Mine Run 3D - Escape 2 Temple

Anyone who follows my work will know that I'm not exactly the biggest advocate of video game clones. While I understand that plenty of genres have evolved by building on previous ideas, I can't stand it when a game blantantly rips off another.

As you'd expect, then, I wasn't a massive fan of Mine Run 3D - Escape 2 Temple: A game that rips off the gameplay of Temple Run, and then decides to directly copy the visual style of Minecraft just for good measure.

But this time around, it wasn't really the clone angle that made me sigh - it was simply that Mine Run 3D offers absolutely nothing that we haven't already seen before in countless other endless-runners.

You're an adventurer who has become lost in a series of endless underground caverns. Mine Run 3D is all about running down corridors, dodging traps, and staying alive for as long as possible.

This involves tilting your mobile device from left to right to steer your adventurer onto three different planes, and then swiping up and down to jump and slide depending on the obstacles.

Along the way, there are enemies that will try to trip you up, holes that need leaping over, and coins to pick up which can be used to unlock a game mode. Once you've been hit three times it's all over and your distance is recorded.

Mine Run 3D is a very smooth game, with a notably swish frame-rate. It also has a great skin editor that you can unlock, which allows you to fully customise what your character looks like.

But when the nicest thing I can say about a game is "it runs smoothly and you can put colours on things", it's pretty obvious that the rest of the game isn't so hot.

You've already played Mine Run 3D dozens of times before, in the form of other endless-runners. This game offers absolutely nothing new, and doesn't attempt to innovate in any way.

It also looks incredibly dull, with plenty of browns, greys, and blacks whooshing by. There isn't even a huge amount of variety - the traps and enemies you see in the first 30 seconds just repeat forever.

Nor does the game try to hook you in with interesting in-app purchases or online game features. There are no leaderboards at all, so your recorded distance doesn't mean a great deal.

And you can buy gems with real money, but these simply allow you to get back up and keep running when you die. There's no real incentive to purchase anything.

Mine Run 3D is boring, completely forgettable, and the worst kind of game clone - the kind that, despite coming out years after the game it's mimicking, does absolutely nothing new.