Gaming On the Go…

iPhone Roundup

More iPhone offerings, reviewed by Jennifer Allen.

A shorter iPhone roundup this time round. Also a much delayed one thanks to yours truly being struck down with flu for two weeks. At least this meant plenty of time lying in bed with nothing but a trusty iPhone to keep me company. In which case, it’s a pity that this week’s line-up is far from brilliant.

Angry Viking

Zaxis Games– £0.59p

Angry Viking looks fantastic. Visually it’s a title that stands out amongst a crowd of fairly samey hack and slashers. Like a cross between Madworld and a graphic novel, Angry Viking is distinctive and appealing. It’s a shame then that it’s all style and no substance for the stress relieving game.

All you really do is run round the arena killing things. Using a virtual stick control system, it’s easy to run around and whack things with your axe/right thumb but after a few minutes, it becomes ridiculously tedious. There’s no evolution here with you having seen all that Angry Viking has to offer within the first five minutes of the game.

There is at least a special attack button which can sometimes be initiated but again, there’s not really much to see. Oh and you can kill cows to restore your health a bit. Other than that, it’s entirely pointless. It’s not even fun pointless. It might only be 59p but even that feels like an expensive mistake to make.2/10

Astro Dodge

Assyria Game Studio – £1.19

I’m quite a fan of Assyria Games’s past titles such as Mirror Maze and The Glowing Void. While always very simple ideas, they’re designed in such a way that they’re brilliantly compelling. Unfortunately I wasn’t so taken by Astro Dodge.

You control a spaceship as you dodge various asteroids and black holes while collecting up plasma (purple dots). Along the way are various power ups such as a tractor beam, super shield and a plasma attractor which aids the collection process. It’s all very easy to control with a swipe of the finger across the device controlling the action.

The problem is I just didn’t find it very compelling. It’s fun for a while and the online high score tables add a much needed competitive element. Other than that though, there’s not a huge amount of purpose behind this title. Things feel increasingly samey and while it makes for a briefly enjoyable distraction, there’s no real inclination to keep playing. 4/10

SnoShred

Blue Energy Labs – £1.19

SnoShred is quite easily the most technologically impressive of the selection this week. The graphics wouldn’t look out of place on a Sega Dreamcast which isn’t bad going at all for such a small device. It’s unfortunate though that the control system lets down any potential that SnoShred may have had for providing an excellent snowboarding sim on the device.

Steering is tilt based which feels increasingly like asking for trouble. Throw in the fact that jumping and boosting is controlled by pressing buttons and things become rather fiddly. The controls feel like they haven’t gone through a great deal of testing as it all feels too awkward to be appropriate.

It’d be churlish to condemn SnoShred for only offering three short tracks to race on and a choice of two different skins. At this price, you can’t really expect huge amounts of content. I also found that SnoShred liked to crash on me a fair amount but this could be down to my increasingly aging iPhone.  However the glitchy nature of the collision detection is rather more unforgiveable. An update may well solve these issues but for now, steer clear. 3/10