Spy Bot Chronicles iPhone/iPod Touch App Review

31 Aug

Title IUGO Mobile’s Spy Bot Chronicles is a follow-up to the acclaimed Toy Bot Diaries trilogy. It’s set in the same universe, features some of the same characters, boasts a similarly colorful and polished 2D style, but it plays very differently. In Toy Bot, you controlled the whimsical main character, a lovable robot, through the world by twisting the iPhone to the left and right, which I thought worked pretty well. In contrast, Spy Bot Chronicles is much more of a traditional platformer and owes its control scheme to the genre classics, a truth that doesn’t translate as fluidly to Apple’s handheld as I might’ve hoped. Yet, navigational inconsistencies noted, Spy is still a fun outing that features all the charm and smart designs of its predecessor.

The story is very unremarkable. Toy Bot has been kidnapped by the always pesky Thief Bot and it’s up to you to steal him back. That’s it. The developer hasn’t concerned itself with storytelling, but that doesn’t mean Chronicles is light on presentation, because it isn’t. The game sparkles with vibrant, fluid hand-drawn 2D backdrops that span four unique themes and scores of stages, characters animate smoothly, explosions and lightning bolts come to life with adequate particle systems, and more. As far as platformers on iPhone go, you’re not going to find many competitors where style and polish are concerned.

Rather than relying on the accelerometer for tilt-based movement, the developer has instead created a touch-screen interface — a mock left/right digital pad on the lower left and a jump button on the lower right. This is, of course, the common workaround that iPhone game creators take so that they might recreate traditional experiences for the platform. I don’t take any issue with that. In fact, Chronicles’ scheme usually feels very good, both responsive and speedy, necessities for any good platformer. I also really like the character’s projectile system — you simply touch the area of the screen you want to shoot and he’ll zap away. There’s also an enjoyable hacking component.However as with any other title that uses a mock directional pad, supposing you’re not always attentive, your thumbs will inevitably slide further out of place as you go until, at last, your inputs are no longer recognized during clutch gameplay situations. Suddenly, your Spy Bot, who behaved so admirably moments before, has fallen to his death, not because you didn’t react quickly enough, but because your touch inputs went unrecognized by the game.

The weird thing is, these control inconsistencies are oftentimes frustrating, but in my experience ultimately forgivable. I simply kept coming back to the experience again and again despite any hiccups I might’ve encountered with the touch interface. I came back because the game is charming, sure, but the biggest draw is Spy Bot’s great level designs. It’s clear, as it was in the Toy Bot series, that the developer knows how to create fun and engaging stages, ones filled with smart platforming challenges and puzzles.

I’ll be honest, I like the Toy Bot series better because the control scheme seems more ideally suited to Apple’s handheld. Spy Bot arrives with some control inconsistencies that I feel are at least partly to blame on the mock touch-pad controls. Expect some frustrations as a result, but once you come to grip with the setup and remain attentive of your thumb placement, all of which comes with a little practice, you will soon discover another fun, charming platforming from IUGO Mobile. At $3.99, it costs the same as any single Toy Boy entry, and content wise it’s about the size of two games in the previous series.