The Duck Hunter - Quack!

Look familiar?

I took a wonderful trip down memory lane when I played The Duck Hunter on iWon. It's very simple but very fun! ^_^

You are The Duck Hunter. (Duh.) Use the mouse to aim. ^_^ Your mighty orange gun holds 3 shots, and when you run out, just hit spacebar to reload!

Boo-yah!

There are 4 levels, and each one requires you to shoot a few more ducks to continue. It's not that hard.

90% accuracy? Not bad!

You get more points for shooting ducks that are father away, but uh.. I'm not a sharpshooter. *^_^* If I manage to hit them at all, I'm happy!



Coins & Prizes

On average I earned about 3,500 to 4,500 coins each game. And I ALWAYS ended up with 10 jackpot spins! (Even the time I played the first round and nothing else.)

The Duck Hunter features a progressive jackpot, with a max pot of $2,000.

The odds of winning the jackpot on The Duck Hunter are "no worse" than 1 in 1,000,000.
The odds a stamp collector collects stamps about ducks are 1 in 100.

All around, this game has great rewards. The odds for winning the JP don't get any better than 1 in 1,000,000 on iWon. ^_^


Final Rating

I'll admit it. One reason I like The Duck Hunter is because I played the original Duck Hunt on the NES when I was a wee lass. ^_^ While the games aren't *exactly* the same, it's close enough. If you never played Duck Hunt then this game may not rock as much for you. But it's quick to play, so I say give it a shot!

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Air Hockey - Weeeeeee!!!!!

I love air hockey. ^_^ But as with most games I love, I'm terrible at it! Whenever I play in an arcade the game lasts only a few minutes, and then they want $2 again. (No thank you! I will pay for failure once, but no more than that!)

So what do I think of a free game of air hockey? I think it's perfect!

Let's play!

This lovely game is created by iWon, and they did a darn good job of it. You can pick one of several boards (blue skies in the above pic!), and you also have your choice of mallet colors.

You play in a tournament with the computer. There are three rounds in each tournament.

Is that a dinosaur wearing a purple wig???

Each round starts with 2 minutes on the clock. Whoever scores 7 points before the timer ends is the winner of that round. If neither party scores 7 points, then whoever has the highest score wins. Tie? Then it goes into Sudden Death mode. Whoever scores a point first wins the game, and there are two pucks in play!

You score a point by getting the yellow puck into your opponent's goal on the far right of the screen. Of course, the computer hits the puck right back at you, so you have to defend your goal too!

In my case, scoring is often hilarious. ^_^ At least 90% of my goals were accidental. (The other 10% were me knocking the puck backwards and into my own goal. Whoops!)

After each point there is a tiny break and you'll see a celebration screen, followed by a tally of the current points. The celebration screen might praise you for getting a point early in the game or announce that you just scored several points in a row!

Woohoo!!

The animations are short, but they made me giggle. Especially the one that says, "You scored! (On yourself.)"

I even learned a new phrase.

Thank you! *Takes a bow*

I got this image so many times and I had *no* idea what a Hat Trick was, so I looked it up. Turns out that in actual hockey, it's so hard to score a point that if a team scores a second point, it's called a Hat Trick. So every time you score a 2nd point in iWon Air Hockey, they call it a Hat Trick.

But uh... considering it's MUCH easier to score points in air hockey, it just seems odd to claim it's a hard thing to score two points.

Moving on!

You earn bonus points for finishing a round early. (The points are shown at the end. It relates to your token reward.) You can earn bonus points in many other ways, but unfortunately it isn't clear what you need to do. Just play and have fun with it. ^_^

I thought the computer opponent was quite good. It moved realistically, and provided a decent challenge for me.

Still, I won the majority of games, so the challenge wasn't *that* hard. But to be honest, I prefer when I win games. ^_^

Yay!! I win!! ^_^

For the most part this game is flawless. But there are two issues that may hinder your gameplay.

1. Heavy graphics. Air hockey is a fast game, and the speedy pace is mirrored here. However, sometimes my computer lagged for a few seconds during a game. Having an option for lower detail graphics would probably help, but alas, that feature is not offered. If you have troubles, try closing any extra programs on your computer.

2. Click to continue.

Yay!!! I win again!!

As previously mentioned, after every scored point you get a celebration screen and then a tally screen. To get back to the game you have to click "Continue." This puts your cursor on the right half of the screen. But you *play* on the left side of the screen, so you immediately have to move your mouse to the left after you hit continue.

I really dislike the way this is set up. Many, many times I hit the puck before I was ready because I was having to reposition my cursor/mallet.

These two problems aren't deal breakers for me, but they are definitely annoying.

Air Hockey is a progressive jackpot game with a max pot of $2,000. At the end of each game I had 10 spins (the max) to play with. Even when I lost on the first round I had 10 spins. ^_^

On average I ended up with about 7,000+ tokens at the end of a game. Not bad!


Reality Check
The odds of winning the progressive jackpot on Air Hockey are "no worse" than 1 in 20,000,000.
The odds a child (age 2-11) in the US has cavities in hir baby teeth are 1 in 2.37.

Wow. O_O


Final Rating

I've noticed that iWon is very good at making short games that are fun to play. Air Hockey is no exception. ^_^ The customizeable features are a nice touch, and the graphics are well done. The few flaws keep it from getting a perfect score. So! This gets 4.5 stars out of 5.

3 Point Shootout - What? No guns?

I'm about to admit something really embarrassing. I actually thought this was a minigame about shooting guns. Not a basketball minigame. Whoops.

3 Point Shootout on iWon

Sadly, I did far better on this game than I do with actual basketball. I say, "sadly," because I scored no higher than a 34. *Blushes* The game liked to taunt me by scrolling "My Grandmother Shoots Better" at the bottom. It made me laugh. ^_^

Anywho, you throw basketballs at a hoop. The red/black/white ball is worth 3x as many points as the others. After a few seconds the hoop starts moving back and forth across the screen. It's entertaining. ^_^

You win 4x your score in iWin coins. So for my awesome 34 I scored 136 coins. I'm rich!!

I also got a pity spin at the Progressive Jackpot. It maxes out at $2,000. There also is a Prize Pop game triggered if you happen to score 10 baskets. The prize for winning that is $50.

Reality Check:
The odds for winning the Progressive Jackpot for 3 Point Shootout are "no worse" than 1 in 20,000,000.
The odds for winning the Prize Pop game for 3 Point Shootout are "no worse" than 1 in 50,000,000.

You have a better chance of winning the Jackpot than to win $50 in the same game. That's just weird.

Although I completely sucked at this game, I really had fun. ^_^ The graphics were amusing and sharp, and it was very quick to play. I'll play this for giggles, but not for coins.

3 out of 5 stars.