Gopogo review
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Version: 1.0
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5
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When it comes to single-touch action / arcade games on mobile, few studios build them as well as Nitrome. Cooped Up, Green Ninja, Magic Touch, and Silly Sausage are just a small sample of the studio's weird but supremely fun output.
But Nitrome also produces games at a rapid clip, so it was inevitable that one of its twitch games would misfire.
That's not to say Gopogo is a bad game. Its core gameplay, which revolves around controlling a pogo-stick and its rider, is fun enough. The problem is the game's weird life distribution system, and its endless barrage of ads.
Jump around
Gopogo takes place in a dystopian society wherein pogoing is forbidden. Your mission in this gravity-loving hellscape is to fight The Man by guiding your pogo stick-riding freedom fighter across a series of levels.
Easier said than done. The controls take some getting used to, since your avatar never stops springing. Moreover, there are traps everywhere, including enemies, pits, and ground that gives way after you jump on it a few times.
Luckily the levels are short, which is good motivation for trying again when you screw up.
And now, these commercial messages
Thing is, the short levels won't keep you from screwing up a lot in Gopogo. And that's fine. The game's controls are obviously meant to be quirky, and, while mastering them takes time, it feels good when you perform well.
But your stock of five lives depletes very quickly when you're learning the ropes, which is aggravating.
Curiously, unlike most free-to-play games, your lives don't refill over time. Instead, you need to play the game's endless mode, which has lives scattered randomly around it.
You can also pay for lives using the coins you find in levels, but building up your store of cash is a slow process when you're restricted to bouncing along.
Regardless of how you refill your stock of lives, expect ads. Tons of them. If you happened to forget Game of War exists, don't worry, you'll be reminded every time you lose a couple of lives in Gopogo.
The bottom line
Gopogo is decent, but it's not Nitrome's best. Give Silly Sausage a try instead. It has a giant wiener dog.