Format: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Developer: Cartoon Network
As a kid one of my favourite channels was Cartoon Network. One thing I remember about it as well as all the awesome programmes that were on it was that it would be on late at night long after many of the other kids channels went of the air. Many occasions I would sneak down stairs while my folks were asleep to watch some Cow and Chicken. Well I know as I have kids of my own that Cartoon Network still has some great shows on there. And this game is a platform adventure games based on one of the most popular ones.
Adventure Time looks great you may think that you are looking at a comic book and there is a good reason for that. You see Ryan North wrote the story for this game and he is the guy behind the Adventure Time comic book. But fans of the show will still fit in right here even if they have not picked up a comic book. The game has a really cool cell-shaded look to it. And the story line if you have seen the show or have picked up an issue of the comic book is just as crazy as they are. If you like the show then I have no doubt in my mind that you will be more than happy with the look and the story of the game.
As far as the game play goes this is an action platform game. And it has moments of pure brilliance where you will find your self having such a great time. And then there are moments of pure frustration that will make you want to Hulk Smash your iPad. The basic controls are simple enough if you have played another platform game where you control your character with swipes rather than a on screen control stick you will fit right in here. You swipe what direction you want Jake or Finn to go in and swipe up to make them jump and so on. It is a control scheme that on paper does not give you any control issues at all.
The frustration comes from the combat. Now I love the idea here. The combat is kind of like a game like Skylanders Cloud Patrol or Fruit Ninja where you take out the bad guys with swipes. So a bad guy will spring on to the screen and you will have to swipe him to attack. I actually love the idea of this. But the problem is that the game on more than a few occasions had a great deal of trouble knowing if I wanted to make my character move or if I wanted to attack. Now if this happened every once and a while it would not be an issue, but it happened to me time and time again. To the point where the great story and graphics where having a hard time keeping me interested.
I have played this on both iPad and iPhone and let me tell you the iPad does solve these issues a little bit. But still the problem was there, but on the iPhone when things got hectic I was pretty much screwed.
Rock Bandits Adventure Time does have some wonderful ideas. It looks great, has a great story and the idea behind the control scheme is wonderful. It is just the execution of this control scheme. Hopefully they will address this in a update or something in the future. Stull if you are a fan of the show for the couple of bucks this costs I am sure you can put up with the control issues.