• $15 until January 1
• $20 thereafter

• Nice graphics
• Fun game play

• Takes forever to load
• Takes up a bit of space
• Clumsy menu
• For color handhelds only

Design:
Cost/Benefit:
Coolness:
Overall:

Game Play
Bump Attack has two tables with very different themes. The Mars theme has you attack aliens and monsters to gain points, and the Deep Sea table has you go diving for points. They're both great ideas but the mission details are displayed on the top of the screen so if you spend too much time paying attention to the details your ball will likely die.

The ball moves in a rather realistic way but it is definitely far from perfect. The physics aren't as good as a real table, although it is definitely not a game of survival. The ball bounces well off bumpers and targets but it will sometimes speed up to an insane rate. But if you adjust the speed under Options you can have a completely playable game, although the faster speed is always there for  more of a challenge.

The Options are rather simple and un-useful, though there is a multi-player mode. As I mentioned, you can adjust the speed and you can modify how much memory it uses, although if you're short on space you could end up crashing your Palm. Unfortunately, there's no control for the sound effects so you're stuck listening to them whether you want to or not.

Graphics
The graphics are definitely nice and the scrolling was much better then I anticipated. The game tables span an area larger then the Palm's screen and as the ball moves along the view scrolls with it. It is smooth scrolling and not at all choppy.

The Deep Sea table is blue and has a fishy theme. You can light up series of letters for points and missions, there's several bumpers near the top, and there is one ramp.

On the Mars table you have three ramps, several bumpers, and a shooter in the center. There's a looming monster in the background and the entire table seems to have a darker feeling to it.

Miscellaneous
Aside from the main points, every game has a few random items worth mentioning. First is the high score board on iambic's website, a nice feature with codes to see where you rank online compared to other users. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to enter your name and you have to use a clumsy set of key presses to put in just a three letter initial.

One complaint I have to make is in the menus. They're slow and clumsy, involving the strangest key combinations. It would be much simpler if we could just tap it and go straight to the game. Instead, there's a bit of key fumbling followed by a long wait for the table to load. Perhaps it would load quicker if iambic had made the program smaller, but instead the program takes up 230k and loads insanely slow.

Right now there is only a color version; I'm not sure if they have any plans for a monochrome version later.

Conclusion
Bump Attack is a fun game with good graphics but some of the smaller issues hold it back a bit. It's a good game and definitely worth the introductory price of $15, but the evaluation version is rather crippled so it wont be that easy for you to see for yourself.