Capcom Tries to Smurf your Smurf with Smurfs
So I’m lying in bed the other night,.. couldn’t sleep. I decide to pick up my Iphone and check for any cool games to download. I see this Smurf Village and thought, hmm, this sounds fun and it’s memorable from my childhood, waking up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons and such. It’s like an Age of Empires in Smurf Version (I used to play Age of Empires all the time on my computer. In fact I miss that game). So I decided to download it and give it a try,………..but who knew what was lying ahead of me? Who knew I could ever think those cute little blue Smurfs could cause me such frustration? Who knew smurf berries would soon be a painful vision in my head? Maybe Capcom, the creators of the game!
Yeah, so that was a bit dramatic, but hey, I had to get your attention some how. :) No, seriously, I decided to write this Post because I was so unhappy with Capcom for trying to “SMURF” everyone’s money away, in such a sneaky way and for charging so much. This is what happens,…you download the game, you think, “This is kind of fun!! I’m enjoying building my little smurf village. They give you a few smurf berries at first so you can get a few things built and then…. BAM! You are stopped in your tracks and can’t progress forward without paying..$4.99 for 50 Smurfberries, $11.99 for 150, $29.99 for 400 or $60.00 for 1000!! Are you kidding me??? Is someone out there dumb enough to start paying for these berries? And yes, I think the games on Facebook, including Farmville are terrible games. I would have probably paid the normal cost of an IPhone game to continue to play Smurf Village, but not this.
I will attempt to mention a few small positives. The graphics of the game are really nice and pretty much, are dead on when it comes to resembling the old show from the eighties. Navigating seems fine and menus seem organized well. The game definitely has that addictive quality about it. Now, back to the negatives. ….What?? I said a FEW positives. :)
There are mini games if you go to the different Smurf’s houses and they are pretty lame. At Papa smurf’s house, you are suppose to help him shake potions together. I tried some of the different potions and ended up breaking the potion glasses. If I actually shook my Iphone it would break it. Sliding my finger across the screen worked better, but it still wasn’t fun. Of course, you only get to play one or twice and then it tells you you have to wait 8 hrs or so to play again, UNLESS you have Smurfberries then you can play right now. You also have to wait ridiculous amounts of time to grow your gardens, build things like bridges, buildings, etc. I put up a bridge last night at 2am and it still says I have 95 hrs till it’s built, but if I had 16 Smurfberries it would get built right now. It also doesn’t seem that the gardens I’m growing or small things I do to gain XP in the game make any difference for the progress of the village.
It makes me sad to read on some other blogs and to see Smurf Village being rated on the App Store as a popular game. It’s so sneaky because everyone is sucked in by it being a free download and it’s slight addictiveness. Yet, I’ve also been reading how parents are getting pretty upset about how easy it is for their kids to create a huge phone bill because of this game. You can go into the settings and flip a switch to turn off the ability to charge for the Smurfberries, but it’s just as easy to flip it back on.
My advice: Don’t let Capcom Smurf your Smurf with these Smurfs!! Just say no to Smurfberries and…. Well, have a Smurfy day!!
-Little Neko
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