Extreme Skater

Extreme sports seem to be having a bit of a renaissance on smartphones. Barely a week goes by without a new digital way to throw yourself off things appearing on an app shop of some description.

Few of these new titles have been revolutionary, but that's not really what you want from your adrenaline junkie simulators. You want something tense, action-packed, and quick, filled with enough giant leaps to sate your lust for danger.

You want something like Extreme Skater.

Pro skating

Strictly speaking, Extreme Skater is something of a misnomer. You're more of an extreme mountain boarder, but that doesn't make for such a snappy title. With your off-road board strapped tightly to your feet, it's up to you to traverse a series of fiendish obstacle courses.

The controls are reasonably simple. Swiping up on the screen performs a jump, and tilting your phone lets you change position in the air. Grabs and tricks are handled by combinations of on-screen button-presses and finger-swipes.

The game plays like a mix between Trials HD and Sonic the Hedgehog, a balancing ride through loop-de-loops and over grind rails and across pits filled with murderous spikes. Timing your landings is key to success, and paying attention to the hints the game gives can mean the difference between extreme victory and extreme tragedy.

Gleaming the dinosaur bones

The hints take the form of signs scattered around the levels that tell you what's coming up next and give you a chance to prepare for it. It's a sensible system, and means that nothing too terrible is going to sneak up on you unannounced.

Each of the levels you ride through, from quarries strewn with dinosaur skeletons to warehouses full of rusty pipes, has multiple challenges for you to complete, and there are plenty of hidden routes that you can only unlock when you've powered your skater up by performing enough tricks.

The controls aren't always perfect, and it's sometimes a little too easy to get stuck on the scenery, but these are really just minor niggles.

Extreme Skater does exactly what you want it to. This is fast, arcade-style action, and while it isn't the best-looking game - or the most original - it's still an awful lot of fun.