Vir2L Base Jumper is a game for the iPhone and iPod Touch that tries to recreate the thrill and excitement of base jumping. You can jump off a building, mountainside, or canyon. The app gives it a good try, but sadly, does not deliver.
The game is set up with the ability to start jumping right away. But, along with this option are several other menu items. The tutorial explains all of the game's features well. The options menu is scarce, with only the standard items such as turning music and sound effects on and off. You can also invert the Y axis, which I definitely appreciated. There is also a customize option which allows you to change several features of your jumper. You can change the suit color, parachute design, smoke color, and helmet color. This amount of customization is nice to see in an app.
Let's get into the actual jumping. First of all, a major downside to this app is that it only offers three areas to jump. You have the canyon, city, and alpine. That's it, just three. This seriously lowers the replay value. There are no difficulty levels to choose from, but each area offers a different challenge. The city is definitely the beginner level. When you select an area, you are immediately thrown into flight. You never get to see the actual jump, which is a shame in a game called Vir2L Base JUMPER. The left side of the screen shows your altitude with two red lines near the bottom. You can't open your chute before the first line or after the second, or else you're dead. The upper right of the screen shows the handle to your parachute while the lower left allows you to pause the game.
The graphics are nothing to go crazy about. The game looks OK, but nothing will actually impress you. The movement of your jumper around the screen is smooth, but the animations are a bit choppy. I mean, you know you're flying through the air, not from the actual character, but only from the environment moving around you.
The actual gameplay is the worst part of this game. You must use the accelerometer to move your jumper through scattered rings to gain the most points possible. Left and right direction changes are smooth, but it's the up and down that will really irritate you. It just always seems like your are out of control and it is very difficult to keep your jumper in the center of the screen. In the alpine area, if your jumper gets too close to the bottom of the screen, he/she will hit the mountain wall, losing you valuable points. You have to lay the iPhone flat when you start the game to calibrate the device, but it just does not work well.
The sound effects are nothing special either and the music does nothing to push you to the edge of your seat with excitement. There is just nothing in this game that helps it earn a spot on my iPhone. The concept is great, but the game just doesn't do the extreme sport of base jumping any justice. I do not recommend this app.