Glyder 2 Review for iPhone

Glyder 2 Review for iPhone
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What’s it all about?

The Glyder series on iPhone is based on the premise that you are essentially a human with rather botched-together wings who must collect crystals and navigate the terrain without any kind of motorized assistance to push you higher. You achieve this by the use of updrafts and currents that are scattered around the game world. There are dozens of environments and completing the game with 100% of all items found would really be quite a task.

To be honest, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original Glyder title. There just wasn’t enough fine tuning in the controls and the lack of scaling textures made it super easy to slam right into a wall or the ground. What I mean by scaling textures is that there’s no depth to many of the game’s barriers. There’s no texture such as grass or trees so there’s really nothing to tell your brain that you are closer to a given barrier than you were a few seconds earlier. The altitude gauge helps this to a degree, but there are still far too many instances of your glider clipping the ground than there should be.

Glyder 2 suffers from these same issues, but not to the same degree as its predecessor. Many of the same issues with altitude and distance remain, but the overall experience feels a bit more polished than previously. That doesn’t necessarily keep Glyder 2 from hitting the same wall as the first one, but at least your demise will be prettier this time around.

Graphics, Audio and Verdict

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Graphically, Glyder 2 is a treat to behold. The 3D graphics are on par with, or better than, many efforts on the original PlayStation console, and the framerate stays smooth in almost all instances. However, as stated previously, the lack of detail in the textures of the environment can actually lead to early or unintentional deaths that can be pretty frustrating. It does sport a slightly higher level of detail than the original Glyder, but not enough to solve these issues. I don’t necessarily hold the developer responsible in this case, as the lack of detail is probably essential to allowing it to even run on the iPhone, but that doesn’t mean it gets a free pass on the issue.

The sound effects are done well and, in a very zen sense, the game is pretty relaxing because of this. The soundtrack seems to be designed for relaxation, which is good because without it you may break a few iPhones in half.

Giving a recommendation to Glyder 2 isn’t easy, and that’s why I’m not going to do it. Instead, I recommend that if you haven’t tried out the original Glyder, this would be the time to do it. It’s cheaper, and brings with it essentially the same experience. If you’ve absolutely maxed out your Glyder time and are itching for more, that’s what you’ll find in Glyder 2. I can only hope some of the depth of field issues can be solved the 3rd time around.