Game Reviews

Turbolab Pursuit

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iOS
| Turbolab Pursuit
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Turbolab Pursuit
|
iOS
| Turbolab Pursuit

Sometimes Turbolab Pursuit doesn't feel like a level playing field. Its bright and apparently breezy take on the endless-runner often feels skewed in favour of the dastardly black-clad ninjas who are chasing you.

Coupled with unimaginative gameplay that tries to add Tiny Wings-style hill acceleration to what's ostensibly an action game, it adds up to a package that's at best underwhelming, and at worst downright bland.

Endless rolling hills

You play as a scientist who, for reasons that remain unclear, is on the run from a blimp and a bunch of overzealous henchmen. Cue a frantic drive along a radically undulating range of hills to try and escape.

Your controls are limited to two buttons. One lets you throw your car into the air, and the other fires whatever weapon you have equipped in the direction of the nearest assailant. You need to time your leaps just right to land on the down slope, ensuring a speed boost and a moment of invulnerability.

There are coins to collect as you drive, which can be spent on upgrading most parts of your vehicle. You can make it jump higher, drive faster, withstand more damage, and fire different weapons - but, as you might imagine, the upgrades don't come cheap.

There are challenges to complete as you drive, too, and finishing these gives your coffers a boost. They range from driving a set distance to managing to land a jump on top of one of your pursuers. While they might add an extra layer of challenge, they still can't quite make the game interesting.

Drive ugly

The problem is, you've played this game a hundred times over. It's another endless-runner with no particular defining features, and it's constantly weighed down by the overwhelming odds it throws in your direction.

Quite often you'll die within a few seconds of starting, and at other times your pursuers will be granted supernatural speed for no apparent reason. The randomly generated raceways you drive across never quite spark the imagination, either.

There's some potential here, but in the end Turbolab Pursuit is crushed by overfamiliarity, an uninteresting look, and gameplay that all too often falls flat on its face.

Turbolab Pursuit

An uninspired endless chase that never quite gets out of the starting blocks, Turbolab Pursuit has its moments, but they're few and far between
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.