This week, we’re reviewing 3D Volcano Island, by OmniGSoft Games. 3D Volcano Island is a generational 3D action maze game. The game description from OmniGSoft’s site lists the following features for the game-
Our hero is swept away from his cruise and finds himself surrounded by treasures and hunted by spirits on a haunted volcano island. “Think on your feet”; and help our hero to outwit the spirits, navigate the maze, and collect all the items to advance to the next level…
At an efficient 700kb, this tiny powerhouse is jam packed with a mountain of fun Endless game play, maze generation is unique each time and has infinite possibilities Exotic music, mystical design and rich graphics build a thrilling atmosphere Fast pace action on progressively challenging levels
Basically, this is a 3D Pac-Man style game with generationally created levels. You guide a happy looking soul in Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt and fedora around a maze, trying to avoid some local nasties whilst you pick up objects of varying types to complete the level. There are also the Pac-Man power-pill style power ups that make you temporarily invincible and allow you to get rid of any nasties that you come across.
Graphically, it’s not a bad effort. For each level, the 3D world floats in front of a suitably tropical looking background. The sprite animations are also ok, but overall this game’s looks are certainly nothing to rave about. The game is controlled, either via your phone’s trackball or keyboard or via on-screen controls. The on-screen controls are woeful, if you tap up, you keep going up until the very end of the line, I couldn’t seem to convince the hero to leave a stretch of maze early using the touch screen. The trackball control method seemed to work fine though.
Gameplay itself is mediocre at best. At the end of the day, this is just another Pac-Man clone, albeit with randomly generated levels. But randomly generated levels or no, you’re doing nothing different come 10th level than you were doing in level 1.
Overall, there’s very little I can recommend here, particularly at a price of $3.99. Now, whilst that’s not an extortionate price for anything really, at the end of the day, there are far better titles in the Android market that you can get for the same price or cheaper. In short, avoid this one unless you’re a huge fan of Pac-Man style games.
3D Volcano Island is available now on the Android Market for £3.99.