Pastel Games and I don’t have the best history together. To see what I mean you can check out my reviews of their first two games, Submachine and Oceanic. I think they’ve got some good ideas with their games, they just don’t push the content and execution far enough. On the plus side, Toxic Jump is probably my favorite game of theirs to date. Unfortunately, what should have been one of those titles that reels me into that “one more time” mentality ends up becoming hopelessly frustrating instead. And that’s on the easy level...
Toxic Jump is a quirky little game. You play a carrot that’s trying to escape an inhumane (or would that be in-veg-mane?) processing plant before it gets canned – and I don’t mean fired. To get out you must jump over a series of pits without falling in, hitting any obstacles, or getting impaled by various mutant creatures that fly and swim around the factory. There are two modes: escape and endless. In escape you must make a certain number of jumps to get out. I’m not sure if there are multiple segments to this mode because I haven’t completed the first set of jumps yet, but I’m guessing there isn’t. Endless mode is, well, endless. Both modes support an easy difficulty that gives you three lives and a hard difficulty that makes you beat the game with one life.
The mechanics are quite simple. You drag your finger away from the carrot to make an arrow. Dragging up and down adjusts the angle of the jump, while dragging left and right changes the power behind the leap. When you’re ready you let go, and hopefully the carrot will make it across the gap and land on the other platform. Sometimes there will be things like pipes sticking out of the ground or intermittent geysers trying to block your way. Other times odd birds or fish that look like mutated refuse from the garbage disposal attack you. Should anything touch you that’s not supposed to, you lose a life. And, of course, you lose a life if you miss the jump. My main problem with the game is that it’s too difficult for my tastes. I very rarely make it past five jumps, and even then I don’t make it much further. It would be nice if there were something besides the amount of lives that made easy mode easier, but if nothing else it would be nice if they showed the arrow of the last jump you tried so you could better judge the next attempt.
I really like the graphics. They’re not great, but they have a style that really works for the atmosphere of the game. The background definitely brings out the decay of the factory. I know I wouldn’t buy any goods from that place. The carrot’s not bad looking, but the real stars are the mutant critters. They look like garbage melded with animals, and they are very well animated. The sound effects are kind of blah, and sadly there are no effects for the creatures. I would love to hear what some of these beasts sound like. The music is perfect. It has a b-movie monster flick feel to it, and I just keep waiting for what’s lurking around some hidden corner somewhere.
It’s really been a bit of a dilemma for me to come up with a score for this game. I still think it could use quite a bit of polish in the game play department, but the truth is the more I play it, the more it grows on me. I really hope they consider making easy mode a bit easier (or at least make it more progressively difficult), and it would really be nice to have an idea about the last jump you made. A few achievements would be cool as well, especially since the game uses OpenFeint. Still, it does have some charm to it, and the fact that you’re playing a carrot is always a plus. I’m not completely sold on it, but as a famous comedian used to say, “I’ll buy that for a dollar”.
Overall Score: 7/10
App Store Link
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