Temple Run: Oz
Temple Run: Oz was launched yesterday on iOS and this TR is inspired by the movie Oz the Great and Powerful that is releasing in theaters this weekend, March 8th, 2013. With TR: Oz some new features and twist are added to the same style of TR game play. You still swipe up to jump, down to slide, and left/right to turn in either direction. The twist comes in the format of the environment and how the backgrounds change and force you to be more alert than the previous versions of TR.
What do I mean by the changing environments? Well in this version of TR you have the option to explore different locations that do not come pre-installed in the game which you must download, for free I might add. Also in TR: Oz the roads will collapse on either side of you so you have to be careful of that. Then you have obstacles that will tumble into your path while you are running, such as boulders. There are also snapping vines grabbing for your ankles while you are being chased by flying evil baboons.
I was really impressed with the gameplay of TR: Oz it was much smoother than that of TR2 in my opinion. TR2 had a lot of lag and freezes that I do not notice with TR: Oz. The graphics seem much improved as well and since this game is based off of the Wizard of Oz or rather just OZ, you have the yellow brick road and all that comes with it. Be prepared for tornado holes and hot air balloons!
TR: Oz does offer some of the dreaded In-App Purchases which I am not very fond of. I will not get into why but I just wanted to point out that you can purchase coins and/or gems to help you unlock the power-ups in the game. Some of the power-ups include:
- Magic Magnet
- Fireworks
- Coin Bonus
- Double Coins
- Head Start
- Stumble Proof
- Run Multiplier
- plus more…
As I mentioned above there is a level that you have the option of downloading that does not come packaged with the game. The level is called Dark Forest and is a cemetery level. You can also download HD Assets which I am assuming is meaning retina graphics? I really couldn’t tell much of a difference between the HD Assets and the non-HD Assets. To be fair I only played 2 games before I downloaded the HD Assets and I honestly didn’t pay attention to the graphics of the non-HD graphics. My thinking is that they are offering these 2 downloads to keep the game at under 50MB so that the game doesn’t require Wi-Fi to download. TR: Oz comes in at 45.9MB from the App Store so I am assuming those extra features would have put TR: Oz over the limit.
Another thing I wanted to make sure I mentioned was the social sharing feature of the game. If you have your Facebook account logged into on your iOS device, before playing TR: Oz you might want to jump into settings and turn off “Autopost” to Facebook which is turned “On” by default. You will have the option of sharing to FB even though this is turned off but you will have to do it manually after each run. You can also share to Twitter, by email, by text message, and save a screenshot to your camera roll. TR: Oz also has Game Center built-in so you can compare your high scores with that of your Game Center friends.
If you link your Facebook account to the game you will also be able to compete in weekly challenges for “distance” and “score” in the game. There are also Weekly and Legendary challenges that you can compete against or try to achieve each week. Some of the challenges are currently:
- 1,000 coins
- 3 Gems in a single run
- 5x multiplier
- Pocket Change (collect 2500 coins)
- much more…
Overall this is a superb game and I have no problem recommending Temple Run: Oz. Temple Run: Oz is a universal iOS game and will run on your iPad, iPad mini, iPhone, or iPod Touch devices that are running iOS 5.0 or greater. If you are a fan of Temple Run then you will want to grab this title today. Temple Run: Oz is only $0.99 in the App Store:
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