Micronytes

Summary

The developers over at Gibs & Gore have not been shy about bragging about their games. Based on the game’s description, Micronytes “ is the ultimate platform game for Android. It’s HD graphics will leave you breathless and its revolutionary control system will get you hooked”.
 

Those are some pretty lofty words for a smartphone game. Find out if Micronytes is as amazing and groundbreaking as its developers make it out to be in today’s review.
 

When you start off playing Micronytes, you are guided through by a small cinematic preview. You’ll see what appears to be a sick individual being injected with Micronytes – small mini-robots that can fight off diseases. In the game, you’re in control of one of virus-killing robots as part of a medical special commando team.
Sounds pretty exciting, right?
 

The game’s main menu looks pretty impressive as well: the background is interactive and moves in tandem with your smartphone or tablet. On the background there are four menu buttons: New Game, Select Level, Controls and Quit.
 

The actual game starts off with a tutorial that shows you how the controls work (more on the subject in the Screen & Controls section).
The basic idea behind the game is simple: get around obstacles along the way in order to reach the nucleus by either jumping over it or popping it.
In the process of getting to your goal, you have to climb over walls and jump over gaps along the way. Watch out for claws along the way that can catch and trap you.

Some platforms are also barriers and they disappear shortly after you land on them. If you fail to get passed on of these obstacles - it’s game over and you have to start the level all over again.
 

There is one big problem, however: the lack of any moving opponents. Simply jumping from platform to platform and scaling walls isn’t interesting enough to keep players entertained in the long run. Micronytes is like playing Super Mario without the turtles, coins and mushroom power-ups. Boooring!
The game has 80 levels in total.
 

One of the more interesting aspects of the game is the background music. It constantly changes between different musical genres like jazz, orchestral music and piano solos. If that kind of music isn’t your thing, simply turn it off via the menu.
 

Bottom Line: Micronytes did not live up to my expectations. The game is too boring and monotonous for a 21st century game. Adding moving objects and opponents (bacteria cells with handheld grenade launchers, for example) would make the game way better. Nothing about this game is even remotely revolutionary.
 

The so-called revolutionary controls are actually a total disaster! Here’s how it works: tapping the right half of the screen makes the Micronyte move right and tapping the left half of the screen makes the little guy go left. And here’s the kicker: you have to shake the phone to make him jump.
 

Given that you have to constantly be jumping, you end up permanently shaking the phone. That’s not what I call a relaxing game. The game is also extremely sensitive, so you’re always jumping on accident every time you slightly move your device. Annoying is an understatement in this case.
Thankfully, you can change the controls in the settings. You can either use your phone’s physical keyboard (if available) or use 2 on-screen buttons. In order to use the latter, you’ll need a phone that fully supports multi-touch.
 

The on-screen controls work much better than the default setting, but it’s still a major pain in the butt. Making your guy jump in a specific direction is extremely cumbersome. Some of you might say that I just don’t have the right skills, but let me assure you that the game is the problem – not me.
The HD graphics in Micronytes are sharp, but the general style doesn’t really speak to me. Obviously, that’s just my personal evaluation and I don’t take any points off for what I think is bad taste if the graphics are professional and high-quality.
 

Micronytes runs smoothly without any crashes or glitches. Reliable and stable as a rock.

Micronytes costs 2€ and is available in the App Center. I think it's a little too much for a game that lacks action and excitement.

There is a free demo version available.

Just this week you can download the game for only 1€ (as of 08.06.2011).