Game Review: Hell’s Circle (Mobile – Free to Play)

Hell’s Circle is a free to play game by Ice Storm Studio that is both fun and addictive and with enough added content available to unlock in game (mostly) to keep attentions focused on it for a few hours at least.

You control a ball as it moves around the circumferences of circles. Pressing the screen will jump meaning the ball is now sticking to the underside of the next circle. Find the gap to move through to the next one and continue that over and over again as you try to set a high score. The deeper into the circles you move the faster it becomes and the more traps appear. Traps that come in the form of buzzsaws. Hit one and it’s game over, although the standard ‘watch an ad’ for another try is available.

It doesn’t sound like much but it’s surprisingly addictive. Unlike many other games, Hell’s Circle gets its difficulty balance right. At first you’ll feel like a pro, jumping and dodging with ease but slowly it transforms and survival is no longer a guarantee.

As well as getting the highest scores you can, to pad it out, collect tokens that can be spent in game and complete tasks. These range from reaching a specific score, collecting a set number of tokens etc. Each completed one rewards you with more tokens, themes or player skins. Nothing to get too excited about but a welcome addition even if the amount on offer and token cost is a little excessive.

We’d be more critical of that if it wasn’t for an important fact about Hell’s Circle. You see normally everything written above would be it. Plus a bit about the cost of ‘no ads’ or in app purchases. However unlike the majority of the games on the free to play market, Hell’s Circle has a bit more content.

As well as arcade mode there is also Hell which is exactly what it sounds like and 21 missions to complete. A fair amount of extra content and more then worth putting up with the ads.

Unfortunately that extra content does not excuse the price of £3.99 for the removal of ads nor the weekly subscription plan that costs £3.99 per week (after three days free). We’re seeing the latter pop up more and more in free to play games and honestly, we don’t like it. It’s never value for money as these games, Hell’s Circle included rarely have much in the way of longevity even with some extra modes thrown in.

Hell’s Circle saving grace is that it is fun and pretty addictive but it still has a limited shelf life. We’d be very surprised if anyone was still playing it after a few days.