App Review: Run Roo Run

Eat your heart out, Lola.

Run Roo Run
Price: $0.99 ($1.99 HD)

What’s it about?
When you’re a kangaroo and your offspring goes missing, there’s only one thing to do; steal a hat from Indiana Jones’ closet and get to stepping...errrr...hopping. Run Roo Run is billed as a microplatformer which really means that a normal sized level in any other game from the App Store gets billed out as five levels here. Luckily, there are 400+ of these microlevels and new ones get added on a weekly basis, so you’ll never wait too long for new levels to rip apart.

How does it look?
The game employs a a heavily cartooned style and, even though the gameplay is vastly different, Run Roo Run comes off looking a bit like an outback version of Angry Birds. Also like Angry Birds, RRR does the flimsiest of jobs fleshing out a backstory, using a single screen and just a handful of comic panels to explain that your little blue joey has been kidnapped and you’re gonna have to hop harder than ever before to get him back (hence, the hat. Duh.). Sure, it gets the job done but, like Stuart Scott’s eye, it just feels lazy.

What’d they screw up?
Run Roo Run toes a fine line between being too easy to enjoy and being impossible to put down. The entirety of the gameplay is as simple as tapping to jump over obstacles or to grab power ups, a tried and true formula that a certain Italian plumber has been getting away with for decades. The x-factor here is how long it takes for the game to show off any difficulty - we made it to the fourth chapter in minutes - and, where that sense of complete domination over a game might get a casual gamer jazzed, hardcore gamers are likely to forsake Roo’s quest well before it ever gets good.

How addictive is it?
Totally redeeming the lack of difficulty are the Extreme stages that get opened once a chapter is complete. These can be brutal and, if you were wondering why you’d ever need the bonus items (like slo-mo or level-clear), these are the reason. The extreme levels tighten up the game and add a shot of difficulty to the sometimes mundane levels that’ll frustrate, delight and, most importantly, keep you coming back for more.

Out of five? 
3.5, lackluster graphics and overly simplistic levels might scare away hardcore gamers but won’t stop Run Roo Run from burning up the iTunes charts.

If I like this, what else will I like? 
Professor Lupin, Super Mario 3D Land, getting your ass kicked by a kangaroo