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Sega giving away Columns on iPhone for free all this weekend

by Mike Schramm Jul 3rd 2009 at 7:30PM


Normally we'd just send out a tweet about this (that's usually what we do with free app deals, so if you're not one of the almost 40,000 people following us yet, you definitely should be), but this is a good one, and it's a holiday, so we wanted to make sure you knew. Sega is feeling particularly generous this weekend, so they're giving away free copies of their Columns Deluxe, a port of the old Genesis game, for the iPhone. The game is a pretty straightforward port -- it doesn't have any extras, and the accelerometer controls are a little tacked on from what we hear, but if you like the puzzler gameplay of Columns, and you should, it's a fun one to pull up for a few minutes at a time.

Plus, it's free -- from July 3rd to Monday, July 6th, Sega says it'll be on sale for the low price of nothing at all. Sounds good to us -- sit back, put a few brats and burgers on the grill, grab a Corona (and lime, of course), and enjoy some old-school dropping block gameplay for no money at all.

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Normally we'd just send out a tweet about this (that's usually what we do with free app deals, so if you're not one of the almost 40,000...
 

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Oboewan

To all who say the controls suck: Turn off the accelerometer and then read the tutorial.

I'm pretty sure that the games weren't actually enhanced with touchscreen control - the emulator is just designed to interpret MBP-style screen swipes (anywhere on the screen) as the D-pad, and touches as buttons depending on what half of the screen you touch.

July 04 2009 at 2:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Yoshi1080

I bought this game last year when the App Store opened. It's okay, but there are far better puzzle games available like EA's Tetris, Trism and Tatomic. It's worth a look for free, but I wouldn't buy it again. Mainly because of the already mentioned poor porting. That seems to be a pattern for SEGA games by the way.

@Twitter: I don't use it because I don't get the point of it. However, I view all my RSS feeds in the reader application "Times". Is there any way to convert Tweets into an RSS feed? I would like to read the TUAW tweets in Times as well.

July 04 2009 at 1:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Yoshi1080's comment
Yoshi1080

feed://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/678953.rss seems to work for the tweets, although I don't understand much. Tweets always look like a chatlog of a bunch of little girls all chattering at the same time to me.

July 04 2009 at 2:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Flyboybob

The game works fine if you swipe your finger to the Settings screen and turn off the Accelerometer. Then, go to the Help screen to learn how to play the game. You move the falling gems left and right with a swipe of your finger and change to order of the gems by tapping them.

It's just a simple fun amusement when you have time on your hands. The price is right on this one.

July 04 2009 at 11:35 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Flyboybob's comment
Ryan Sandberg

Exactly! It's actually easier to play that the original game, for me! The accelerometer controls suck. That's true. Turn them off and it's a great game. :)

July 04 2009 at 2:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Alejandro Betancur

I like Crazy Drops (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=301231687&mt=8) it is the same concept but the game play is much more fun.

July 04 2009 at 9:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
racco

don't bother. you'll have more fun downloading the game than you will playing it.

worst port of a classic game I've ever seen

in fact, it probably the worst iPhone game I've ever seen

July 04 2009 at 8:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Austin

Sweet.

July 04 2009 at 7:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Lee McCartney

Works in the UK as well! thanks TUAW :o)

July 04 2009 at 6:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Luke James

wow. that's one of the worst games i've ever attempted to play.

July 04 2009 at 4:24 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
crstfr

The problem I have with this article is the twitter plug... and now that I know that you are not including news on the site that you are pushing via twitter, my estimation of TUAW has dropped a notch... or two.

July 03 2009 at 11:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
4 replies to crstfr's comment
bobics

Skittles!

July 03 2009 at 10:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to bobics's comment
bobics

Play Puyo-Pop aka Puyo-Puyo aka Candy Crisis aka Skittles on you Mac (free): http://candycrisis.sourceforge.net/

July 03 2009 at 10:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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