Review: Thor
by Staff Writer
December 31, 2009
Overview
Thor is advertised as a brand new scrolling platformer from Freeverse. You play as Thor the thunder god, who moves forward automatically, and you tap and swipe to get through obstacles and collect items. It's a mash up of endless casual games like Run! and canabalt with tap to destroy items game.
Features
13 levels are included that progress through three worlds of earth, air, and ice. Thor runs forward, and you tap on obstacles which flash, and he does the rest to avoid the obstacle. As you're progressing there are many energy orbs and lightning bolts on screen, and you tap orbs, and swipe through lightning bolts to collect them. There are many orbs, bolts, and a couple other collectibles, and your goal is to collect them all in a level, and consecutive chains build your multiplier. Local high scores and achievements are included with each level having three main achievements of collecting all energy collectibles, finding raven spy, and going undamaged.
Each grouping of levels has a boss battle where you tap on the boss to electrocute them. You need to tap as many times as you can while avoiding obstacles at the same time.
The Good
The game looks great in every way with a 2D side scrolling style, but with 3D foreground. background and characters. The backgrounds are ornately designed, and change as you progress through the levels. Thor, his chariot, and enemies are all rendered in 3D, and look great. Also. the animations are top notch whether it's the movements of Thor or the burst of sparks as you collect energy orbs and lightning bolts. Everything you see in the game is wonderfully designed.
The included soundtrack fits the mythical god theme well, and the sound effects are nice from the grunts of Thor to the dings collecting orbs, and the lightning strikes you evoke.
The actual Thor theme is intertwined nicely, and adds an aspect casual endless games haven't had. With that said the story is basic at best with only a couple lines of dialogue, and just Thor saving a kidnapped woman.
With all of the inputs needed with multiple taps and swipes quickly the game picks up all of your actions accurately. Every tap and swipe registered, though sometimes there are just too many orbs on screen to get them all.
If you do actually end up liking the game the local achievements are quite deluxe and challenging. The entire game is relatively easy though as the obstacles are few and far between, and every action comes down to a tap. Collecting the orbs is the most difficult part, but have no impact on completing the level.
The Bad
The game is nothing more than Run! with nice graphics and mythical god theme. The only thing making it a platformer is that it has levels instead of just endless. Thor automatically runs, rides in chariot, etc. while you tap on or swipe energy. Then there will be the occasional flashing objects like a wall on earth, or twister in the air that you need to tap, and Thor will throw his hammer, or jump over, etc. That's about it to the game. It has the same game mechanics as Run!, but with levels, and less action. The worst part is the tap to destroy object feature with tons of objects on screen to tap for no reason what so ever other than collecting score. It becomes a hassle at best, and is no where near enjoyable.
The boss battles can't even be counted as boss battles. You come to a boss, and he tosses items at you that you have to tap to dodge or jump over. While doing that you need to tap repeatedly on the boss to shoot lightning at him. It's just a tapping marathon, like the rest of the game.
The game goes by quickly with only 13 levels of the same thing. Run! has more replayability with OpenFeint high scores, achievements, multiple gameplay modes, and most importantly fun.
Overall the game is extremely disappointing since its from Freeverse, and you're expecting a side scrolling platformer, or a game similar to Sparta. Instead we get a Run! clone with more tapping, but less action and fun.
The game isn't bad, it is just a disappointment from Freeverse, and even comes up short compared to casual endless games. It doesn't even compare to platformers or side scrolling games in the App Store. It also falls short of tap object games, and it seems to try to do so many things instead of doing one thing great. There's a lot for only $0.99 though it's rather boring, monotonous, and doesn't engage the user.
