Format: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Developer: Frogmind
I was really excited to play Badland I had heard that this was one of the best platform games to hit the iOS in a while. It has been pretty well hyped up and I am a really big fan of old school platform games so this really should have been one of my best iOS games of 2013. But for everything the game does right it does another thing wrong.
Ok lets talk about the way the game looks. This is one of the best looking games on the iOS. If you have a brand spanking new iPad then honestly I cannot think of a better game to show it off with. This game just looks incredible. To me it is very similar to Rayman Jungle Run. The game has a silhouette look to it where everything in the foreground is black, but the backgrounds are just full of life. It really is incredible to look at.
You play the role of……… I have no freaking clue if I am honest what this thing is supposed to be. My son calls him a blob monster so let’s just go with that. Your goal is to get this blob monster to the end of the level. And this is where the fun and frustration lay.
Now before I played this game I had heard that it was a great platform game. Well the truth is I really do not think this is a platform game it has more in common with an endless runner game than it does a straight up platform game in my opinion. Your blob monster is always running forward and you need to make him float up or down. You do this by holding your finger on the screen to make him go up. When you take your finger off he goes down. This is a control scheme I have seen before and it does work fairly well.
The levels are pretty huge and full of obstacles that you will need to get past. You will need to figure out some switches as well as making sure you do not land on some spikes, get hit by falling boulders or even get blown up. There is just so much stuff going on that really you have to play each level a few times so that you know exactly where everything is. It can get very frustrating I can count on one hand the number of levels I beat on a first run.
The game does have some power ups which I think are a great idea. You get these pills and they can do a number of different things. You can grow big or small or even have one that makes multiple copies of yourself. The problem with these power ups is that you kind of lose control and on many occasions I would get a power up then all of a sudden I had beaten a level and it felt like I never actually did anything. There is a multi player option in the game, but that is pretty hectic and crazy. Yet I think it actually worked because it was some insane fun that you could have with some real people. But I really cannot see anyone spending a great deal of time with the multi player mode.
Badland is a gorgeous game. I really mean it when I say it is one of the best looking iOS games I have played. But I have to be honest the game play to me is more on the frustrating side than it is fun. I really wish that I had a little more control over my blob monster. As of writing the game is four bucks which when you consider the amount of time and effort that went into this game is not that bad a deal. If you do download it though I would not buy into all the hype of it being the greatest platform game on the iOS.