8.5

iball 3

The iball 3 is the 21st equivalent of the Rubik Cube but is far superior in many ways. With no links to any Apple products due to the "i", the iball 3 is actually a small spherical object (similar to that of a tennis ball) that has 6 light buttons which can change into three colours, red, green and blue with also an LED display. Although the iball 3 is a game, it is also an interactive brain training game which allows you to upload your results to an online leaderboard. There is however a catch here.

The goal of the iball 3 is to turn on all the same coloured lights on the ball in the shortest amount of time. Sounds easy? Not really. Sounds frustrating? Definitely! Sounds addictive? Even more so! Unfortunately in order for this to happen, you need to press these buttons in a certain order so a good memory is the name of the game here.

The first level of the game gives the player around 90 seconds to find three lights of the same colour before it resets. In order for it to proceed to level 2, this needs to be done in under 20 seconds. What's even worse but fun is that the iball resets after 90 seconds and all the sequences are different.

To be honest, this took me a little while to master the concept which I successfully did. Level 2 however must be completed in under 60 seconds but there are four lights to advance which definitely requires you to have good reflexes and memory as you hunt for the correct order of buttons. If you check out YouTube, there's some very cool videos of people finding all six lights of the same colour but in a ridiculous amount of time. Amazing stuff!

Each ball also comes with its unique registration code that can then be used to register the device with the iball 3 website which then allows scores to be uploaded and is definitely a bragging tool. Therefore if you manage to beat level 2 in under 60 seconds, you will be given a code that can then be used on the online leaderboards. However for this Generation-X reviewer, my results were less than impressive when it came to the world. My 15-year old nephew was actually a gun on the iball 3, much to my personal disgust.

Final Level

So here we are in the 21st century and I'm addicted to this new phenomenon called the iball 3. My PS3 sits idly in the lounge room with Modern Warfare 3, my 3DTV gathers dust and my iPad with "Where's my Water" cries for attention in my study. This is not good! While I'm distracted from watching TV, I'm eagerly trying to beat my personal scores, even though a part of me knows that I will never become an iball 3 elite. The elites are people from around the world who have achieved a sub 9 second speed on the iball 3 and for their victory. Even more awesomeness!

Recommended to those who have everything and remember practice makes perfection!