Steamscope Review: A Curious Title That Didn’t Hit The Spot

Steamscope Review

Steamscope
App Store
iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)
$0.99

About the game

In Steamscope you will be maneuvering through tubes at different speeds and dodging obstacles along the way. The game type is very simplistic as you’ll have a first person view while you automatically travel forwards using either the tilt feature or virtual analog stick to maneuver. I normally don’t like tilt features, but I must say that the tilt feature works very well in this game. There isn’t much to the game besides moving and dodging objects as you make your way through each level. The game only features 10 levels although you can try and better your times, as well as your score, as you make your way through.

Throughout each level there are coins to collect which helps with your score. You’ll want to avoid hitting the sides, or anything at all for that matter, because points will be deducted from your score that way as well. The more coins you collect the more lives you’ll earn, which at the end of each level gets tallied up in the score system as well. So it does have some replayability for you if you enjoy so that much that you want to improve on your score. Outside of that, there really isn’t much left for you to do.

Game play – Controls

The game handles very well with the tilt controls and, should you choose it, the virtual analog control. You have three difficulties to choose from as well, from easy to normal or hard. As I mentioned before the speed changes as you play through each level. But also other factors come into play as well, one being that the camera will spin and leave you feeling a little lost in regards to choosing which way to turn when that happens. It is a good addition to the difficulty level certainly. However, when using the controls and you come upon regular turns in the pipes you will feel as if you want to turn also. But the game does keep you on rails, so you won’t need to turn as it will turn for you.

You will also have some attacking to do in this game, which was a nice additional feature to kind of give you a little something extra to do. You are equipped with a tesla gun that can grab objects. You will need to use that gun by lining it up with either a moving object or a spot on the wall that you will need to hit in order to pass through. I enjoyed that bit of the game as you will have uses for that including boss battles.

Enjoyment Level – Fun Factor – Final Notes

It’s not a bad title at all, although it’s not too exciting as you play through it. You’ll wish it had a little more variance in each level to change things up a bit. Just to be clear, it does do this but the change-up needs to occur more often. I pretty much needed a much different look in each level. Especially since one of my major complaints was that the levels can last upwards of 5 plus minutes long. Which in my opinion is waaaay too long for this type of game. I would rather have had 20 levels at 2-3 minutes each instead of 10 levels of 5 or more minutes. I’m not saying that every level takes that long, but a few certainly do and they get very tiring very quickly. You’ll also run across moments in the game where you swear you had plenty of distance away from a particular object, yet you still end up hitting it. It wasn’t too often, but certainly often enough to the extent that it needed to be mentioned.

I still enjoyed what it had to offer, but I wish it had a more elaborate level design to change things up a bit. Plus, it got a little old when I couldn’t complete a level that lasted over 5 minutes and I would have to play it multiple times. It really made you get tired of the game very quickly. I certainly see this title as a good attempt that could be built on in the future. It is an interesting title and I could see some people enjoying it, but it’s not something I can easily recommend.

Score: 2/5