Much like the game Temple Run is an endless running game, developer Moonshark has made Verticus an endless ‘falling’ game. You play as, presumably, Verticus who is trying to thwart an alien plot to blow up Earth. You start in the sky and fall to the surface, through the Earth’s crust and into the core. These aliens have a ton of weapons stashed down there and you can only dive into the core and carry one out at a time. So the game does a finite narrative, but it repeats each time because the goal of the game isn’t accomplished on your first ‘fall,’ nor the second or third.
I have a hard time thinking of mobile games as anything more than ‘time wasters.’ On a long car ride? Waiting on a movie to start? These are great times for mobile games. I can’t seem to find a mobile game that I play with the same amount of conviction and effort that I do console games and I didn’t find it here either. Verticus fits in this category well and simply because it’s a time waster, doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.
The controls take some getting used to, but they’re easy and if you’re looking for a change of scenery from the usual games you’re playing on your iPhone, this is just as worthy as any other game. Many will complain about Verticus‘ $1.99 price tag (ironic given the price of the platform it’s being played on) but as far as fun mobile games go, you could do worse.
Rating : 7.5 / 10
Stan Lee’s Verticus is available now for all iOS platforms.
