Survivor

Reality shows come thick and fast to our television screens these days, and Survivor is certainly one of the biggest. The idea revolves around sticking a group of nobodies on a remote island and getting them to compete with one another until a winner is found.

In medieval times, a similar dynamic involved the pitting of peasants and lepers against each other in a comic, entertaining fight to the death for the amusement of kings. Times haven't really changed that much.

Anyway…

Survivor the game has two modes: Single Challenges and Survivor itself. The latter is the main option, which sees you take on fellow islanders at games, fish for food, and cast votes to eject players from the competition.

The games – of which there are just six – include things like spear chucking and the programme's infamous log run, all of which are supposed to gauge a person's mental and physical strength. But on a phone, without the television cameras and sunshine, the effects are somewhat limited.

As are the games, for that matter. There's just no imagination or flow to anything, and the controls are mostly useless. Indeed, the different missions require such dull, unexciting button presses that eviction from the island rapidly becomes the desired outcome; whether it's working out which direction to point your fishing rod, which fish you should catch first, or how long to hold down your button, the thrill is so short-lived you'd be forgiven for missing it entirely.

To the insipid controls you can add mediocre visuals, as Survivor has the graphical prestige of woodchip and the pure brilliance of tarmac. To say it looks lazy is an understatement – the games seem like they're straight out of 1980.

And let's not even get into the aural side of things.

But what about the gameplay – surely the adventure, spirit, and island life is a recipe for fun, right? Sorry, you won't find any here. There is a multiplayer mode (something that can normally be expected to save even the worst games from oblivion) but anyone who makes their friends play this would spread boredom like a virus.

Ultimately, Survivor is such a waste of time that lovers of the show, hoping to relive the experience, should simply stay at home, build a sandpit, put the heating on, raid their aquarium, and save their money.