Prehistorik Review (iPhone, iPad)

One of the games that I fondly remember playing as a youngster is Prehistorik, a very fun platformer that kept me busy days and nights. Imagine how happy I was when I heard that the game is getting the reboot treatment for the iPhone and iPad. Now, a few hours of gameplay later, I am ready to share with you this Prehistorik review.

Your goal in the game is to keep eating all of the prehistoric foods: pizza, donuts (yeah, the game has the same sense of humor). What the game also has is a new main character, which I don’t really like. For some reason that old grumpy fellow with a beard and a Flintstones costume still lives in my memory and still seems to be a lot cooler. But these are just details old gamers like myself are ever going to notice.

The gameplay of Prehistorik for iPhone and iPad is pretty simple and straightforward: you use two buttons on the left of your screen to move left or right and one of the three buttons at the right to perform actions like jumping, attacking or shouting. Because back then, there was a lot of shouting.

Unlike what I remember, Prehistorik is a platformer that is rather slow paced, with long waiting times and some real planning involved. Some platforms have to jumped from at the perfect time, while lives, once lost, are gone forever, so you really have to care about them. This is both good and bad: good for the hardcore gamer who loves a challenging game and is ready for it, and bad for younger or less skilled players who might find it frustrating. I must admit that I got frustrated with the game quite a few times during my play time and my iPad almost ended up in a garbage pile near the wall. Ah, the feeling of playing REAL games!

The game also has a great sense of humor as I already said and everything seems to be part of a big comedy: the way our main character moves and how he falls asleep if you don’t do anything for a while, the funny animals that you encounter and the even funnier characters that make cameo appearances during the game. It all goes great hand in hand with the graphics which have been completely changed: we have a colorful, bright world filled with dangers but varied enough to give us hopes for a bigger, better chunk of meat.

I must admit though that it took me a while to get used with the controls of the game and I still can’t say that I managed to master them: I am not really sure that it’s 100% my fault, as sometimes the buttons don’t seem to be as responsive as I would’ve liked them to be, resulting in missed jumps, resulting in either the loss of a life or some hearts or the frustrating fall that basically has me start all over again. Argh, I still get the chills when I remember those moments.

But minor problems aside, Prehistorik is a pretty solid game, a great remake which doesn’t really resemble the original too much, but which can give both new and veteran gamers some great thrills, including absolutely spectacular and equally frustrating boss battles. Prehistorik is fun and funny, colorful and happy – almost surprises me that it can be so insanely difficult sometimes, in its entire cuteness!

iTunes link: Prehistorik
Final rating: 7.8