Jetpack Joyride

The folks over at Halfbrick sure knows who to create an addictive experience for iOS and following in the footsteps of {Fruit Ninja} is {Jetpack Joyride} - a game that manages to combine a bunch of mechanics that have proven successful on iPhone and iPad.

At its core {Jetpack Joyride} is a one touch survive as long as you can game similar to say {Tiny Wings} or {Canabalt}, but it builds on the replayability of {Tiny Wings} with its addictive nesting system (where you level up by achieving certain objectives and thus enabled higher scores), by providing players with coins, a shop full of upgrades and power-ups as well as customisation choices.

While the main objective is to travel as far as you possibly can with Barry Steakfries and his jetpack, the path isn't as narrow as in say {Tiny Wings}. The various vehicular power-ups you collect, the utterly random nature of the obstacles and the fact that you collect spin tokens translates into a quick, simple yet infinitely varied experience.

The spin tokens takes us to one of the more brilliant additions Halfbrick have made to the concept. With every spin token you collect you will get pull the lever on the end game slot machine once, earning rewards such as extra coins, bombs that will blast you a little bit further when you're dead and if you're lucky a second trip that allows you to continue your jetpack ride from where you died. You can also win rewards such as a headstart in your next run or double coins, which obviously is something that forces another go straight away. The coins also allow Halfbrick micro transactions, and you can obviously buy a bunch of extra coins for quicker access to the upgrades and disposable items in the shop. It's nothing that skews the leaderboard more than momentarily as the best players will unlock everything and earn coins on their own anyway.

But let's explore the various vehicles you pick up along the way, there's the hog, the teleporter, the Profit Bird, a gravity suit and a mech. All provide us with variation to the gameplay, and when you "wear" you can survive a hit from a missile or getting zapped.

One area where I'm not too pleased with Halfbrick is the achievements. There are way too many negative achievements that require you to fail in a certain way. Positive achievements that reward skill and timing feel way more rewarding as you go for them.

The presentation is some of the best you will see in a 69p game, and the action is played to a wonderfully addictive tune that reminds us a bit of Sonic the Hedgehog's Chemical Plant music.

{Jetpack Joyride} is incredibly addictive and the randomness to the levels, the variation brought about by the various suits and vehicles paired with levelling up and purchasing power-ups, has us hooked. At a mere 69p this is a definite purchase whether you own an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. The app is universal, and suits all formats equally well. We tried it on an iPhone 3GS and it ran smoothly without hitches so even people without last generation devices are well looked after.

As we played we snapped a good bunch of shots (iPhone 3GS), which you can gaze at below - it should be noted that the heads up display has been removed from these shots (captured in-game):

Barry sporting his "freaking teleporter".

The Profit Bird soars the skies, and you will have to continously tap the screen to make it flap its wings.

Barry with his bobble jetpack, an upgrade you buy in the item store.

In these screens you can see a spin token in front of Barry. Pick it up and you gain a spin on the end game slot machine.

Barry's hog shoots scientists and with a magnetic upgrade it sucks up coins.

Barry has equipped the Steam jetpack here - gameplay remains the same, but visuals are obviously different.

You need to avoid the zappers, but if you have a vehicle (such as the Hog to the right) you survive one hit.

A couple of screens of the Hog and the Teleporter.

The Little Stomper is a mech with limited flying capabilities.

Sliding along the ground with the Profit Bird. Poor scientists...