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PG Applympics 2012: The hurdles event

You might as well jump

PG Applympics 2012: The hurdles event
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Welcome to the Pocket Gamer Applympics - our (hopefully legal) spin on that big sports thingy that's happening in the UK this summer.

Put simply, we're going to go focus on a number of sporting events and try and find eight mobile games that have some vague, tenuous link to the sport in question.

Then, we'll ask you - our fine readers - to vote on which games deserve medals made of precious metals.

This time around, it's the hurdle races. Which are a bit like a platformer - just replace the hurdles with lava pits or deadly spikes. Which, coincidentally, would make the real Olympics about 100 times more fun.

To vote for your favourite platforming game of the PG Applympics, visit our Facebook page and select the relevant radio button. Easy as.

LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias
By Frontier Developments - buy on iPhone and iPad

Much like its short but charming predecessor, LostWinds 2 buys a lot of player goodwill through its charming, whimsical looks alone.

There’s a gentle, otherworldly style to protagonist Toku’s epic adventure that’s buoyed – literally – by the gameplay’s focus on using an array of wind-powered, erm, powers to traverse deadly and gaps and dispatch enemies. Spinning snowflakes into powerful snowballs is just one neat trick up your sleeve.

Astronot
By Wade McGillis - buy on iPhone and iPad

It might not have the swish looks of LostWinds, but Astronot’s smart mix of chunky 8-bit style and Metroid-esque exploration makes it one of the most rewarding platformers around.

Playing as a stranded space man on a hostile alien planet, your job is to run, leap, and blast your way around this scary new world. Along the way, you're looking for parts of your shattered ship.

It may be a bit too challenging, or rambling, for some, but adventure hunters will relish this retro jumping journey.

Oscura
By Chocolate Liberation Front - buy on iPhone and iPad, or buy on Android

There are shades of XBLA cult favourite Limbo in this spooky tale of a shadowy imp creature searching for shards of a shattered lighthouse - and it’s not just down to the interplay of light and dark in the wondrous visuals.

Oscura also boasts rather smart flick-based control system that belies what a devilishly tricky platformer it can be. It might be a little too instadeath happy for less patient player, but it’s short and darkly sweet enough to save you pulling out all of your hair.

This Could Hurt
By Orange Agenda - buy on iPhone and iPad

You’d think that only having one, very simple, way to control a game would make for a more relaxing form of entertainment – well, This Could Hurt is here to disprove that theory.

Across a series of increasingly convoluted and hazard heavy isometric levels, you can only push on the screen to stop your on-screen hero from marching to his doom. It might start off gently, but soon your reaction times will be tested to the limit as the 3D environments twist and turn around you.

League of Evil 2
By Ravenous Games - buy on iPhone and iPad

Forget the pixellated looks of the original League of Evil, this superior sequel is both sharper to look at and to play – without sacrificing the precise platforming thrills along the way.

You race through the brief levels as a hulking cyborg, before beating up one of the bespectacled boffins at the end of stage.

As well as the atypical spikes, moving platforms, and massive hammers to dodge, jump, and wall jump past, there are enemy soldiers to duff up with your powerful punch too.

Bean’s Quest
By Ravenous Games - buy on iPhone and iPad, or buy on Android

With the mid-‘90s looks and soundtrack of a vintage Mega Drive title, Bean’s Quest manages to perfectly scratch the platforming itch of gamers who grew up in the Grunge vs. Brit Pop era (hello, fellow 30-somethings)

It also takes the whole ‘when to jump’ issue out of your hands as hero Emilio, a cursed man transformed into a Mexican jumping bean (wait, what?) automatically bounces through the more than 40 intricately designed levels.

You can only move him left to right to avoid spikes, bottomless pits, and bean-hungry monsters, while other twists – like having to complete levels in a stingy number of jumps – steadily up the challenge.

Roboto
By Fenix Fire - buy on iPhone and iPad, or buy on Android

A potent mix of Mario’s magic, Sonic’s speed, and Marty McFly’s iconic hoverboard, Roboto remains one of the most scrappily endearing platformers around.

As the titular hero, you have to jump, slide and, yes, hover across a fun, yet fiendishly unforgiving, futurescape on a mission to rescue your robot girlfriend. While it’s a little floaty to control on touch screens, Roboto is much sharper to manoeuvre with a physical controller or on the Xperia Play.

Stardash
By OrangePixel - buy on iPhone and iPad, or buy on Android

Like Roboto above, veteran tough-as-nails game developer Orange Pixel’s best known title is considerably more refined with actual physical buttons to hand.

Easily the most demanding platformer on our list, this homage to the original Game Boy deploys greyscale sprite hazards and pixel-perfect leaps with scant regard for your shredded nerves. You may not make it to the end of its 36 levels, but you’ll feel like you’ve earned an Olympic medal just reaching the half-way point.

Remember: To vote for your favourite platform game of the PG Applympics, visit our Facebook page and select the relevant radio button. The winners of each event will be revealed at the end of the week.

To see each of the eight platform competitors in action, check out the video below.

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Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
A newspaper reporter turned games journo, Paul's first ever console was an original white Game Boy (still in working order, albeit with a yellowing tinge and 30 second battery life). Now he writes about Android with a style positively dripping in Honeycomb, stuffed with Gingerbread and coated with Froyo