Chasing Yello Friends Review

Following on from Endless Swimmer, Chasing Yello, Chasing Yello Friends switches tack by pitting friend against friend in a multiplayer race. It's briefly fun but it's too shallow to really entice.

The landscapes of Chasing Yello Friends are attractive, if immensely familiar to players of the game's predecessor, with players swimming through a delightful pond that's suffering from a serious problem with rocks and fire obstacles. Green enemy fish also get in the way, adding to Yello's problems. Players must tilt their iOS device to negotiate such perils with swipes down helping Yello to duck under obstacles, while swipes up cause him to jump. It's a simple control system and one that only takes a few seconds to master.

Each race involves a randomly-generated map to negotiate, so every time, there's an unique challenge. Rarely does anything feel that varied though as most races feel quite similar to the last. It's possible to compete against random players or friends via Facebook, although there's no way of hooking up with Game Center friends: a curious and frustrating oversight. Random match ups tend to occur quickly, so it's easy to get straight into a game but it's really not hugely fun to play against random competition, purely because there's little connection to them as no one chats.

Power-ups can be purchased for that extra edge in battle, with a rocket move proving particularly useful as well as a magnet that draws in all the collectibles. The basics are all here for a fun game, it just all feels a little soulless without a close-knit community onboard.

Gather some friends together via Facebook, and there's more fun to be had, but Chasing Yello Friends still isn't quite as thrilling as it clearly would like to be. The first five minutes of the game are the same as the subsequent hours with little evolution to really grip.