Game Reviews

Chimpact

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Chimpact
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Everyone loves monkeys, and everyone loves catapults. Mathematically speaking, adding the two together can only result in smartphone and tablet gaming gold.

That's clearly the equation behind Chimpact, a family-friendly monkey-flinging physics game with no tricks up its furry sleeves but enough cheeky, good-natured humour that it's almost impossible to dislike.

Monkey see

The aim of the game is simple: fire a monkey up a tree. He starts asleep in a leafy hammock at the base, and there are similar green trampoline substitutes arranged further up the boughs. Dragging back on a hammock pulls it taut, and releasing it flings our simian hero upwards.

As things progress, you'll need to think carefully about the direction and speed of your catapulting, guilding the monkey past spiky thorns and angry animals to make sure he doesn't lose all of the bananas he's collected.

You can spend those bananas at an in-game shop to buy various single use power-ups. These range from skull-thickening potions that let you smash through obstacles to science-bating banana magnets that suck up nearby potassium rich fruits.

You can also flash some of your real-life cash on different happy monkeys, or on unlocking every level in the game, if you can't be bothered with gaining access to them manually.

Monkey do

There are two game modes - one sees you collecting glittering gems to unlock the next few levels, and the other sets you a variety of challenges, from finishing a level in a certain time to squishing a set number of bugs.

Everything in the game is insanely happy, from your grinning ape to the happy spiders and caterpillars that you'll bounce off as you fly up and around the various jungle settings. The levels are reasonably well-designed, but there's nothing here that will make you exclaim with joy.

Chimpact is a gorgeous, cheerfully average, committee-designed game. It's fun in short bursts, never smacks you in the face with its freemium bat, and offers a decent level of challenge the further you progress.

It gets plenty right, but you'll have forgotten it within minutes of laying down your iOS device.

Chimpact

A fun little monkey-flinger, Chimpact is an entirely forgettable, overwhelmingly cheerful slice of twee gaming nonsense
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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.