We first heard about Pako on WPCentral and we thought to give the game a try. It’s been hard to put down since. Pako is a car chasing game for Windows Phone that proves you don’t necessarily need to be a big developer to push quality games. What’s more, it’s only available on Windows Phone. Now that doesn’t happen very often, but Windows Phone offers developers the unique opportunity to showcase their quality app that can otherwise be lost in a sea of umpteen apps on other platforms. So does the game hold any promise? Let’s find out
Gameplay
Supposedly, you’re a bad driver wrecking havoc in the locality and the cops have in turn decide to turn you in. Your job is to evade them for as long as possible. The counter keeps ticking as long as you don’t run into them or any other objects in the vicinity. Even a little contact explodes your car like it’s some Michael Bay movie. You control the car from a god’s eye view and can steer the car either left or right by tapping on the screen. There’s no gas or brake and your vehicle is ever accelerating. There are two levels and two cars, with one of each added after the first update. The first level is set in the parking lot of a shopping mall, while the second level is in a suburban neighborhood, where you’re on the run in an orange muscle car. Once you crash, the game restarts automatically.
You will often find yourself trying to beat your best score. It reminds us of the Flappy Bird days, although the difficulty here isn’t half as bad. The current high score on the global charts is close to 6 minutes, but we haven’t gone beyond 90 seconds until now. The trick to survive long is to drift as much as possible and we’ve been doing just that.
Graphics and audio
The game has been created using the Unity engine and even though the visuals are plain and boxy, the bright colors are appeasing to the eyes. The environment is as good as it gets and even destructible to an extent (the electric poles fall when a cop car crashed into them). The music in the background isn’t bad either although there’s the occasional sound of your car crashing into something. Overall, we have nothing to complain in this department.
Final words
Pako is a great game that will soon be coming to Android and iOS. In the mean time, Windows Phone users should grab it for free. What’s more, the developers have promised additional levels in the future with new gameplay elements like zombies that can be run over to gain some extra seconds. The only thing that disappointed us was the ad banner on the top edge of the screen that cannot be removed. We wish there was a paid version that removed the ad, but then, it isn’t really that big an issue. It’s one of those few games that have been released first on Windows Phone, since exclusives here have a better light of coming into the spot light and that’s understandable.
You should definitely try it out. Grab it for your Windows Phone at the store link below.
