One Epic Knight

Are we really still doing this whole Temple Run thing? It feels a bit been there, done that. We've now fled from the camera as a juvenile delinquent, an anthropomorphised raccoon, a secret agent, a carrot-top Scot, and a celebrity best known for drinking his own urine.

The latest, a spin-off of sorts of dungeon defence game Tiny Heroes, features a bug-eyed, gold-plated knight who sprints through a mediaeval castle in search of loot. Along the way he has to avoid obstacles and leap over pits.

It sticks closely to Imangi's formula. You leap over chasms, duck under low-hanging masonry, dart left and right at the end of corridors, and complete mini-challenges.

There's a twist, of course. The levels are scattered with swords and shields that let you automatically kill enemies and smash traps. It adds a thin layer of extra thought to the formula: do you use these weapons now to bump up your multiplier, or save them as backup in case you blunder into danger?

The latter is probably your best bet, as One Epic Knight has some really cheap deaths. There are trails of coins that lead into chasms, tricky jumps that often leave you splattered on the stones, and traps that randomly come to life and kill you. All that fun stuff.

The controls aren't much help, either. Unlike in most of these games, you can't change lanes while jumping and you can't change your mind mid-jump. Also, those all-important leaps just don't register at all sometimes.

The game has some comedy - mostly in the dialogue from the game's hero - but due to their random, repetitious nature, those lines quickly wear out their welcome. "They call me limberjack" isn't that funny the first time, so you can guess how much I was giggling after I heard it the thirteenth time.

Like all Temple Run clones, One Epic Knight can be a compulsive, white-knuckle ride of reflexes. But its annoying dialogue, cheap deaths, and stodgy controls put it way behind its rivals. There are simply better 3D endless-runners to play.