Quick Look: Santa's Run for iPhone
It’s that wonderful time of year again… wait a minute! It’s not even Thanksgiving yet! That’s okay, because any time of year is a good time when Santa’s around. Besides, who else could get away with chucking presents down a chimney and not having them get burnt to a crisp? Anyway, Santa’s Run is a mini-game where you deliver presents to boys and girls across the world, and it actually takes a new approach to the subject.
Presents In The USA
Unlike most package delivery games, Santa’s Run looks at the world from a first person point of view. In each scene you have several different dwellings that you have to deliver packages to, but you never actually see the man in red himself. Instead, he apparently uses his holiday strength to toss the packages to their destination from a behind the camera vantage point. It’s your job to help him, and there are two ways to go about it. In Around The World you’ll visit four locations, and at each one you must get a specified number of presents into each dwelling. In Endless Delivery mode you pick one location, and you keep tossing until you decide you don’t want to play any more. In this mode your point total will reset every time you miss a delivery.
So how do you go about delivering the presents? It’s actually kind of an interesting control scheme. At the bottom of the screen is a present. When you press on the present a rainbow with three colors will appear. The inner row (blue) is for structures in the front row, the middle row (yellow) is for structures in the middle row, and the last row (red) is for structures in the last row. Kind of nifty how that all matches up, huh? As you move the present around the different rows of the rainbow will light up so you know which row of structures you’re aiming at. You can certainly miss a structure, but there’s no possibility to overthrow – in other words, if you’re aiming for a middle structure, you can only hit a middle structure. The farther to the left or right you have the present, the closer to the edge of the screen you’ll throw it. You also have to factor wind speed and direction in, which is noted by an appropriately themed weather vein in the upper right corner of the screen.
The idea is to roughly line the presents up with the chimney or door you’re aiming for (some structures don’t have chimneys). Once you think you’re in the right spot, let go of the screen and you’ll toss the present. A successful throw will be enveloped in a small shower of stars and the present counter for the structure will decrease (or if you’re in endless mode you’ll just get another point). If you miss the present will disappear in a puff of smoke, and if you’re playing endless mode your point count will be reduced to zero. I like the mechanics, but there’s one problem. It can often be really hard to line up the present with a house because your finger effectively blocks your view of the present. Factoring in the wind is also somewhat of a problem for me still, but that’s just my fault.
The graphics have the nice, colorful look you’d expect from a Christmas game. Everything is nicely detailed as necessary while still maintaining a cartoonish look. A couple of nice touches include the weather vein that changes with each location’s theme and the cool but somewhat misplaced penguin on the island level. The one thing that’s kind of disappointing is that there is no real animation beyond what revolves around the present. The sound effects are decent enough, but some of them could stand to be cranked up a bit so they’re audible above the music. As for the music, I like it. Interestingly, it’s the same song for each locale, but it has been “tweaked” to have a unique sound to go with the level you’re on. It does get somewhat repetitive, but the tweaks are pretty cool.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think the one thing Santa’s Run is missing is a timed mode. Basically something where you try to deliver the most presents you can in 60, 90 or 120 seconds. Otherwise, the developer has done a good job of creating what amounts to a stand alone mini-game. It’s visually appealing, the music is cheerful and festive, and the game play is simple yet challenging. Hopefully you’ll want to help Santa deliver presents this year.
Final Verdict: Recommended
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Tags: Broken Thumb Apps, Eric Pankoke, iPhone, Quick Look, review, Santa's Run, technobrains
