Grindcore

I'm sure if you asked many up and coming alternative bands about their hopes for the future, a good handful of them would tell you that their number one dream is to be immortalised in a free-to-play rip off of Tiny Wings.

That's just the way things are nowadays. Everyone wants to be famous on the App Store. Although it's unlikely that even the most ardent Senses Fail fan is going to give Grindcore 15 minutes' worth of attention.

Ground down

The game is a sort-of skateboarding sim that sees you controlling one of the four members of the band, here rendered unrecognisable by inoffensively cute sprites. "Aww, look", you might say, "it's the chubby one with the beard".

You have to lead whichever erstwhile member of the band you're controlling through a series of undulating hills, pushing a button to speed up on the down-slopes, then releasing it to spring free from gravity on the up-slopes.

There's also a 'boost' button that gives you an ineffectual push in a straight line, and swiping on the screen while you're airborne performs jump-extending, and possibly radical, tricks. Go uphill too much and you'll lose chunks of your stamina bar. When that runs out it's game over.

Coins litter the stretch of pavement you're skating along, and there are missions to complete that earn you extra points. It's all maddeningly generic, and not in the least bit exciting.

There are, as you might imagine, lots of things to spend coins on, and plenty of IAPs to ensure that your coffers are full. But the game underneath the monetisation is so nondescript that it's difficult to discern a single reason you would spend real-life money on it.

Weak

Even if you spend your days chasing after Senses Fail's tour bus crying about the distance between you and your heroes, you're probably going to take one look at this uninspired cash-in and think better of downloading it.

Grindcore shows off App Store gaming at its very worst. Cynical, bland, and desperately clinging on to the coat-tails of far greater things. This is definitely one to avoid.