Random Mandatory

Rating: Pretty Freakin’ Good

What’s it about? Jetpack Joyride is about a guy named Barry Steakfries who has decided that he would take the lab’s jet pack out for a spin.

What makes it good? This game has some pretty good stuff going for it. It’s a very humorous game. You start each round with Barry bursting through the wall and causing any scientists on the screen to be hit by the debris and grab the jet pack on the stand. If the start of the game hasn’t caused you to think that the game is worth trying, then let me give you another reason!

Jetpack Joyride’s controls are fairly simple and just about anyone could pick up this game and easily play it. All you have to do is tap the screen to make Barry go up and stop tapping to let him fall. Although the controls are simple, the game is in no way easy the entire time. For the first thousand meters or so, the game goes at a nice slow pace, slowly getting faster and letting you get used to this comfortable speed, then things get faster at a…faster pace and the obstacles being laid in front of you become an even larger problem. It makes me really happy to see that it becomes difficult to break my record as my score goes up not because I get tired of playing the game but because the game gets too hard and I have to learn to pilot Barry better.

Since anyone can easily pick up the game, Halfbrick Studios made the game incredibly child friendly and included lots of good humor that adults would understand as well. The “Bad As Hog” is a prime example of the humor that kids (hopefully) won’t get. Also, there are various funny ways you can kill scientists during your run. You can smash them with the ‘Lil Stomper or burn them to a crisp with Mr. Cuddles. But my favorite vehicle is the Profit Bird for no other reason than it’s the most difficult of the vehicles to maneuver. My favorite thing to do in the game though is to get into the Bad As Hog and shoot the scientists with the shotgun but just about every vehicle offers a fun new way to control Barry.

The missions the game gives you is a nice addition to the game that gives you more of a focus when you run and gives you a reason to keep playing. My favorite thing about the missions, though, is that as you level, the missions get harder and the rewards get better.

Anything they could do better? I don’t think it would hurt to make some new obstacles farther into the game or maybe even offer some different environments for Barry to explore but all-in-all, I don’t have any big complaints with this game.

Should you get the game? Short answer is yes, it’s free on both iTunes and Google Play so it wouldn’t hurt to spend 15 minutes trying it.