Jump Drive review - Endless flying Han Solo style
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iOS
| Jump Drive

The best bit of any Star Wars film isn't the light sabre battles or The Force or even Han Solo.

It's the bits where someone (admittedly usually Han Solo) flies a space ship through perilously tight spaces.

Jump Drive essentially builds an endless runner/flier out of those bits. Seems like a perfectly sensible move to me.

Tight squeeze

The game places you in control of a little spaceship zipping through a hulking piece of machinery.

This monstrosity is filled with all manner of nasty traps, all laid out in a linear death-corridor like some kind of dystopian Ninja Warrior.

There are timed laser gates, huge crushers, and overlapping wrecking balls that only occasionally part to offer a way through.

Fortunately, your craft's jump drive can be employed in tiny bursts by tapping the screen. This rapidly accelerates you to a point in the near distance, enabling you to squeeze through even the tightest of gaps.

Purple patch

On the back of this simple control system is built a satisfying endless runner - one that feels far more precise and finely tuned than your average cartoony runner.

It's incredibly simple, with little in the way of embellishment or variety. One additional consideration, though, is the collection of purple gems.

Most of the time these dot your path, but from time to time they will move in a particular pattern, encouraging you to stick around in one spot for a little longer. Which, of course, can prove fatal.

Another way the game fends off the threat of boredom is by maintaining your progress. You never start a clean run, but rather continue from where you left off.

Of course, with randomised obstacles the concept of levels is a little woolly, but the colour-coded levels at least give you the illusion of progress - and there are loads of new level elements and unlockable ships to uncover.

Might as well jump

Jump Drive is an endless runner that isn't startlingly original, but which is just a little bit tighter and more interesting than many of the me too examples on the App Store.

If you've ever thrilled at the Millennium Falcon swooping through the Death Star access tunnel in Return of the Jedi, or simply fancy a smart new endless runner to while away a few minutes, it could be worth a look.

Jump Drive review - Endless flying Han Solo style

A neat sci-fi endless flier goes about its low-key business with quiet precision
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.