Game Reviews

Planet Diver - Not quite the ace of BASE

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iOS
| Planet Diver
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Planet Diver - Not quite the ace of BASE
|
iOS
| Planet Diver
That's a pretty neat spacesuit

Why thank you. I like to wear it while I'm playing Space Diver. It's a downwards orientated faller that's got rocket boots, bats, and a pretty severe difficulty curve.

Wait, do you mean Downwell?

Well, no. Despite the similar descriptions, Space Diver actually takes a pretty different route to the bottom. It's more twitchy, more swipey, and not as compulsive as Moppin's monochrome blast.

Okay, so why is it different?

There are no platforms here. Instead you're free-falling through a hole in a planet. You swipe left and right to dodge out of the way of lumps of rocks and the aforementioned bats. Swiping down fires off your rocket boots and speeds you up. Swipe up and you'll slow down and perform a dodge.

Oh, okay, sounds good

It's certainly different, but in practice it's a little bit slippery. On the larger screen of the iPad your swipes can sometimes be misinterpreted, and you end up ploughing into a wall instead of skirting deftly around it.

That's not great

Nah. The timing is sort of sticky as well, and takes a bit of getting used to. When things click there's fun to be had though. The action is sharp and fast, and the story mode gives you some pretty tricky challenges to try and overcome.

It has its moments then?

It does, and some neat ideas. You've got a robotic assistant, and you can equip it with different modules that change the way the game plays. Normally your dash is an attack, but you can switch it so your braking fires out a barrage of bullets, things like that.

Okay, anything else I should know?

There's certainly a lot to do here, but it takes a while to slog through and unlock it. There's not the immediacy of Downwell, and while the art style looks pretty good, there are a few ragged edges here and there that take the sheen off things.

Worth a crack though?

Yeah, there's something here, and when it's in full flow, the game is a lot of fun. But then it'll stutter a little, or you'll get stuck, and you'll need to decide whether it's worth the time and effort to bash through and see what comes next.

Planet Diver - Not quite the ace of BASE

Planet Diver has its moments, but they're too often hidden behind slippery controls and some poor pacing
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.