Halfbrick is one of my favorite mobile developers. The creators of Fruit Ninja, Age of Zombies, and many other games is no stranger to the mobile space. They stand for quality, and whenever they release a game, I pay attention. They mostly focus on iOS(boo!), but do give Android some love from time to time. I was insanely addicted to Age of Zombies last year. Barry Steakfries is a fantastic protagonist, and the humor in his adventures is something I enjoy quite a bit. We now have Barry’s newest adventure on Android, Jetpack Joyride. It’s a side scrolling game that follows a variant of what I now call “Temple Run” style games: you go through levels acquiring coins, with different objectives that give you more coins, which you use to buy upgrades that you can use to…get more coins. Simplistic but it works. How does it make it rounds here though?As I mentioned, Jetpack Joyride’s only purpose is to get as far as possible in each level, while collecting as many coins and completing as many objectives as you can. The controls are dead simple: you tap and hold the screen to activate Barry’s jetpack, timing it right to avoid obstacles and collect coins. That’s it. The only variation to this is when you pick up a power-up vehicle in any of the levels, and even then it’s still tapping the screen to get a different response. It’s refreshingly simple, and lots of fun in practice. The graphics are cartoony, and follow the same style as Age of Zombies. You can recognize Barry pretty easily here, and it’s nice to see him as the main guy in Halfbrick’s games.
You might be wondering how such a simple formula can stay fun for long. The game does this by giving you different mission objectives, which are usually pretty simple. You get missions such as collecting X number of coins in one run, touching the roof with your head for so many meters, barely avoiding so many missiles, etc. The great thing is that the game varies them all the time, so it will take you a while to run into the same type of mission twice. Completing enough of these missions levels you up, which gives you even more coins. The coins are used to get different upgrades, whether it’s for your jetpack(like making it a dragon’s head), or gadgets(like better sneakers so you jump quicker), or even clothes for Barry, it’s very satisfying to use your hard-earned coins to get upgrades to help you get better scores and more coins. It’s that never-ending cycle that makes Jetpack Joyride such a joy to pick up and play. Levels don’t take long to get through, about a minute is the average run you will usually have.
The game is just polished in every way. The traditional Halfbrick humor is alive and well in Jetpack Joyride. From things like “Mr. Cuddles” the dragon, to shooting the hapless scientists in your “Bad As Hog”, it is just funny throughout the whole thing. When you hit an obstacle, Barry supposedly dies I suppose, but even this is not taken seriously. One of the many gadgets you can purchase will encase Barry in a bubble, not unlike the ones we got small toys at vending machines, when he dies, so that he will bounce further, to increase your total distance! You can acquire spin tokens, which will allow you to spin a slot machine at the end of each run, with different prizes. Two of these are explosives, which the game will release right on top of Barry’s corpse, just so the explosion will propel him further! There are tons of little tidbits in the game, and I don’t want to ruin them for you, but these are some of my favorites. The game’s requirements are low, so most people should be able to play it just fine. Unfortunately, the game is currently only available in the Amazon App Store. The amazing part though: the game is free! You would be doing yourself a disservice by not picking this up. Give it a try, you won’t regret it! Now, back to getting more stuff for Barry I go! Watch this awesome trailer if you still have doubts!(yes, I know it doesn’t list Android).