Death Mile

It's exactly as difficult to dislike Death Mile as it is to like Death Mile. The reason for this tepidity is that Death Mile simply doesn't provide enough material for you to develop strong feelings for it either way.

Still, it's a game, it's free, and its IAPs are unobtrusive to the point of being non-existent, so you may well want to spend some time with it.

Death Mile is a gyroscopically controlled endless-driver that borrows heavily from the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max. You pick an abrasive gunner with a spotty criminal record, plop him into a heavily armoured and in-no-way-street-legal vehicle, and drive for as far as you can.

Tilting your iPhone or iPad allows you to steer, and a simple tap on the screen fires your main weapons. Your gunner will automatically target the flying, robotic enemies (which are called hovercraft despite the fact that they fly) and sorting out an enemy is usually a simple four- to five-tap affair.

While some endless-drivers provide you with missions or vague objectives to complete, like 'kill X enemies in a run', Death Mile doesn't concern itself with such details. Instead, you simple drive and shoot. And drive and shoot. And drive. And shoot.

It's the sort of gameplay that should be good in theory, but it just falls incredibly flat in Death Mile as the challenges posed by the enemies are minimal.

This isn't to suggest that Death Mile is a bad game by any means, as the steering is responsive and the graphics are crisp enough. But there's just no hook to keep you playing longer than a few minutes, and so its potential is squandered.

With no missions, no soundtrack, and no real incentive to play past Game Center rankings and the lure of weapon enhancement in multiplayer matches, Death Mile just keeps on driving into the sunset without noticing that it's left all its players behind.