iRunner

The Good
I must say that I like the rather straightforward gameplay, you follow a line of batteries and avoid obstacles, that is all. It's simple enough for everybody to understand and yet it provides a very good challenge. A lot of people know that my preference goes to NES games and this game is as NES as you can possibly get, especially the challenge. You'll have to retry stages, pay a lot of attention and respond very fast to all kinds of obstacles, all in a 2D-sidescrolling setting.

The levels are never the same twice and to my understanding it is generated as you play it, adjusting the obstacles to the way you play. It was a huge relief that I didn't have to retry the same exact stages over and over again, but was offered something new to try instead. It isn't as good as the AI director in Left 4 Dead and most certainly not as good as the Minecraft world generator, but it's still pretty sweet.

I like the way the screen always stays focused on you even if you start speeding up, I have seen a lot of sidescrollers that messed this up, so I was rather sure that a low-profile Android game was going to fall for it as well. This game would not have been playable if the screen didn't focus because some of the later stages are incredibly fast and the game is hard enough as it is.

There are a few optional game modes that change the rules a little bit and offer a little distraction. There is a quick-play mode that has different challenges for you to complete and there is another mode that has you surviving for as long as you can, the latter of which been my favorite.

The Bad
This game was advertised to me with the blurb "HD graphics" and excuse me for complaining, but where the hell are they. The game is animated in a very poor style with only a handful of animations for movement, the backgrounds are the same bland panels repeated a dozen times over and the obstacles are always the same two. It's too bad that I can't rate a game for lying to me, but it's not getting any points for it either.

The main character has zero personality, I wasn't expecting Sonic or Mario from this game, but I just don't get it. He is depicted as a bad-ass Sackboy character with a feather on his head, but once you complete a stage he sits in a corner with a lollipop and a big smile on his face. It is as inconsistent as it can get and the fact that he wears a Batman cosplay doesn't clear anything up either. Excuse me for been skeptic, but I don't see this guy and his game turning into a franchise.

Some of the obstacles are downright cruel to the point of insane. You are asked to switch between sliding and jumping with unbelievably little room to do so. Half-way through the game the batteries also start misleading you by making you jump in a way that makes you unable to pull off the next jump or slide. Also, I have to mention that this is not very easy to control. You have to click two buttons on the touch screen to make your moves and this isn't as precise as this game requires.

Music is the same bland tune over and over again that plays in every single stage of every single level that drives me crazy every time I play it. I know the logical solution is just muting the game, but I don't like silence either and playing Slipknot in the background doesn't really add anything to the experience.

The Bottom Line
This game is a perfect representation of the current state the Android and other smartphone systems currently find themselves in; there is an insane amount of games available for download and the few that are original fail to be the success the game needs and the rip-offs are very poorly executed. Unless the system attracts some skilled producers I fear it will fail as a gaming platform or will have to go through a videogames crash before something halfway decent might happen to it.

This game is a nice little distraction to have at hand during breaks or bus-trips, but it isn't anywhere close to platformers like Mario and Sonic that are interesting enough to actually get fans.