Demolition Dash HD Review

Demolition Dash HD is a different take on the endless running genre. The player controls Zilla, a red creature that likes to run, and yells with enough fury to blow objects away his mighty roar. The game takes Zilla around the world, destroying things in various locales, although there's something that just seems wrong about destroying buildings and helicopters in Rio de Janeiro while the Christ the Redeemer statue looms in the background. There are 24 levels in total, crossing 8 cities. Each level can be completed by getting to the end without dying, as Zilla can take up to 4 hits before dying, but each level also has an alternate goal to complete.

Demolition Dash HD is a very good looking game; the worlds are painted with a variety of colors, mostly pastels. There's not a lot of time to admire the game's artwork, but the glimpses of it show the effort that went into this game. The level and objective-based gameplay is at least a nice change of pace from the typical endless running games, where the only goal is extended survival. It isn't necessarily better, but it is a nice change of pace to separate the game from others in the genre. The game also comes with support for Game Center leaderboards and achievements.

Demolition Dash HD is just too dashing. The game moves at such a rapid pace, and the visuals are so busy that the game is really just a blur. While enemies have a distinctive spark to denote that they are things that can hurt the player, things still have a tendency to blend into each other. The culprit may be in part LCD ghosting, and the iPad seems to suffer more from object blurring due to the game's pace than it does on the iPod touch 4G with the iPhone/iPod touch version of the game. Just mashing on the 'roar' button is an ill-advised strategy, as doing that often leads to damage from enemies in that split-second while the roar is recharging. However, that's often the best strategy to complete some of the challenges that are presented, as keeping track of specific objects is such a challenge. This is an endless running game without an endless mode, as well. The menu screen teases a locked-away mode that's "Coming Soon" and I hope that it is an endless mode, something this game could get use out of. The level and objective-based gameplay doesn't quite lend itself to longevity in a genre that is known for endless replayability.

Demolition Dash is pretty, and tries new things in a familiar genre, but neither of those aspects are to its benefit. For those not sick of the running genre yet, Demolition Dash in both HD form for iPad and iPhone/iPod touch variations (the only difference between the two versions is price) is not a must-have by any means, but is interesting use of time. It doesn't stand with the best of the genre at all, though.