You may want to save your lunch money Playman is not a bad game, but it’s not great either. Let’s start off with the basics with the events. You have two modes: Challenge and Survival and you have to beat the events in Challenge before you unlock Survival. There are five individual events which you compete with another challenger: 100m Dash, Long Jump, 110m Hurdles, Pole Vault, and Javelin which wins you a mascot. The Tournament is an all-round campaign where you compete with 5 other challengers. There is an Amateur and Pro circuit and Pro is locked. The graphics look great, but besides that, the soundtrack which is similar to something you would hear when they play TV sport highlights, there are no other sound effects. They should’ve included crowd cheering or a bullet sounding to start a race or something, but alas, there isn’t anything besides the same soundtrack over and over again...seriously. The soundtrack is still ringing in my head, and I've only had it for 20 minutes. The way to move your character is through a series of taps which are highlighted by green, orange and numbered buttons (usually 1,2,3). Green buttons are for running, orange is usually to jump or lean forward (in track for the finish line) and the numbered buttons are for doing things in sequence. The tap system is frustrating because you have to keep tapping to match the sequence that they flash. It’s similar what you would do in Tap Tap (not good), and the numbered sequence is slightly worse because the numbers don’t appear in sequence. So in one instance in the same race, the numbers appear in different areas. As is, I think you would be frustrated with it. I’m going to give it some more time, but I can’t recommend it right now without some reservations.
Yea, Ive been playing it for awhile now and that sums up exactly how I feel about it. Its not bad, but its not good
A better game mechanic might be: 1. 100m dash: Player simply carries out a running maneuver with his/her finger tips on the screen. The faster and more coordinated the gestures, the faster the athlete moves. This could easily be applied to longer sprints, eg the 400 m. 2. hurdles: as above with a flick to have the athlete jump over the hurdles. Here it would be important to coordinate the running and flicking to optimize time and hurdle execution. I also would prefer different camera angles: This should be a 3D view with character animations, somewhat like Shaky Summit, and/or a 45 deg angled profile for the 100M dash (as well as the 100M hurdles). Camera angles could change during the race. Slow motion replays of close finishes should also be incorporated similar to the real sport.
I agree with what you're saying. The current control scheme is not practical and frankly made it more difficult than it needed to be. I'll spend some more time with this to see if it improves.
Playman Track and Field is out !!! Let me know what you people think about this game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUHQQNhYi0o
Whoops! Wish I had seen this thread earlier. I just picked this game up. Haven't tried it yet, but at least it was only a buck. :/
I picked it up. Albe sums it up to a tee. But its still not a bad purchase. Just needs some more figuring out
Honestly I got a major headache playing this. Problem is the tap is like stuttering to a point and watching for them makes my head spin.
Hmh. I really wished for a game like Gold Medal Challenge and Track & Field 2 on the NES. Is this the best one on iPhone so far? I mean, it ain't perfect but are there any other games like Track&Field?
Well, I think this is a really good, addictive, athletics game. I've loved Track and Field since the early 80's and still play the original now along with some of the better updates through the years. I like Playman Track and Field because they haven't just tried to tack on classic Track and Field button bashing and come up with something different. I think it suits the iPhone well and the mechanics have enough depth for plenty of play to try and max out distances/heights/times. The little touches are nice too - the pole vault works differently to every other game I've played, the fact that after your field event you instantly see all of your competitors jumps/throws, the fact you can take your next go/restart instantly etc etc. If you want a classic button bashing Track and Field game, don't bother with this - however if you like T & F games trying something new, that works, it's well worth a punt at 59p.
I agree. I really liked this game and for 0.99, it's really nice for what you pay. The challenge mode itself is really short, only 5 or 6 events with a championship at the end. The tapping on the screen to make your character move faster is actually very engaging, and I personally really like this control scheme compared to anything else. This game does provide some replayability because of the world records. World records seem pretty hard to beat and might take a couple of tries to try and beat it. There is a multiplayer mode which I have no clue how to use, probably a pass the device type of thing which totally renders that option useless. Like a lot of people said, the graphics are pretty good and overall a wonderful gaming experience on the iPhone. Personally, I think they should release more of these graphically-enhanced, engaging games rather than releasing Yo Mama! apps. Overall, this is a game that I think is a must have in your App Library. It's only a dollar and engages you until the end. Gameplay may provide about 2 hours of play but aiming for the world records and trying to improve your scores may add 3-4 more hours of gameplay. You can delete this after you're done with it, but really I highly recommend this. Includes a nice tutorial.
Thanks for your comments on this game, folks! We ARE listening and always take this kind of feeback back to the group for possible game fixes and improvements to be made in a future downloable update. Personally, I really love this game. I have a lot of fun with it as it brings me back to the old days of 1980's gaming of games like Epyx's Summer Games or Konami's Track & Field series of video games. I also dig the character art that our team in Finland designed. A few of us internally were proud of our online score rankings. That got quickly squashed once the game hit worldwide. Looks like I'm going to have to do better to get back up in the ranks!
does anyone know how to use your character that you created? every time i go into the challenge mode, there's no way to actually use your character. every time i click on it, it just brings up the edit screen. i keep getting stuck using the default girl. cool game for a buck!
My biggest piece of feedback would be- please bring more Playman games to the iPhone! I had no idea that it is a long running series on other mobiles until recently. It'd be great to have more of them...
Welcome to TA Travis! +1 I would also like to see more playman games come to the idevice I am seriously of trying this one except a bit concerned about the controls but others seem to do ok with them.
I told myself I would hold out on this app unless it broke the top 10 and it has sooo there goes another dollar
Can you update it so it saves your name please - seems to have slipped through testing. Scoreboards for individual events would be good too.
