Game Reviews

Team Awesome

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Team Awesome
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| Team Awesome

If you sit very still and look closely at the Google Play and App Store charts for a long time, you can occasionally spot games that don't involve one-button platforming and the collecting of endless coins to spend on endless upgrades.

Team Awesome isn't one of those rare breeds, but its focus on flying and smashing through walls means it soars above much of the freemium fodder.

Unfortunately, once the difficulty ramps up and you have to start rummaging through your pockets for loose change to spend on IAP upgrades, its Superman-style cape starts to wear thin - and even the voice of Duke Nukem himself (Jon St John) can't quite patch it up.

Is it a bird?

There's definitely a dash of The Incredibles to the game's colourful artwork, which should immediately warm the gaming cockles of Pixar fans' hearts, although the resemblance hardly signifies originality.

Each of the 40 stages gives Captain Awesome, or one of his super-powered Team (if you have the many, many coins needed to unlock them), a series of objectives to complete on his run.

Collecting a set number of coins is the most straightforward objective, but you also need to carry out heroic deeds like duffing up bank robbers and returning their stolen cash to the heartbroken financial institutions or, for variety, returning cats to their old lady owners.

For most of these challenges you need to fly between platforms by holding down on the screen - a system that's genuinely rewarding to master, as you hurtle through buildings smashing walls, picking up items, and then swooping them back to their rightful owners.

It's just a shame that you've pretty much done everything the game has to offer after ten levels.

Wall plant

In an effort to make the action more dynamic, the camera has a tendency to swoop around to give you different views of your Awesome actions. It looks pretty enough, but doesn't exactly help you to see where you're going - often causing some slapstick crashes into hidden walls.

The further you get into the game, the longer the levels - yet the timer still counts down at the same pace, and collecting floating crystals doesn't quite give you enough precious seconds back. This means you have to keep upgrading your hero's powers, such as his speed and cash-collecting skills, with coins picked up in-game.

You get helpful bonuses for completing enough level challenges, yet the second half of the game still becomes more of a race against the clock than a super adventure unless you're IAP-inclined.

Quickly, your experience veers from awesome to average, and it's unlikely that many players will get to see whether Team Awesome prevails over evil bank robbers, demented dentists (really), and those inveterately lost cats.

Team Awesome

A decent one-button platformer with a fun flying mechanic that only loses Awesomeness once short timer limits and expensive power-ups start taxing your wallet for IAPs
Score
Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
A newspaper reporter turned games journo, Paul's first ever console was an original white Game Boy (still in working order, albeit with a yellowing tinge and 30 second battery life). Now he writes about Android with a style positively dripping in Honeycomb, stuffed with Gingerbread and coated with Froyo