Echo Flight app review: navigate a cave of obstacles

Introduction

Side scrolling games are very common in the App Store, but some are definitely better than others. Some are your typical Mario Brothers type clones, and others try to offer something a little different. Echo Flight is not a Mario Brothers clone.  The most noticeable difference is that, in this game, your character is flying across the screen, not running and jumping over obstacles. It’s certainly unique, but unfortunately that’s about all this one has going for it. It just isn’t that entertaining. This is a free app and it’s compatible with both the iPhone and the iPad.

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Cave Flying

Side scrolling games have been common since the earliest days of video games, including games that feature a flying character or ship. Probably the first game to fit into this category was Defender way back in 1981. Echo Flight fits firmly in this category and it might have seemed a whole lot more exciting back in 1981, but by today’s standards it falls short of the mark. A game has to offer some sort of real challenge to keep people coming back. Echo Flight just isn’t that hard and it progresses at a snail’s pace.

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One other thing that really bothered me about this one was the cheesy graphics. I’ll admit sometimes that can make a game more appealing, and that’s probably what they were going for here, but it doesn’t work if the game play is uninspiring as well. It just didn’t live up to expectations. This app isn’t very big – it will only require 1.2 MB of free space on your IOS device.

How to Play

I tried this app on an iPad and was immediately puzzled. The main screen is locked in portrait mode, but when you hit play it switches to landscape. If you’re going to lock the orientation, why not make it consistent throughout the app? This seemed more than a little strange to me.  Other than that there isn’t much to the main screen – you can either hit info for a brief description of game play, or you can hit play and get started.

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When you hit play the game doesn’t start – you still have to hit start to get going. From there you can choose normal mode or blind mode. I’d definitely avoid blind mode, it’s not that it’s a whole lot more challenging it’s just pointless. In blind mode everything is blacked out except for a thin little strip of the cave. You can’t see anything coming at you so there’s no real challenge – you’re simply relying on blind luck. It’s not my idea of entertainment.

In normal mode you can see all of the obstacles in your way which are: stalagmites, stalactites, or falling rocks. They aren’t hard to avoid for the most part. You simply tap above your bat to move up or below it to move down. If you wish to move forward tilt your screen forward, to move backwards tilt the screen backwards. That’s all there is to it. The obstacles really don’t come at you very fast so they are easy to avoid. When your game does finally end you’ll have to put up with a full page pop up ad every time. 

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Free game
• Easy to play

Cons

• The game is not very challenging at all
• Cheesy graphics
• Puzzling screen orientations
• Full page ads after game is complete

Final Words

Echo Flight didn’t measure up well to other games in the side scrolling category of the App Store. It just wasn’t challenging enough, and it didn’t have anything else going for it to make it stand out from the crowd. There are better ways to spend your time.