Game Reviews

Zoo Rescue

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| Zoo Rescue
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Zoo Rescue
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| Zoo Rescue

When Disney bought Tap Tap Revenge developer Tapulous for an estimated $30 million, no one expected the first game that the combined entity would release would be a little tilt physics experience called Zoo Rescue.

Technically, though, the game has been developed by Tapulous Labs, suggesting it may be more of an experimental release: up to this point, Tapulous has only made music-based games.

On closer examination, it must be experiment because something's not quite finished about Zoo Rescue.

Whirlybird conservation

Across 20 levels, you guide a helicopter into a deep canyon to capture animals that have escaped from the zoo. Tilting moves your craft laterally and tapping the screen raises it into the air.

Of course, there are plenty of obstacles in your way. You might run out of fuel, while crashing more than three times into the valley walls will destroy your frail craft. There are also hurricanes to avoid, wooden barriers to pull out the way, and sharp rocky edges to avoid because they can destroy your rope.

Still, these are relatively easy to overcome by careful tilting of your device, and picking up the spare fuel cans and protective power-ups which are dotted around.

What's more difficult to handle is the game's jerky rope physics. This isn't helped as each animal only has two pick up points: each hand. It's fine for small animals, but not for a giraffe, which all-too-often blocks a connection with its long neck.

Breaking point

More annoying, however, is the way the rope interacts with hurricanes. Positioned in such as way that you can carefully manoeuvre your helicopter around them, it's often the case that the rope hanging beneath is caught up in the wind, and smashed into the sides, sometimes breaking off in the process even when it doesn't hit one of the designated sharp edges.

During the first half of the game, this sort of thing doesn't matter too much as levels are short. But when you get to the stage of having to rescue all five animals, there's so much that can go wrong in each descent and ascent that you don't need the game to throw a technical wobbly when you're on your last trip.

It's a shame because, despite its simplicity, Zoo Rescue can make you smile with some neat touches, such as the animals going crossed-eyed when you bash them into the wall.

Yet, overall, it feels incomplete.

Everything from the graphics to the collision detection and lack of gameplay variation suggests more time should have been spent in development before Zoo Rescue was let loose into the big wild world.

Zoo Rescue

Tilt physics game Zoo Rescue is a nice idea that's not been given enough development polish to shine
Score
Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.