App Review No. 42 Polara

Strong Points:
Nice platformer
Challenging
Colour aspect makes it more in depth than some other platformers
Variety of obstacles
Interesting storyline
Checkpoints are spread out nicely
Endless modes and extra objectives expand the (already considerable) games length even further
Boss battles are quite good

Weak Points:
Graphics are ugly
Sounds are ugly as well
Too many levels between story clips
Can get frustrating

In-depth Review:

Release Dates:
World Wide: October 2012

Controls:
Tap on the left to change colour
Tap on the right to jump

In Polara, you are thrust into a civil war in 2140 that is waging between the upper and lower classes of society. You are Lara, an agent in the ranks of the Bertram Defence institute who has been chosen to test a bio-defence suit that will protect her from the security system that is cleansing the lower classes of human society. Then you are told to go to the Uprisings base by a lower-class leader so that you can help him defeat the upper classes as well as figure out the mystery behind your father's death. All while dodging the conveniently placed defence system I talked about earlier. And how do you do that? By changing colour of course!

The game is a platformer with a difference, in it that you have to change colour from red to blue and vice versa in order to match the colour of the laser/platform/orb that could kill you. For instance, hit a red laser while your blue and you die. Run through a load of blue orbs on the other hand and you'll be fine. But jump onto the next red platform and you'll fall straight through it. To swap colour you have to tap the left side of the screen and to jump, you'll have to press the left. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. Everything in Polara is out to kill you and make one mistake and that is what it will do. Rather than just jumping and changing colour in a rhythmic beat (like Rayman Legends for instance) you will have to make quick second calculations based on what you can see and what you expect what will happen next. Fall into auto pilot and your doomed.

That's not to say that the game is unforgiving as it does give you checkpoints before and after every separate challenge which means if you complete one complicated manoeuvre and die on the next, you won't have to do the first part again. But you will. The reason for this is the fact that at the end of each level, you get a death count which, if you play through the level again, you can try and beat, adding a kind of self-competitiveness about the game. You will always be thinking, 'Could I have done that better?'

There are also the added bonuses of more objectives after you beat the level, which tasks you with not only surviving but also the task of collecting the letters to spell Polara. And the reason for doing this? To unlock more endless modes of course! Yes, if you're not content with the 50 gruelling levels in the story mode or even more challenging Polara collection modes of these levels, you can try your hand at a mode which randomises obstacles and the checkpoints completely. Good luck!

Overall the only things that let Polara down are its ugly graphics and even uglier sound. However, you will be so focused on simply not dying that you simply won't care.

Rating: 89%

Goodbye for now, Harry