Parking Mania is yet another game that will have you practically chained to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad for hours upon hours. There are plenty of parking-themed games out there—allowing mobile gamers all around the world to practice and perfect their parking skills without putting real dents on their real cars.
However, many of these parking-themed games get boring after a couple of minutes of gameplay. A boring parking game will call attention to the fact that one is attempting to rearrange a couple of virtual cars in a virtual parking space—but a good parking game, such as Parking Mania, will immerse you in its virtual environment and allow you to have hours of fun.
About the Game
Developed by Chillingo, the team behind the highly successful Cut the Rope and exciting new releases such as Harry the Fairy, Picnic Wars, Coco Loco, TwinGo!, among others, Parking Mania is also a successful strategy puzzle game in its own right. For starters, this game offers three unique control schemes that set it miles apart from the other titles in its genre. Available at a very low price of $0.99, Parking Mania is a game that any self-respecting puzzle lover should not miss out on.
Gameplay
As mentioned earlier, one of the defining features of this title is the option of three unique control schemes. Also, you get to experience eighty unique levels within the course of the came, where you will be tasked with maneuvering cars across complex (and often, very busy) roadways in each of them. You need to guide the cars into specific parking spots in a fast and precise manner to earn more points. This premise works extremely well for Parking Mania, making it highly addictive and of course, enjoyable.
Every roadway level is presented in bird’s eye view, allowing you to scope out the parking spots that you need to navigate cars to. However, do not think for a second that you will have an easy time with steering cars to their proper spots—there are plenty of obstacles that you can run into. Once you bump into one of these obstacles, you will lose one of the five lives that you are given per level. But if you crash into another car, you will lose all five lives at once. You do not need to be discouraged though—the rules of Parking Mania is quite forgiving and you can restart the level all over again if you lose all of your five lives. Hardcore mobile gamers, however, might not like these mechanics because you have to start parking all those cars again if you crash into a car while in the middle of parking the very last vehicle to complete the level.
Perhaps the key to Parking Mania’s success is the good pacing—the difficulty of the gameplay increases in a steady manner and constantly introduces new challenges that will keep players hooked all throughout the game.
User Interface
Parking Mania boasts of an intuitive interface that a player can easily learn within a few minutes into the game. It also allows for perfect control—the three control schemes will fit every player quite wonderfully. You can easily steer by tilting the device, use an on-screen steering wheel, or with a smoothly functioning slider bar. These three control schemes will allow a player to experiment and find the scheme that he or she is most comfortable with.
Graphics and Sound Effects
As expected from a Chillingo game, the graphics of this casual game are very impressive in Parking Mania. The environment and the vehicles are drawn in a rather cute style and are very colorful. The soundtrack is very enjoyable, but a player can sometimes get very engrossed with parking the cars properly to notice every minute detail.
The Drawback
The best feature of Parking Mania can also be its main problem. Using three different modes of control seems like a great idea in theory, but once you get into really using them with your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad can get a little problematic. The accelerometer option works the best in our opinion, but if the car is facing a different direction from you, the steering can get difficult and disorienting.
Conclusion
Once you get past the disorienting control issue, you will find that this game is highly enjoyable and very addictive. In terms of the challenge and fun it presents, Parking Mania is very much a success—you will get hooked on trying to figure out how to avoid obstacles and park vehicles properly.
Category: Games
Price: $0.99
Developed By: Chillingo Ltd.
Requirements: Requires iOS 3.2 or later
Compatible With: iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad
Other OS: Android, Facebook, BlackBerry
Our Rating: 
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