Fetch for iOS review: A family game with tons to explore

Fetch for iOS is a touch adventure game that plays like an animated movie, letting you explore a strange world as a young boy in search of his lost dog.

8.2

Fetch for iOS

The Good

<b>Fetch</b> is a fun touch-screen adventure with colorful graphics, an incredibly touchable interactive world, and is filled with small challenges and mini-games to keep you interested.

The Bad

Some of the touch zones require precise taps, resulting in mild frustration as you circle back to the same spot to try it again.

The Bottom Line

Fetch is an entertaining adventure for both kids and adults alike, with colorful cartoon-like graphics, an extremely touchable interface full of little items to interact with, and challenging puzzles to solve as you explore a fantastical world.

Made for children, but fun for adults, too, Fetch combines a great-looking artistic style, rich sounds, and mysterious environments with tons of touch-screen interaction as you set off on your adventure. The story revolves around the disappearance of a little boy's dog named Bear and the lengths he must go through to get him back. Quickly, he finds out that dogs are being stolen around the world, and he sets out to find out who is behind the dognappings.

The controls change depending on which part of the game you are playing. In the world of Fetch, you simply touch a place on the screen to move to that location. But there are also photos, posters, and signs you can touch to get a close-up and find out another clue that will move you along in the game. Some of the puzzles are fairly challenging, requiring several separate tasks that have you moving about the world, collecting items, pulling switches, and more. But just about everything is touchable, and it's fun to see what each thing will do when you tap it.

Enter a beautiful interactive world (pictures)

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Integral to the adventure are Fetch's many mini-games. Scattered throughout the world are playable arcade-like games that often pertain to the storyline of the game. In one game you need to fend off attacking pirates to get a chest full of gold. You can then use that gold to buy quest items that push you further into the story. The mini-games are mostly pretty simple, but I like the way each of them ties in to the overall story.

Part of what makes this game so charming is the audio. Creepy wind sounds and music accompany you on your journey, and all the sounds including the little boy's grunts as he climbs a rope to the splashes of fish jumping from the water are all very well done.

The one small annoyance I found with the game was in some of the touch interactions. In some cases you'll be touching one thing, but the game will read it as a nearby activation zone, forcing you to go back and try again. It didn't happen that often in my testing, but it's good to know beforehand.

Overall, Fetch is an entertaining adventure for both kids and adults alike, with colorful cartoon-like graphics, an extremely touchable interface full of little items to interact with, and challenging puzzles as you explore the world. If you want to check out a slow-paced, but well-made adventure game, Fetch is a great option.