PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist

The massively successful YouTube star Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, may not be someone that appeals to everyone's tastes. Sure we've seen some of his work, and we fully understand why he's so popular, but his humour doesn't resonate with everyone. To some it's mostly loud noises and screaming. So when we heard the YouTube sensation was getting his own iOS title called PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist, we had mixed feelings.

The plot is very simple. PewDiePie sits at home making one of his "hysterical" vlogs and uploads it to YouTube. After a while he checks to see how many views it has gotten and to his horror he realises it's gotten zero views. The reason for this is that all his fans have been kidnapped by evil barrels (that's right) who are out to get the legendary "Brofist" power PewDiePie is in possession of. And so our hero heads out on an adventure from the Northpole to Africa via the Moon, in order to save his fans.

The story isn't a great deal of fun. Sure, it's mildly entertaining that Felix and other big YouTube personalities like CinnamonToastKen, Marzia and Markiplier contribute with their own voices, but the humour they convey comes across as incredibly contrived. It either revolves around silly banter that never goes anywhere, absurd encounters with things like a sniper giraffe named Falcon Lover, and various "funny" voices for weird side characters. It simply doesn't strike a chord with us and it just ends up being a little bit annoying. It's not entertaining. However, once the characters shut up and the testosterone stops flowing, there's a pretty entertaining game hidden underneath.

PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist is an old school platformer with a gorgeous 8-bit design. The music makes us nostalgic, and there are winks to old classics like Mega Man, Zelda, Super Mario and Metroid - something that definitely makes us smile. There's also a great deal of variation between the different levels in the game, both in terms of design and gameplay. One level revolves around surviving enemy attacks while waiting for an underground train, another level sees you jump between charging rhinos across the backdrop of the African savannah, and a third puts you in a plane where you're shooting down birds á la Gradius. Most of the levels, however, are built in classic platform fashion where you progress from the left to the right while trying to stay alive.

PewdiePie's two pugs are along for the ride and they act as extra lives if you happen to waste your last heart or fall on some nasty spikes. You also have access to some special abilities (such as stopping time or gaining extra hearts), but you can only have two specials active on any single level. These specials, as well as new characters such as the previously mentioned Marzia and Markiplier, are unlockable along the way for a small amount of coin. Note that these aren't microtransactions, these coins - so-called Brocoins - are collected in each level. Refreshing in these times when in-app purchases litter almost every mobile release.

Something that does dampen the experience is the controls. It may be delightfully simplistic and accessible, but if you've ever tried to pull off elegant precision jumps in similar iOS titles you know what we're talking about. The controls simply aren't precise enough, and all too often we land on those pointy spikes or fall into a bottomless pit as a result of the stick going bonkers and sending us sliding forty extra metres to the right. Annoying to say the least. The virtual d-pad is not static in one spot but it floats around on screen, something that most of the time works well as we can move the thumb so as to not obstruct our view.

At the end of the day PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist is clearly a competent platformer. Even if the game comes across as a bit too short it never bored us or felt repetitive, and instead all the levels have their own charm and style, while the missions are fun and the enemies are varied. But the tiresome humour that runs through the game from the first pixel to the last, and the not entirely reliable controls conspired to put a dampener on our play-through.

Without these missteps PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist would have made for a wonderful iOS title worthy of a higher rating. Now it has to settle for a weak seven. Decent pie.