Perhaps you’ve already heard of the Bit.Trip series by now, seeing as how it’s already produced a large number of retro-tastic games available on both the Wii — PC — and recently iOS. Although some of the previous Bit.Trip games could already be classified as endless-runner style experiences, CommanderVideo is back once more to prove that no one can endlessly run down a pixelated field quite like he can. As a result, we’re here today to review Go! Go! Commander Video (out now, free), an utterly-free — no IAPs to be found anywhere-at-all — ultra-challenging endless-runner game for iOS.
This time around CommanderVideo’s goal is to get to the castle, because I guess he doesn’t have any handy-helicopters nearby to make a mad-dash for instead of his castle. Getting in the way of this goal will be a series of pits, coupled with an assortment of pixelated enemies — such as campfires and scorpions — that look as though they’ve recently escaped from Activision’s classic Pitfall! There will also be gold laying all over the place — again looking as though it came from Pitfall! — that you’ll want to snatch up whenever you can, seeing as how CommanderVideo can spend these on various things.
The controls for this mad dash to reach the castle’s precious safety couldn’t possibly be any easier, with players commanding the amazing CommanderVideo — whom always leaves a rainbow trail behind in his wake — to jump simply by touching their screen. Furthermore, you can additionally control the length of CommanderVideo’s jump — allowing you to cross either short or long chasms — by varying how long you hold down on the screen. This — however — is the totality of your control options to be found within Go! Go! CommanderVideo, thus keeping in line with the Bit.Trip series’ long focus on providing simplistic — yet highly honed — retro action experiences.
Since CommanderVideo can’t ever actually reach the castle — this is an ENDLESS-runner, after all — the best you can possibly hope for is to either break your previous distance record, or to snatch up as much gold as possible. Beyond merely finding gold laying about, you can additionally — for every ten bit-lengths of distance travelled — find a pop-up flag that will reward a sum of gold based on the precise moment you tap them. This gold is then used for basically one thing: to unlock either fancy hats to be placed upon CommanderVideo’s head (such as pizza slices, bananas, and other whatnot), as well as alternate characters (such as CommandgirlVideo).
Seeing as how I previously said the game comes with absolutely no IAP options whatsoever — and is furthermore being offered for free — you might be wondering exactly how Go! Go! VideoCommander plans to pay for itself, to which the answer is: ads. Joining the fine ranks of various earlier games — such as PigeonMan (our review) and City on Fire (our review) — this is yet another game taking the purely ad supported pathway, and furthermore managing to do so without the ads ever getting in the way. Therefore — while this might not be the most complex endless-runner you’ll ever play — the price is certainly right, and the game furthermore manages to be quite an amazing challenge despite the simple premise.
Verdict
Go! Go! CommanderVideo is an absolutely free — and actually quite challenging — simple endless-runner experience, that you’ll probably spend quite a while playing over and over. Although there are plenty of more involved endless-runner games out there (some of which even star CommanderVideo himself), the cheap price tag makes this a hard offer to simply pass up on.