Tapper World Tour Review

Having not played the original Tapper, I wasn't sure what to expect from Tapper World Tour. Judging the metaphorical book by its cover however, I liked the look of a cartoon-like time management game, and that's exactly what you get. Tapper World Tour is all about serving drinks as fast as possible while collecting up the empties and all round keeping everyone happy.

Anyone out on a Saturday night knows that the patrons are keen for more drinks, none more so than in Tapper World Tour. As the bartender, you'll be constantly up against a tirade of customers constantly trying to get nearer and nearer to you. The key is to switch from bar to bar, tapping the pump at the end of each bar a few times to throw a drink their way and watch them retreat back a few steps. As well as that, empties start flying at you so you have to go between bars in order to collect them before they come crashing down to the ground. As you can imagine, things get hectic quickly.

Tapper World Tour offers a few tricks up its sleeves in order to mix things up. In later stages, you have to concoct new drinks for your patrons, tapping a button to switch cocktails quickly while keeping everyone else happy. There's also the addition of an entertainment button which puts on a show and keeps your customers still for a brief time, giving you time to catch up on serving. This is useful fairly early on in the game considering the speed at which customers progress. It's not long before this turns into a frantic race against time, or should I say, drunk customers. There are also a few simple memory-style mini games between progressions, but they're rather weak and forgettable.

A worthy mention must go to the graphics of Tapper World Tour, courtesy of animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, best known for the film An American Tail and the arcade game Dragon's Lair. They really add some much needed character to proceedings.

Excluding the weak mini games, Tapper World Tour is pretty good fun. It's not long before it's quite tough, but it is fairly addictive. The touch screen controls work well (there are virtual d-pad controls available but they make the game more difficult, in my opinion). With over 100 levels in all, including a series of challenging Expert levels, there's a lot to play and like here.