Remember the critically acclaimed Limbo or the outstanding Badland? Panic Land is a runner game with theme similar to those brilliant games. Unfortunately, this game never lives up to its potential.
In this game, you will guide a silhouette through platforms and deadly obstacles. The further you go, the bigger the points you get. The control itself is pretty simple. You can either roll or jump over an obstacle while the silhouette will run by itself. Few minutes into the game, you will notice that the movement of the character is not fluid. There is no fluid transition inbetween the animations and the character looked rigid. The music fails to empower the ambience of the game. It will soon get annoying when you hear the same music play as you die for the tenth time.
There is not much to do in Panic Land. You just run and try to beat your high score. No secondary or additional objectives whatsoever. From the beginning, you can choose up to 4 different characters to play. You don’t even have to put any effort to unlock the characters. Overtime, you will also start to recognize the similar level design every time you start over. It will be great that when we start over the game, the character will spawn at a random part of the level. These are the few things that make this game lacks of depth.
It is not all negative in this review though. You need to give the developers some kudos for the overall visual design of the game. I love how visually beautiful the game is. The background and lightning are fabulous. Combining this kind of visuals with better music and sound effect will make this game much more enjoyable to play.
With so many similar games out there, Panic Land fails to shine from the vast pool of runner games. The ads are very frequent and disturbing but you can always disable it by paying real money ($0.99). This game is neither great nor bad, it is just “meh”. With that said, this game is definitely skippable from your gaming library. But it is free after all, so why not give this game a shot?
