Rating: 2/5 stars
There's this game called Danger Dash that I downloaded to my phone. A few old games deleted later, it's installed.
As anyone would do, I open up the game and start playing. At first it's very similar to this other great game called Temple Run (which unfortunately isn't available on my device; it also has similar disadvantages, but not to the same extent as Danger Dash.)
There's the usual jumping, dodging, swiping to slide under logs etc. I run straight into a pillar. Then there's this option.
SAVE ME
20 Rubies
You have 50 Rubies
Yeah...why not? I press the button.
I play for maybe another more minute, and then switch lanes and fall over a rock. The same thing comes up. I click it. Eventually when I die again, I'll only have 10 rubies left and will just have to stop.
Doesn't sound too bad, huh?
Then the first clanging chime of free-to-play-mobile-game doom rings out.
"You need 10 more rub(y/ies) to buy this. Buy more?"
Yep, you know where this is going. I press the button (as if the "rub(y/ies) thing wasn't weird enough) and am confronted by a screen filled with options.
I can buy a "pile of rubies" for about £1. It goes all the way through £2.99 and £4.99 etc, through to the "crate of rubies" for £10. The game states that you can "enhance your playing experience by buying game items with real money". Enhance? Enhance the depletion of your wallet, more like.
As bad as in-app-purchases go (and as unchangeable my grudge against them is) that actually isn't the worst of the game.
This game has "missions" that you can do to level up and increase your multiplier bonus. From the start, they are perfectly fine.
But there are 2 things that are bad about them.
1. If you're just lazy and want to level up without actually PLAYING the game, you can skip the mission for an amount of rubies between 5 and 20. But they add up. Soon, you'll be bombarding Gameloft with your money so much that they end up getting knocked backwards and off their office chairs by the sheer amount of coins that are being thrown at them. A disturbing image, right? It's called a game, not a "play-or-pay" app. Games are for playing, not paying.
2. This is the SERIOUS pits. I got to a level called "Archaeologist" and these were my 3 missions.
1. Take a left turn 3 times in a single run
2. Post a message on Facebook
3. Use a "Save Me" after 2000m
Mission 1 isn't that bad, but it's extremely difficult to do without spending rubies on a "Save Me."
Mission 2...are you kidding? I need to post a message on Facebook to LEVEL UP? The sheer absurdness of the quest is self-explanatory. You don't want to get me started on this.
Mission 3: That's just code for "purchase rubies". You will run out very soon, and you'll need to buy to get more.
And finally to finish this review, there's the absolute worst thing in the entire game. You can only earn five... and I repeat five rubies every day, max. The game is offering me "upgrades" where I can buy some big bonus for 1600-2600 rubies. Unless I'm going to spend 520 days playing, I'd never get enough to buy one of those. By the time, their pockets will already have holes in them from the massive amount of money in there. And the way this is going, whilst people keep paying, it'll go straight through the pocket into a donation bucket for the new game to grab more money out of us. Done.