Game Review: Amon Amarth – The Game (Mobile)

Heavy metal band, Amon Amarth have partnered with Swedish video game developer and publisher Ride & Crash Games to unleash a new mobile video game.

The band are favourites of GBHBL. We’ve seen them live on a number of occasions & you can check out our positive review of their latest release, Jomsviking here.

A retro-inspired 2D platformer, the game is simply titled…Amon Amarth & players take on the role of Thor. The aim is to simply blast through 12 stages of Midgard all to the 8-bit soundtrack of Amon Amarth themselves.

Sounds great, right?

Well, no. It’s not. The concept is great, it really is. Both visually & sound-wise it really is a lot of fun. However frustrating controls let it down. Thor automatically moves in one direction with a jump button & attack button on either side of the screen. Tap the jump button twice to do a double jump but for some reason the speed in which you press it twice effects the height of the jump. Seasoned gamers will be used to delaying the second jump to get extra height & distance but here the faster you hit it the higher you jump. It takes some getting used too.

The other issue is that touching the screen anywhere moves Thor in a different direction. Easily done by accident & also necessary when it comes to jumping up platforms. Switching direction & then quickly hitting jump to move on small platforms is surprisingly difficult.

Amon Amarth is advertised as a free to play game but it’s not. In fact, it’s a free to try game as only the first level is available to play before it asks for money. So how much would you expect to pay for 11 retro inspired Amon Amarth themed levels? £1.99? £2.99? £3.99? The last one seems reasonable considering it uses actual Amon songs. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

This game asks for the stunning & laughable amount of £8.99. Put simply…who in their right mind is going to pay this for a basic platformer with iffy controls? What are you paying for? The music? Go and buy an album or two instead!

That price alone makes it a game to avoid.