‘Heights’ for iPhone. New Doodle Jump Like Game with Laid Back Attitude

Heights 5

Heights [rating: 2.5/5]

Doodle Jump has been one of the major hits of the App Store and there have been many similar games that have attempted to follow in it’s footsteps. Heights for iPhone is another such title although it seems to be more like Doodle Jump of Prozac with it’s laid back approach and storyline that follows a seed that was born to sleep yet dreams of flight!

As with similar games in the genre the many task to the game is to climb as high as you can using a jumping technique. The controls see you manoeuvring the seed using a single tap on the screen to jump, press and hold to make a bigger jump, double tap to double-jump and finally holding your finger down on the screen to enable hoover mode where your seed will slowly float down rather than dropping like stone.

A short tutorial takes you through these three basic moves but they are pretty straight forward and you’ll be ready to test your skills on the full game in next to no time. You may want to make use of the practise mode however. This gives you access to all 3248 feet of playing area to test your jumping skills without the worry achieving a high score. In practise mode you can also scroll to any part of the playing area to practise on.

On to the game though and it’s simple enough. As mentioned previously your task is to simply climb as high as you can by jumping on the various platforms and missing the obstacles on your way.

Most of the platforms are clouds which will disintegrate and send you falling through if you hang around too long while some of the clouds are more permanent allowing you to rest and gather your thoughts. Don’t rest too long though as your climb up the screen is against the clock.

There are clocks along the journey that will add 15 seconds to your time so it’s worth while grabbing these while you can, but you’ll also need to avoid the spikes that will send you falling back down the screen should you hit them.

Heights iPhoneEven with the clock counting down there is no sense of urgency to the game play and instead of feeling a sense of urgency to climb as high as possible or an eagerness to try again the overall feeling is one of irrelevance!

The game is pretty simple although having to rely on the movement of the platforms to move your character left and right on the screen rather than having any direct control left and right certainly adds an additional challenge to the game play.

The games graphics and sound are not going to offend you but are also not going to wow you either, much like the game itself which while fun for a while doesn’t provide the same level of addictiveness of similar titles.

The game is OpenFeint enabled which enables global leader boards and achievements of which there are 11 ranging from completing the game to hitting 15 spikes which adds a little to the longevity of the app.

If you like this type of game then the price point of 99 cents isn’t going to prevent you from giving it a go, however it also doesn’t offer the amount of options that it’s big brother, Doodle Jump has to offer for the same price!

Pros

  • New twist on the vertical platform genre
  • Achievements and leader boards via OpenFeint

Cons

  • No left or right movement
  • Not enough variety
  • Too laid back
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnE_0Xf9gl4]

Price: $0.99 (iTunes Store)
Category: Games
Updated: Jul 02, 2010
Current Version: 1.1
Size: 12.2 MB
Language: English
Seller: Alebrije Estudios
© Alebrije Estudios
Rated 4+
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 2.2.1 or later.

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