It takes a certain special something to get me to play most iPhone games for more than a few minutes. I’m not saying that to be antagonistic, I just don’t find enough meat on most of them to hold my interest.

But sometimes in even the simplest of games, all the elements come together in a magical way that initially captures your attention, then progresses into a soul eating hell-beast of gaming addiction that just won’t let go no matter how hard you struggle. This was the case with Jetpack Joyride.

In what I have loving started to call the “Infinite Running” genre of games, it is easy to get lost in the shuffle. Guy runs from left to right, gradually getting faster while he does so. You tap a single button to avoid obstacles. Yes, that does sum things up here as well, at least on the surface.

Fortunately, Halfbrick took that basic setup and went further. Instead of just having your character jump over obstacles, you have a jetpack (as the game’s title implies). This makes the mechanics much more interesting, as you are in a constant battle with gravity and momentum in your efforts to dodge the randomly placed, oncoming obstacles.

But it’s not all dodging lasers and missiles. You also collect coins that can be used to unlock a variety of outfits for Barry Steakfries (the protagonist), different jetpacks, and even upgrade the various vehicles in the game to have a feature that sucks in coins with a magnetic field. The vehicles each have their own unique feel and help keep things interesting.

The basic game, in which you try for the furthest distance ran, is already pretty addictive. This is greatly helped by the leaderboards where you can compare your current high scores to that of your friends. There is an extra layer of addictiveness that I was not expecting. Jetpack Joyride will give you three mini-missions at a time.

When you complete a mission, you will gain stars toward ranking up your title (which doesn’t really do anything except give you a lot of coins when a rank is completed) and a new mission will take its place. The missions vary quite a bit from things like “have 15 near misses with a missile” to “collect 400 coins in a single run”. They’re good at making you adjust how you would normally play in little ways that help keep things feeling fresh.

The aesthetics are cartoony and light, and the unexpected references to other popular iPhone games gave me a chuckle. It is also so simple with its single button input that people of any skill level will be able to have fun with it. While it does support in-game purchases of more coins, the main game is only 99cents. I’m not a fan of spending real money for fake money that I can earn in-game on my own, but I do get addicted to unlocking new things. I like it so much so that I did invest an additional 99cents to grab the “coin doubler”, which exactly as the name implies, doubles the number of coins you grabbed during each run.

Anyone that enjoys games on their iPhone, even on the most casual level, should give Jetpack Joyride a try. When it comes to the “just one more quick round” style of mobile gaming addiction, it is now in my top spot.

Tags: Barry Steakfries, Halfbrick, infinite running, iPhone, Jetpack Joyride, jetpacks

This entry was posted on Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.