Price: $4.99   Score: 9/10    Category: GamesFruit

Following on from the huge success of Fruit Ninja on the iPhone, Halfbrick Studios has just released Fruit Ninja HD for the iPad.

Fruit Ninja HD delivers all the same frantic fruit-slicing action as the original, but has been upgraded with beautiful high-resolution visuals and new multiplayer options for the iPad.

The About section of the game reads “All ninjas hate fruit! Swipe the fruit with your finger to end their journey. Be wary of bombs, hope for random criticals, and make Sensei proud.” And that pretty much sums it up. The goal of Fruit Ninja is to slice and dice flying fruit using quick finger-swipe gestures, while avoiding the bombs that get in your way. Missing a piece of fruit will land you a strike, and after three strikes it’s game over.

Fruit Ninja on the iPhone was probably the first game to introduce the unique quick-swipe “ninja” controls, and this control style translates seamlessly across to the iPad. Amazingly, you can swipe with up to eight fingers to help rack up those combos. It works even better than before, with the extra-large screen offering more room than ever for some fruity hack-and-slash.

Racking up game time and getting high scores in Fruit Ninja HD allows you to unlock achievements and new items, including swords and backgrounds, from “Sensei’s Swag”. OpenFeint integration also gives the player a number of extra achievements to unlock as well as global leaderboards.

Fruit Ninja HD delivers two new multiplayer modes – Classic Attack and Zen Duel allowing you to duke it out head-to-head against a friend on the same iPad. Each player gets half the screen, and you can either play til the first person gets 3 strikes (Classic) or to a time limit (Zen).

Bottom Line: Fun, fruity gameplay.
Fruit