Cartoon Survivor Review (PC)

I hated Flappy Bird, and so, naturally, I thought I would hate Cartoon Survivor just as much. It didn’t help, I suppose, that it immediately compared itself to the likes of Temple Runner and Crossy Road, either—two other irritatingly addictive mobile-based games that conquered the media with no intent other than to create mass headaches and sibling rivalries across the globe. But like an itch that just needed the same treatment, I still found myself flocking back to, well, do it all over again. I had no interest in honing my skills or dethroning the local kingpin of platforming games; I just wanted to fill a hole—to hammer a nail into that same tedious plug that wouldn’t quit.

To give credit where it’s due, Cartoon Survivor isn’t a bad game; on the contrary, it’s actually an excellent alternative for the aforementioned cult favorites. Of course, it’s about as irritating as one might expect from a game that literally centers its entire existence around stupidly disadvantageous obstacle courses and illogical patterns. But, there’s a level of satisfaction that comes with overcoming these trials, similar to how there’s often a reward waiting for those who choose to succumb to the temptation of running that same marathon. Granted, it doesn’t do much for the soul, but it does, however, provide small bursts of joy in the most peculiar of forms. But more on that later.

Of course, if the likes of Crossy Road and Flappy Bird aren’t enough to steer you away or make your skin shudder with PTSD, then there’s a subtle chance that you might just find what you’re looking for here. Not quite convinced? Then let’s take it one step further.

Running for Gold

Well, technically, you aren’t running for gold here, but you are, however, striving for a chance to survive a sprightly prehistoric world and, not to mention, a shot at bringing the titular Cartoon Survivor’s ever-dwindling ratings back from its fossilized status. To achieve such a goal, you have the monumental task of dipping, diving, and vaulting across a plethora of sickeningly colorful Jurassic World-like scenarios, all of which feature their own erratic obstacles, animals, and curveballs for you to conquer. The further you go, the greater the rewards. Case in point, the better you perform, the higher the chance you’ll have of earning special privileges, including but not limited to custom skins, helmets, costumes, and unique power-ups, to round off just a few of its primary incentives.

The base game includes three sections of the Jurassic World archipelago. And while this isn’t much, it does at least give you a slight idea of how everything works, as well as how the game might evolve over the course of its rollout phase and post-launch DLC. Saying that, you don’t necessarily need a whole bunch of levels and settings to crack this cookie, as it is, in all honesty, the same basic concept as Temple Runner. Similar to the mobile-based running game, levels continuously move on a conveyor belt system, and obstacles, naturally, sprout up in various locations throughout, essentially leaving you, the endless jogger, to dash, dodge, and glide through the hoops until you reach a safety point of some sort. And that, really, is about as much as you need to know about it.

The Five D’s of Dodgeball

If you’ve played one Temple Runner-like game before, then the good news here is that you should be familiar with just how Cartoon Survivor works in its own natural habitat. Gameplay-wise, there isn’t a great deal that you need to learn, as the mechanics are more or less compressed into a few basic functions—gliding, jumping, and free-flowing. That said, although the controls are relatively easy to grasp, the actual process of executing these inputs can be a little tricky, more so given that the game relies on steady coordination and well-timed maneuvers to keep things moving. In other words, if you struggle to time a jump correctly, then you might just struggle to overcome, well, most things that flesh out these three prehistoric sandboxes.

On the plus side of all of this, Cartoon Survivor does make a commendable effort to instill its own liquified DNA into the mix, with its own chain of “enemies” to squash, as well as a sizable collection of unique traps and other environmental curveballs to thwart. And again, while there are only three levels to work with, there are plenty of things that give Cartoon Survivor that little extra pizzazz, like a vibrant art style and a surprisingly captivating prehistoric aesthetic with all of the cartoonish trimmings, to boot. It’s a simple game, I’ll admit, but it’s also one that has the potential to steal a lot of your attention, for better or worse. Full disclosure: it’s usually the latter.

Verdict

Cartoon Survivors doesn’t exactly bring a tremendous amount to the table, but it does provide a foundation for a great time waster that’ll no doubt keep high score-obsessed Android and iOS fanatics winding back the clock to run the whole nine yards time and time again. With over forty costumes to unlock, a handful of unique power-ups and a surprisingly pulpy catalog of thematic designs and characters to chomp through, you could quite easily spend a couple of hours jumping through the same few hoops here. Will it serve you any benefit whatsoever? Absolutely not, no. But then, what more can you expect from a love letter to Crossy Road?

While I would personally love to see a few more levels and a couple of extra incentives to help broaden the game’s overall appeal, I’m still willing to give credit where it’s due and say that, for what it is, it still manages to serve its purpose as a time-wasting endless runner remarkably well. Does it do enough to dethrone its adversaries from the pedestal? Eh, yes and no. Visually, I think it looks a lot better than its kin. But mechanically, it doesn’t do much to remove the shackles from a predictable, almost short-sighted design. Perhaps that’s just me nitpicking, though.

Let it be said that, if you enjoy these sorts of mindless expeditions, and don’t mind the occasional slip into a state of disbelief and frustration, then you ought to enjoy kicking this bird through the ringer in Cartoon Survivors for an hour or two.