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Mini Plane review

Ben Griffin

We review Mini Plane for iPhone, a simple game from Orange Pixel

Mini Plane iPhone

Published on Apr 28, 2010

Mini Plane is what iPhone games should be about, in theory. It has such simple controls that even your cat could control it - with its eyes closed, but the feline would probably struggle to make it past the first level.

Simple pressing the screen makes your plane fly upwards. Not pressing the screen forces the plane down.

Thus, the trick is to time your upward and downward swoops with a series of taps.

To keep in the air, you'll have to collect fuel and pick up stars to gain points and speed, while avoiding other planes, buildings and items like giant cannon balls.

It may be easy to play initially, but with numerous killer objects flying towards you, and the constant need for fuel, top-flight piloting is soon order of the day in the colourful 2D side-scroller.

More so, when you consider the collision detection area around an object is seemingly larger than the object itself. On a few occasions we crashed when there was what we thought to be an ample-sized gap.

Adding further frustration is certain moments in the game present no feasible path to progress - an issue when the premise is seeing how far you can go.

If it was a mistake on our behalf that meant our plane had ran out of juice, or we collided with a high-rise, we wouldn’t mind. That’s part of the learning curve, after all.

But when there are so many things on screen with seemingly no way to proceed, it feels as if unforgiving lady luck plays an unnecessarily integral part.

A great run can be ruined whenever the game’s programming feels like causing you pain, which is a shame when a lengthy run and the resulting hi-score - presentable to the world via RumbleX, is both intense and rewarding.

We like a challenge, and with a few planes to unlock, we did keep coming back initially, curious to see what was around the corner, but it wasn’t long before we felt the woes of airborne frustration just that bit too often.

Mini Plane offers a visually charming, slice of simple flying action, but when you’ve had to crawl from the wreckage one too many times, it’s unlikely you will keep find the experience anything but grounded.