Welcome to Modojo, 
Cowabunga Review
Written by Chris Buffa on Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Free, cute cartoon graphics, the cows go moo.
Raft is difficult to control, bouncing multiple cows seems impossible, ads at the title screen are annoying.
You know your game is bad when you advertise for other games you didn't make. Either that, or you took the money and ran. Whatever the reason, Sputnik Games' free iPhone app, Cowabunga, advertises Super Monkey Ball and others on its title screen. While annoying, it doesn't compare to the awful gameplay. This moo cow needs a bolt to its forehead.
Its premise is simple enough. Tons of rain flooded the green cow pasture, and it's up to you to help the black and white bovines make it from one side to the other. You do this one of two ways. Either you tilt the iPhone left and right to move your raft across the water, or you can guide it back and forth with your finger. The cows make a leap of faith off a cliff, and all you need to do is bounce them to safety.
Unfortunately, Cowabunga is neither easy or addictive. Its tilt controls are too sensitive, causing the raft to slide all over the place. Touching it with a finger should increase stability, but it's not as responsive as it should be. All this amounts to lots of drowning cows, at least until you get past the learning curve and sloppy tech. Balancing multiple cows, however, makes this game especially frustrating. After helping one cow make it half way, another will jump, forcing you to quickly react and more often than not, lose one or both animals.
That's all there is to Cowabunga, lots of frustration. We dig the simple cartoon graphics and the "moo" the cows make, but that's not enough to save this free but terrible effort. Smells like cow poop to us.
