Jungle Man: Strike Review

To begin with, Jungle Man: Strike confused the bejeezus out of me. This may be due to the fact that I was trialling the game on an iPhone instead of an iPad, which in turn meant the user interface was fairly cluttered and the text so tiny I literally had to bring the iPhone a few inches from my face just to read it.

The first strike was the game demanding me to log in via Facebook, which not only required me to therefore be ‘always online’ to play, but also meant that I had no other choice but to connect my Facebook account - something I hate doing immensely.

Though Jungle Man: Strike is fairly straightforward, any advancement in the game relies on a strict free-to-play system, which was strike two for me. I intensely dislike free-to-play models at the best of times, but this one was altogether frustrating and bothersome. To start with I’m given a finite number of coins, which I can then contribute towards various power-ups to help me throughout the game. Each of these power-ups cost an arm and a leg though, so once they’ve been purchased for the first couple of games it’s back to the grind and slog of earning more coins the usual long-winded way.

At first, the game held no limitation to its enjoyability factor. I was having fun tapping left and right, pummeling enemies from both sides, earning coins, and building up my score by collecting fruit and other goodies. The graphics are nothing to shout about, but they're charmingly cute and fairly solid. There were a couple of bonuses that made the game an iota more addictive; including the ability to pummel the heck out of the screen in quick succession, and the waterfall of goodies that rained down upon my little jungle dude.

It was when I’d used up my coins in favor of power-ups, and adversely managed to land myself in a repetitive situation of constantly replaying in order to secure more coins, that I began to tire of the game. Especially since there were no other scenarios or backdrops, and I definitely couldn’t afford to buy one of the many expensive characters or pets on offer in the Store ($19.99 worth of gems for one character alone... am I missing something here?!). Lastly, the game does happen to offer simple basic daily missions, which I guess can be a single reason to log in of a day, but in all honesty it isn’t altogether worth the effort as any rewards won utilize further coins.

Perhaps Jungle Man: Strike is not a game I would play in the long run, but I may bring myself to log in occasionally for the odd short stint here and there.