Game Reviews

TheEndApp

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TheEndApp
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Temple Run: Brave basically perfected the third-person over-the-shoulder endless-runner a couple of weeks ago. There's not much more you can do to the genre without either overcomplicating things, or turning it into something else.

TheEndApp is, not to put too fine a point on it, a palette swap. It has the same mechanics as the original Temple Run, but instead of running away from angry monkeys you're sprinting through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The Post-man

You play as a bearded, back pack-wearing dude-sort who's pelting through a smashed up city collecting roll after roll of bright green duct tape, which in this bleak vision of the future represents gold.

There are trashed buses to throw yourself over, pools of lava to swerve around, and collapsed bridges to slide under. The controls are the same as Temple Run's: swiping up makes you jump, down makes you slide, and left and right make you turn left and, well, right.

Tilting your iOS device guides you around the cracks in the road, letting you avoid flaming barrels and collect the streams of green tape that entice you into taking more difficult routes. You can spend tape on score multipliers and extra lives at the in-game shop.

One new element is ramps, which you leap from to reach greater heights, but these are seemingly only there for show, and don't add anything to the template other than a few extra seconds of hang time.

Trying to outrun the inevitable

TheEndApp is visually busy, with fires burning at every turn and crashed aeroplanes and wrecked houses littering the sides of the cracked concrete strip you're legging it down. It clings to its apocalypse theme with aplomb.

There are challenges to undertake alongside the endless-running mode, and these task you with running certain distances, reaching certain landmarks, or posting your score onto a social network. They reward completion with duct tape and another set of challenges.

There's nothing mechanically wrong with TheEndApp, and it's just as entertaining as its inspiration. The problem is, it's shackled so closely to the Temple Run template that it renders itself almost pointless.

If the only reason you haven't played Temple Run thus far is that it takes place in a temple rather than a post-apocalyptic world, then you're in luck. Otherwise, there's no reason to download TheEndApp over its progenitor.

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TheEndApp

Tied down by its rigid adherence to the endless-running formula, TheEndApp isn't a bad example of the genre, but it's one you've played before
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.