One of the best parts of the Temple Of Doom game was the mine cart sequences, yet this is a virtually unexplored theme in video games. Apparently Exosyphen Studios thinks it’s an interesting concept, as it’s the focus of their latest iPhone game, aptly named Rail Adventures. From what I’ve seen so far I hope this is a theme they continue to explore down the road.

It’s been mentioned before in the likes of Doom Resurrection, but I think Rail Adventures is the first true “on rails” adventure to hit the iPhone. Basically, some ancient curse has frozen everything, and you have to escape the mountain before it gets you too. Of course, the first question is “why didn’t the curse get you in the first place?” The answer is “because, then there wouldn’t be a game, now would there?” Anyway, you’ll play through five levels filled with creatures to shoot, gold bars to collect, and planks and crates to avoid. You start each level with a certain amount of ammo, but use your bullets wisely. Along the way you’ll be able to pick up more bullets, but if you run out and can’t kill a creature you’ll take some damage. Sometimes there will be health boxes you can pick up as well, but if your health gets down to nothing the level is over and you must try again.

When a level is complete you will be presented with four statistics: gold bars retrieved, kills made, obstacles jumped and dangerous items avoided. The gold bars are just sort of a bonus, but for the other three stats you must score an 85% or above success rate to unlock the next level. Worse yet, you must score a 95% or above success rate on each of the first four levels to unlock the final level. I’m not necessarily opposed to a percentage based progression, but in cases like this it almost seems like an alternative to more levels for lengthening the game. Personally, I’d rather have more levels that I only had to play through just once or twice. That’s not to say that it’s no fun playing through the levels multiple times, because I’m still enjoying it, but after a while I’d like to see something new.

The controls are fairly straightforward. To shoot you press the fire button on the right side of the screen. Grabbing or jumping over items is accomplished with the appropriately titled “Grab” and “Jump” buttons that appear on the left side of the screen. These will only appear when there is something to do, but be cautious – there are bad items that will explode when you grab them. Just because the grab button is there doesn’t necessarily mean you should use it. Acceleration is automatic, but if you get going too fast you’ll start losing health. To slow down you press the Brake button at the bottom of the screen. This is the only control I really have issue with, because it seems a lot of times when I press it there is no response.

The graphics are not fancy, but they look pretty good. The tunnels are minimally textured, but there’s enough variety that the different areas have a distinct feel to them. The lighting at least gives you a feel that you’re heading into the unknown as you travel down the railway. The creature designs are decent, though there’s no animation (naturally due to the freezing nature of the ancient curse). The mine cart bobs on the track, giving you a nice sense of movement. The gold bars in particular seemed a bit flat and wimpy.

The sound effects work for the most part. The gun sounds good, and there’s a distinct sound when you’re out of bullets and continue to try and fire. The cart sounds realistic both when moving and braking. The one thing I didn’t care for was the sound the creatures make when you kill them. In and of itself the sound was weird, but it was the same sound for every creature. Each creature really needed a unique cry. On the other hand, the music is pretty epic. You really feel like you’re heading into some perilous adventure as you listen to the charged orchestrations playing in the background. It’s one of those deals where you almost feel like they ripped the music from a movie soundtrack.

Overall I had a lot of fun with this game. The biggest complaint from most people is probably going to be length, and I’ll admit that if you’re a skilled gamer it won’t take you long at all to get through it. For the rest of us I think it’s a nice little challenge that will kill a couple hours of your time. I just hope if there’s a sequel that we get more “rail time”.

Final Verdict: Recommended
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