A few weeks ago, the joint venture from Revolutionary Concepts and Tangible Games Banzai Rabbit hopped onto the App Store. Taking the basic core gameplay of the arcade classic Frogger and adding a host of new elements, including exquisite 3D graphics, produced a game that we thoroughly enjoyed in our review apart from one major gripe – it was just too difficult for your average gamer. The developers heard this cry loud and clear and actually anticipated it to a certain extent. An easy mode had been created prior to release for the possibility that gamers found the game to be too hard, thus an update including this new mode and a few other tweaks was able to be submitted relatively quickly after release. The new update has now hit the store, and it addresses practically every concern we had over the initial release, giving no reason not to give Banzai Rabbit a spin.

The new easy mode, titled Cuddly Bunny, starts you off with more lives, extended time to rescue each infected human, slower traffic and hazards, and half the cost of buying continues with mutagen orbs. These changes do wonders making the game more accessible, and at the risk of sounding impossibly hard to please, it’s almost too easy. Rarely did I get killed by a hazard, and when I did it was usually because I was trying to rush. Lives and mutagen orbs stockpiled as I played, and never did the timer count down more than about halfway. I don’t want to spin this in a negative light, however, as it gives me exactly what I wanted in the first place, which was a way to see the game from beginning to end. Given that the cute storyline and cutscenes are a big part of Banzai Rabbit, I had no trouble enjoying them as I made my way through this easier difficulty.

Another noteworthy aspect to this update is the addition of checkpoints. Losing all of your lives and having to start completely over from the beginning was a point of frustration in the release version, and checkpoints alleviate that problem really well. The easiest difficulty offers many checkpoints should you have to restart the game, with medium difficulty having them as well although fewer and farther between. The hard difficulty remains for the truly hardcore, featuring no checkpoints whatsoever along with less starting lives and much faster traffic. Banzai Rabbit does a wonderful job at catering to a wide audience with this latest update, and if you were on the fence before due to the difficult nature you should have no problem playing the game in it’s entirety now.

Also worth mentioning is the impending release of a separate iPad version of Banzai Rabbit. The game is already quite the looker on the iPhone, but with updated graphics taking advantage of the iPad’s higher resolution it looks simply stunning. UI tweaks to the game’s controls, optimization for the faster processor, and additional cutscene screens are in this version as well with the possibility of some exclusive iPad-only content. The iPad version should be submitted in the next few days, and barring any sort of complications with approval should be available in the next couple of weeks.

Above are some of the early iPad screenshots (click to enlarge), so you can get an idea of whats to come.