#1 - Monster Dash

Game: Monster Dash

Price: £0.59 / $0.99 | App Store |
Genre: Action, Scroller
Developer: Halfbrick
Rating: 9+

Design: 7/10
Sound: 6/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

Do The Monster Dash!
A fast paced action scroller from the makers of Fruit Ninja and Age of Zombies promises to pack a punch. Armed and dangerous, you jump and shoot your way through the automatically scrolling levels in your bid to survive the longest possible distance. As you progress, the background themes change, new weapons become available and different monsters meet their match. Here's a quick review. Must dash...

Design
A colourful array of backgrounds, monster styles and themes keep a reasonable amount of interest and the random manner that levels and monsters appear promises a different game everytime. Levels include Transylvania, Great Wall of China and Tokyo Rooftops with monsters such as Vampires, Yetis and Zombies. Your arsenal of weapons start with the unlimited default shotgun which is then trumped by limited allocations of weapons you pick up on the go such as The Pacifier Magnum, Rocket Launcher and some creative inclusions like the Machine Gun Jet Pack.

Sound
The music is suitably catchy and each themed level triggers a remix of the ongoing song. There is certainly room for more variety, but the subtle changes are enough to stop you getting annoyed. The SFX are few and far between, but that's the nature of the game - you spend all your time jumping and shooting! Even if there were more monster and background sounds, I'm not sure you'd be able to appreciate them with the constant shooting and the soundtrack.

Gameplay
The aim of the game is to secure the highest possible score both locally amongst friends and through the use of Open Feint online scoring. There are no challenges or tasks to give an idea of progress, but this is mildly dealt with by the unlockable Achievements and playing Statistics. The controls are simple enough, with left taps jumping and right taps firing but you will find that it gets difficult very quickly with the pace of your running increasing all the time. Death is met by losing all your hearts through monster contact and obstacles or, most commonly, losing all your hearts in one go by failing to make a jump.

Conclusion
Overall this is a very addictive and catchy game, but only to a point. It's likely you'll play it endlessly for the first week and then it'll drop off your radar a little as the next distraction gets released. If the developers can add a new level, monster and weapon every so often, it'll spark a little more interest. However, some new playing styles are badly needed to keep this interesting such as challenges and tasks or just some form of completion other than endlessly chasing the highscore! At £0.59, it delivers some entertainment and it's well worth a look.