Game Reviews

Hyper Trip

Star onStar onStar halfStar offStar off
|
| Hyper Trip
Get
Hyper Trip
|
| Hyper Trip

Am I really getting slower as I move deeper into my thirties, or are the younger chaps I play football with simply that much better than me?

That's the strangely analogous scenario that sprung to mind as I died for the fiftieth time in Hyper Trip.

In Hyper Trip terms, the question is this: are these controls naff, or am I just really rubbish at this game?

Hyper active

At the risk of attracting accusations of copping out, I'm going to say that the answer probably lies somewhere in between.

Hyper Trip is one of those devilishly tough games that belongs in the same category as Super Hexagon, Wave Wave, and any number of other funkily attired sanity-botherers.

It's a simple game of avoidance. Your little square auto-scoots through a maze of other squares to a pounding techno soundtrack, and your only input is tapping the left and right sides of the screen in order to take 90 degree turns clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Stay alive long enough and your reward will be a new level type - which is more than you get from most games of this kind.

Unnatural reaction

I am, indeed, rubbish at all of the games mentioned above. I think that my reactions sit somewhere at the upper range of average, but I simply don't have the tenacity or will power to improve beyond a certain point.

But there's a different feeling to Hyper Trip. The feeling that many of my swift deaths aren't wholly my fault.

It's impossible to pinpoint for sure, but there appears to be a slight lag, a slightly wallowiness to the controls. It also doesn't help that if your inputs cross over at all (pressing both sides at once), neither will register.

There's MFi control pad support here, but as ever that should be a bonus rather than a fix to any iOS game's ills.

Hyper Trip is tough and pretty, as with the best examples of the sub-genre, but it just doesn't offer that razor-sharp digital-responsiveness that such a brutally single-minded game needs.

Hyper Trip

A tough, slick auto runner, but one that doesn't quite feel responsive enough to drag you through the inevitable frustration barrier
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.