modes that are provided are not fully formed and seem almost an afterthought. The survival mode doesn't even have a high score function. Having filled your minds with this negativity, I have to admit that it is still a great game and I'll probably play it as soon as I finish writing.

A squared circle, girls and feathers; the only thing missing is some mud. Would this concept succeed on a PS3 with a ???60 price tag? Probably not, but for a ???5 mobile game, it's worth a punt.