TheEndApp Review

By , on July 5, 2012


The End: The Mayan Apocalypse
Download on the AppStore
5 out of 5

PROS

  • Huge hazardous environments; the usual slide, jump and dodge to survive, but with all new combinations to keep you on your toes.
  • Focused progression; challenges increase your 'day' counter, subsequently unlocking more areas and power-ups to explore.
  • Spectacular visuals; gorgeous on small and large iDevices.

CONS

  • Awkward running animation and poor transitions between actions.
  • Camera bobs/weaves/slides around in a disorienting way; helpful, but there's some visual whip-lashing.
  • No iCloud support for syncing progression.

VERDICT

The End picks up where Temple Run: Brave should have, developing the running, coin-collecting and hazard dodging gameplay in to something that feels focused and challenging beyond simply ramping up the speed.


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If you're going to jump on a bandwagon, you may as well go large or go home. The End by Goroid certainly goes above and beyond, keeping in-tact the basic free-running fun of games like Temple Run while pairing it with a light story and unlockable power-ups that are tied to your skill, not just your patience in slowly accumulating cash.

As a survivor of the end-days of humanity, your primary job is one of setting up a camp in order to survive. Duct tape has become a valuable resource, so you go on runs to collect as much as you can, avoiding the lava and wrecks filling the streets nearby.

Much like Temple Run the controls are tilt based for moving back and forth on the screen, with swipes to jump, slide and turn down streets. At this point you'd hardly know it for anything more than a re-skin, but instead of a handful of environments with a handful of hazards, you're presented with many different environments, each with a huge variety of traps you'll need to slide, jump and otherwise dodge to keep running.

As you complete challenges the 'day' counter will increase, giving you access to new power-ups and upgrades as well as multipliers to your score. In the free version there is a limit to how much of a boost and which items you can purchase, but if you plonk down some cash you'll be able to compete for high-scores on an equal footing. It's an interesting way to incentivize people to purchase the game and funnily enough you'll probably dive for the 'buy' button well before the 14th and final 'day'.

It's a gorgeous game too, with new areas unlocking as you progress, while the ones you already possess develop bigger and badder hazards to avoid, mixing up the gameplay as you get better. Of course, an 'endless' free-run mode is on offer, though to get the most out of it you'll want to stick to the challenges until they're completed.

Aside from some quirky animations and a tendency for the camera to feel like it's sliding around too much, The End is exactly what fans of the original Temple Run deserve when it comes to a competitor in the scene. For some the original will always remain the best, but if you want something different or you enjoy something with a bit more bite, this is the game for you.

Screenshots

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