Miner 2049er Review

Friday, October 14, 2011

Miner 2049er Review

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Miner 2049er Review

By Rob Rich on October 14th, 2011
Our Rating:

:: DIG IN
Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

For a game about a miner that doesn’t actually involve any mining, Miner 2049er is all kinds of alright.

Developer: Magmic
Price: Free
Version: 1.0
App Reviewed on: iPhone 3GS

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Playtime Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.56 out of 5 stars

I was born in the early 80′s, and as a result I’ve spent more time with Samus and Luigi than Pitfall Harry. So it should be pretty obvious that the original Miner 2049er wasn’t really in my playlist. But the great thing about retro games is that there are always people willing to port them to modern systems. Well, most of them. I’m still waiting on that Mutant League iOS port…

Miner 2049er is both a straight port and a remake of the 1982 classic. When starting a new game, players choose between the old-school levels or the more modern (in more ways than one) re-imagined stages. Regardless of the choice, it’s then a matter of treading over the entire level while avoiding enemies and grabbing power-ups to reach the next one. I mean that literally; every virtual inch of ground must be walked over in order to change its color/texture and move on.

I imagine that fans of the original had a lot of fun with it, but I don’t have warm fuzzy memories to pull from. Thankfully, there’s a slew of new levels (with more on the way) to mess around with, some of which include new elements like elevators. And these new levels? Lots of fun. The more complex ones can take a little while to complete, too.

Miner 2049er offers up lots of control options, but I had a tough time with most of them. The tilt controls are kind of awkward mostly due to tilting up and down to climb ladders. Plus moving to the side will jump off said ladders, usually resulting in death by impact with the floor. The touch controls aren’t much better as jumping and ladders can be troublesome. The virtual joystick controls are much, much better, but they’re a bit sensitive and still cause the occasional problem with (surprise, surprise) those ladders.

I highly recommend Miner 2049er as both a nostalgic experience and as a just plain fun iOS game. The free content runs out pretty fast (only 4 levels are available), but it’s fun while it lasts. And it’s free and stuff. But I would also recommend paying the dollar to unlock the other 16 levels (for 20 total), because why not? Also fun.