The free iPhone game Trawler Report – Volkswagen Touareg Challenge stars in our advergame special
17th May 2010
Free games come in all shapes and sizes. Some are mere demos, some are freemium titles trying to lure you into spending cash via micro-transactions, while others are genuine big-hearted freebies.
The most maligned type of freebie is the advergame – a program that's designed with the sole purpose of bigging-up a product, usually reeling you in with the promise of a full free game.
This week has inexplicably been a big week for the advergame. A handful have been released, and they range from the great to the comically bad.
They have a bad rep, but advergames shouldn't be written off completely. To prove our point, this week's Trawler Report is an advergame special.
Oh, and did I mention I'm selling these fine leather jackets?
The best free iPhone games on the App StoreVolkswagen Touareg Challenge
By Fishlabs/Volkswagen
Verdict Good fun, good advertising
Fishlabs's and Volkswagen's teaming-up is a match made in heaven. Fishlabs has a gift for making racing games that look and feel realistic without being boring. Volkswagen makes cars that many real people can afford. People with 9-5 jobs.
Volkswagen Touareg Challenge is the latest in a string of games that have sprung out of the partnership, and it might be the best yet.
Structured like a rally, the game lets you take on stage after stage in the Volkswagen Touareg, either blasting around the track to get the quickest time or aiming for fuel economy with careful, mannered driving skills.
Volkswagen Touareg Challenge represents the Volkswagen brand well and - shock, horror - is real fun to play. Other companies could learn a lot from this game.
By Mad Media Labs/BarclayCard
Verdict Reasonable fun, incomprehensible advertising Spinning Streak is a mixed bag. It sees you spinning plates by flicking away at the touchscreen, and it has this mechanic down almost perfectly. Stages pass as you move between locations, and it all ambles along pleasantly as a quick, pain-free distraction.
Our question is: what on earth is it trying to say? Banking is very much like spinning plates? If you don't keep an eye on your current account, it might crash and burn? If you don't make regular payments to your web saver account, we'll nick it and go on holiday to Hawaii?
There are cutscenes between levels, but their airy fairy nature leaves us none the wiser. Someone in Barclays's marketing department must have signed off this game's development.
We're just not quite sure why.
Last Tiger
By Vi Hui Ng/Tiger Beer
Verdict Mediocre fun, bad advertising
Last Tiger is a game that advertises Tiger Beer. How does it do it? By casting you as a nobody drunkenly racing against footballer Wayne Rooney to grab the last bottle of Tiger at the bar.
You tap the left and right hand-side of the screen to lurch left and right, and swipe up and down to slide under tables and leap over counters. Last Tiger feels flimsy and inconsequential.
Each stage is a little like the last, so after a few rounds with Rooney you'll be done. What's more interesting is the light this casts on Tiger beer.
At its best, is Tiger really best represented by the embarrassing exploits of a drunken chav at what looks like a wedding? Has the curry house staple been brought so low?
Little Captain
By Digitopolis/Thai Airways International
Verdict Fair fun, terrible advertising
Within a few seconds, it's obvious where Little Captain gets its inspiration from – Firemint's Flight Control. You play as the flight controller, directing air traffic so that it safely reaches its destination.
You skip across the world in the game's three stages, presumably representing Thai Airways International's key flight paths.
We don't know – we're games journalists, not plane spotters. If you can accept that Little Captain is much less refined, and clunkier, than Firemint's seminal Flight Control, you should be able to have some fun with Little Captain. Quite frankly, though, as an advergame it's utterly bizarre.
What sort of airline would advertise its services by publishing a game where planes are likely to crash into each other every few minutes? Thai Airways International, that's who. If you see their logo on your next plane ticket, be afraid. Be very afraid.
