Well this is strange timing. We can't for the life of us work out why Chillingo has opted to publish the athletics-themed Flick Champions World Edition out now.
I mean, there aren't any major athletics tournaments taking place at the moment, are there? (Apart from THIS sporting event, of course.)
Okay, so capitalising on events taking place in East London is perfectly understandable. Especially when, in Flick Champions World Edition's case, it offers the chance to improve on last year's enjoyable Flick Champions HD.
And here's where the problem lies. Flick Champions World Edition simply isn't as good as its predecessor.
New rosterOnce again you're presented with eight sporting events to take part in, and to the developer's credit they're all new additions. This time you get Running, Javelin, Kayaking, Hammer, Handball, Volleyball, Synchronised Swimming, and plain old Swimming.
The trouble is that many of these just aren't up to scratch. Whereas Flick Champions HD presented a selection of strong simplified representations of popular sports like football, tennis and basketball, here there are a few turkeys.
Hammer is a shortcut to a blistered finger as you spin furiously on the screen and then lift it to let go of the hammer. Except your avatar seems to let go after a while anyway. This isn't explained.
Running is a tedious exercise in rubbing the screen, but occasionally you just seem to stop. Is this because our finger left the scrubbing area, or because we overdid it? It's not explained, but either way it's dull to play.
Bad sportVolleyball would be the worst of the lot, with ill-defined timing and poor feedback, if it weren't for the insultingly simplistic synchronised swimming.
Some of the new games are fun to play. Kayaking is an interesting case of alternating swipes either side of your little boat, which affect steering as well as momentum.
Handball initially feels like a poor version of the first game's football, but things improve when you realise that you can flick players around the pitch at certain points, Subbuteo-style.
Overall, though, it's just not good enough. The online leaderboard element appears to have been improved, and collecting special items (like a whirlwind hammer or a start-boost) remains fun, but otherwise this is a markedly inferior game to the original.
Flick Champions World Edition
Flick Champions World Edition is more polished than its predecessor, but the new line-up of events simply isn't as accomplished
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.