3D Tunnel is a simple arcade-type game that puts you in control of a spaceship that must navigate through tunnels made from what appears to be rings of light. Stay in the middle and you’re fine, but stray off course and you’ll hit the rings and explode. It’s a fun game, but lacks any sort of lasting appeal.
The basic idea of the game is to pilot your ship through a series of short tunnels of varying colors. Each tunnel is unique, and will challenge your flying skills by forcing you through tight turns in all directions. If you keep your ship in the middle of the rings, you’ll get to the end of the tunnel and bank the points you earned along the way. If you aren’t fast enough to make the turns, you’ll most likely hit the rings and your ship will explode. Controlling the ship is done purely with the accelerometer. Tilting left or right will steer your ship in that direction. Tilting back will fly upward and tilting forward will fly down. You can invert these controls in the options menu. The controls are very response, allowing for a fluid experience while flying the ship.
As you fly through a tunnel, you’ll notice that your points will continuously accumulate in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Time will tick by in the lower right and the lower left reminds you of how many lives you have left. At the end of each tunnel, your total points are displayed and you are offered a power up which can be used to upgrade your ship. You can make your ship go faster or improve acceleration and deceleration. It seems best to keep a balance between these upgrades.
There are twenty-seven levels to play through in this game. This may seem like a good amount, but each tunnel is very short and the game really flies by. It does offer a bit of replay value by including three different difficulty levels. You can play through the game on easy, medium and hard. On easy, the tunnels include wide turns that you can clearly see coming. On hard, these turns are sharp, occur often and really demand your concentration and fast reflexes. So, the game definitely offers something for both beginners and hardcore gamers. The high scores will display the top scores in the world, country or just your device.
After you’ve finished your twenty-seven levels, you are given the opportunity to go into sudden death. This is basically an infinite game, but on an insanely hard course. You’ll be sure to crash a few dozen times before advancing to the next level. It’s that hard!
The music is a simple techno loop that really just gets lost while you’re concentrating on the game. You also have the option to play your own music from the iPod. The graphics are nothing spectacular, but that may be what makes the game appealing. It presents itself like an old arcade game, which is actually a nice change in the app store.
Even though 3D Tunnel offers an infinite level option, it still won’t keep you playing for long. The game is fun for a little while, but flying through tunnel after tunnel really does get boring. There isn’t much else to do while flying through the tunnel either. I would like to see some objects that the ship could fly through and collect for more points. I would also like to see longer tunnel courses. Maybe there could be a split in a tunnel and the player has to choose which path to take to the end. There’s just not enough content here to make it a winner. Hopefully an update will offer more, but for now 3D Tunnel does not have my recommendation.
