Archibald’s Adventures – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: Archibald's Adventures
Version #: 1.1
Date Released: 2009-01-04
Developer: Pavel Tovarys
Price: 7.99
User Rating:
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I don’t usually pick up a game on my iPhone and play it longer than it would take me to realize I haven’t replied to a single SMS from my text-savvy girlfriend who has sent a hundred or so messages already. I don’t usually agree on a developer’s descriptions of a game, which I often find to be sprinkled with attractive adjectives and adverbs. And I don’t usually like the look of a game so much that I’d take a screenshot and use it as my wallpaper. Then again, I don’t usually come across a game like Archibald’s Adventures.
Archibald is a skateboarding boy who jumped a bit too far off a ramp in a junkyard near a mad scientist’s mansion, and where does he find himself next? Where else but inside the mansion, where Professor Klumpfus’ experiments have just gone wrong, letting loose a whole bunch of his genetically modified creatures. The whole place was shut down by the professor’s supercomputer (‘cause what mad scientist doesn’t have one) and unless Archibald restarts it he and the professor is stuck in the mansion. To do so he must pass through labyrinthine rooms and halls infested with weird, dangerous creatures and adorned with all sorts of obstacles and complex mechanisms. And with a valiant-sounding name like Archibald, how could our hero not be up to the task?
The first 16 levels are designed to let you get the hang of the game, from moving your skateboarding character about using a four-way control pad whose on-screen position you could configure (alternatively, you could do away with the pad and just tap and hold on the top, bottom, left and right portions of the screen instead) to working your way around countless obstacles with help from certain terminals that display useful hints and information. After that you’d have to complete 96 more levels (that’s a lot!), most of which are initially locked, before you arrive at the final “The Great Exit” level. I’m telling you, each level I’ve played so far brings something new and exciting to the game. For example, the 17th level introduces one of Professor Klumpfus’ more interesting inventions, a special bubble that proves to be indispensable in Archibald’s subsequent adventures.
More than anything, though, what never ceases to amaze me is the genuinely clever solutions to most, if not all, of the increasingly challenging obstacles. This game will make you think so hard that every time that incandescent lamp above your head lights up and you’ve finally found a way to slay the dragon — be that dragon a towering stack of crates or a fat, four-eyed monster — you just can’t help but pat yourself at the back or high-five with the person sitting next to you in that seminar on goal-keeping you’ve been looking forward to, until you picked up Archibald’s Adventures, that is.
Quick Take
Value: Very high
Would I Buy Again: No doubt about it.
Learning Curve: Medium; the training levels will do the trick.
Who Is It For: People, regardless of age, who enjoy well-made platform games.
What I Like: Every crate, lever, button, teleporter, respawning device, etc. In short, the gameplay itself. The polished look, a great bonus.
What I Don’t: I couldn’t think of something I don’t like without resorting to nitpicking. And even then, I’m quite sure I’d still have a hard time coming up with something.
Final Statement: What Should Be On Your iPhone – Games Category: Archibald’s Adventures
My Rating: 5/5
O U R T A K E . . .
