iPhone App: Inferno

January 7th, 2010

= 4 stars

As Dante, journey through several circles of Hell to reach your lover Beatrice, before time runs out.

The Good

• Simple to play, just move in any direction to gather blue stars to open up a gateway to the next level.
• Challenge comes from the complex level design and large variety of hell-inspired obstacles: fireballs, bats, skulls, collapsing bridges, gas vents, and moving platforms. With no weapons, just the ability of movement, progress comes down to a matter of timing, but with several simultaneously moving objects, things get tricky fast. Checkpoints get heavy use.
• Feeling of impending doom as a timer set at several hours clicks down, slowly but surely.
• Very cruel sense of humor, as with each new level the game taunts you with one-liner insults.

The Bad

• Some levels are difficult to the point of frustration; I nearly gave up on this game several times, and finally threw in the towel very close to the end.
• Really unsure about having left / right buttons and up / down buttons separated, on different sides of the screen.

Conclusion

It certainly says something about Inferno’s addictiveness that I made it through over 100 levels — but eventually the towel was thrown, when I died about fifty times on one particularly ornery maze. While this trip through hell started with solid, quick fun, it eventually became relentless, tiring, and frustrating. Based on the cutting sense of humor, perhaps that’s the point, but still — boo hoo hoo.

iTunes App Store Link: The Inferno — Xpressed