Kavinsky Review

Promotional apps are increasingly common fare, nowadays. This time round, it's the turn of album producer, Kavinsky to coin a game, of the same name. Kavinsky harks back to the 1980s and the era when scrolling beat em ups were all the rage in the arcades. It's a briefly distracting game but also rather shallow. Still, for free, it's probably worth taking a spin. At least for a little while.

Combining beat em up sections, racing levels and even some Augmented Reality moments, Kavinsky certainly keeps players on their toes. The beat em up sections are kind of slow, with the player moving the character along street scenes, coming across enemies and hitting one of two attack buttons. There's no way of blocking, taking out much of the potential strategy of the game. This would have been particularly useful when up against the bosses that appear at the end of the street stages. The street scenes do benefit from one significant bonus, though: the camera angles. The player's only ever one tap away from changing the perspective, opening up to a more retro themed look.

Besides such old school thrashing, it's also possible to drive Kavinsky's car, racing away from some dangerous opponents. There's a choice of two control methods, either arrows or tilting, but neither works hugely well. Tilting is too sensitive while the arrows are placed too closely together, making it easy to make a mistake. Given the racing sequence offers some insta-death moments, it can get frustrating.

Kavinsky throws in a hint of Augmented Reality, too, courtesy of a somewhat gimmicky sequence in which the player must protect their car from attack. Much like the rest of the game, it doesn't quite work but at least it's different.

Throughout, Kavinsky is never quite a hit but it is briefly interesting. It tries some neat and quirky things, to make it more appealing. It just doesn't always work. With no outlay required and not a sniff of in-app purchasing shenanigans, things could be a lot worse for this disjointed affair.