Game Reviews

Jet Set Go

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iOS
| Jet Set Go
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Jet Set Go
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iOS
| Jet Set Go

Chillingo may be new to the whole time-management shebang, but the leading faces at BigStack Studios certainly aren't.

Under the guise of its previous employer GamesCafe, the team behind Jet Set Go is best known for 2009's Sally's Spa.

Even if that particular effort evaded your attention, it's clear within seconds of starting its latest form of legal crack that the talent employed in this flight of fancy has been here before.

Indeed, Jet Set Go could best be described as a greatest hits package in everything but name: a time-management sim that touches base with every other big series in the genre, all rolled into one title.

Triple agent

This means, as well as working in a travel agent fitting up customers with the perfect trips away, you'll also find yourself hopping on a plane or two, waiting tables in New York, or taking holiday snaps of visitors in front of Niagara Falls.

The game as a whole is cannily split into three main areas: serving customers efficiently in the shop to build excitement, spending the money you earn to upgrade your facilities and, finally, ensuring those trips abroad are a success.

The first and the third of those activities deliver the actual gameplay, and while your reaction time is key in each and every one of the games that result, their effectiveness differs wildly.

Thankfully, the most proficient of all the modes on offer is the main one - managing the array of travel agents around the globe that fall into your franchise.

Fitting sitting

Here, Jet Set Go revolves around the concept of moving customers through a series of chairs: one to browse the brochures, another to book a location, a further seat to sort out a hotel or flight booking, and so on.

Not all customers will need to follow each and every step, but every last one of them will demand your attention incessantly, whether they need to be dragged with your finger to the next point in the process, or tapped on to attend to their every want and need.

It's this part of Jet Set Go that perfectly balances a sense of fairness with the hectic nature all time-management sims thrive on.

The game is beautifully weighted. Though making sure customers don't get frustrated while waiting keeps you on your toes, Jet Set Go's populous have a varied enough checklist to ensure one part of the map doesn't become overloaded while another remains sparse.

Ready for takeoff

It's not that the other mini-games on offer foul up this balance. Rather, they simply aren't as interesting.

It would be unfair to describe any as useless (a lesser developer would have served up the table-waiting game as a title in its own right), but the array of moves available crucially aren't as varied.

For example, working down at the beach merely consists of serving drinks, escorting guests to sunloungers, and turning the patrons over when they start to burn.

A trip on a cruise ship, meanwhile, takes the form of a basic rhythm-action title, where pressing the right arrows in sync with the music is the order of the day.

If nothing else, these additional chapters are a useful way of ensuring the main game doesn't drag, meaning this three-in-one package - pun intended - feels well executed and all-encompassing.

More importantly than that, the meat of play is a rare beast within the genre: fair, fun, and anything but a holiday.

Jet Set Go

A mammoth package indeed, Jet Set Go takes the 'greatest hits' approach, and manages to deliver a fair yet fiercely addictive time-management sim
Score
Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.