Rush Bros Review

Even when it's not proving especially interesting, Rush Bros. at least makes an effort to play fair. Your DJ moves fluidly and responds to your commands with the required precision, especially when you're playing with a controller (as the game initially recommends). If a segment proves challenging, the closest checkpoint isn't usually terribly far back. Sometimes, you appear only a few pixels from the place where you last met your demise, meaning very little time is lost even when you make rookie mistakes.

There aren’t a lot of unique hazards, but they sure are colorful!

There's no period of invulnerability after your character materializes, though, so you can't move past a devious obstacle unless you get the timing right. This system works nicely because skill is required to ultimately succeed, but you're not punished too harshly for each individual failure along the way. If that safety net feels boring, you can activate Survival mode, where your adventure is abruptly ended the moment you make a single fatal mistake.

Unfortunately, there are some stages that inexplicably feature no checkpoints at all, even when the Survival setting isn't activated. You need to sprint from the beginning to the end of a course without making any major blunders, which is difficult because there are some hazards that you can't see coming. For instance, you might need to take a flying leap across a wide gap, and then quickly scale the side of a tilting skyscraper before spiked ledges extend from it. On your first run through the stage, there's no way to know that the spikes are even there until they've suddenly brushed against you and sent you back to the start of the stage. A level that's filled with obstacles along those lines feels cheaper than it does challenging.

Better get a spring in your step if you want to beat your buddy's ghost.

When two evenly matched players decide to race each other, Rush Bros. can feel fresh again, if only for a short while. As you play with an opponent, you can see his or her ghost running alongside you or falling behind. That keeps things competitive; plus, it's possible to tag power-ups that produce issues for the other player. You can snag an item that reverses your opponent's control scheme, for instance, or one that focuses the camera so close to the sprinting DJ that hurried movements are too risky. No ailment lasts for more than a few seconds, and the pickups aren't common enough to prove annoying, but they do add an interesting wrinkle.

Unfortunately, Rush Bros. lacks diversity, and custom soundtracks don't vary the gameplay to a satisfying degree. The available stages are passable, but you'll likely tire of them within a few hours because they're not sufficiently dynamic. Online or local races and leaderboards do add some value if you're into such things, and you might play longer still just because the game offers a unique way to experience your music library, but otherwise, you're probably better off amusing yourself with some other game while your MP3 player serves as the DJ.