You can’t help but think the makers of Granny Smith could’ve jazzed up their game name a little. Grannies? Grannies aren’t cool, while my memories of the popularity of various members of the Munch Bunch suggest that apples aren’t down with the kids (in 1987) either.
What Mediocre Games shoud’ve done with this little slice of hand-held brilliance, you, see is base it on the episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em where Frank goes to a rollerskating rink, careers through the emergency exit, speeds uncontrollably down a hill, is dragged along by a bus, shouts ‘Betty!’ and ends up crashing into a shop on a BBC soundstage. (Michael Crawford did ALL his own stunts, and I think Jackie Chan copied him for a notable sequence in Police Story 2).
So basically, if Mediocre want my advice for a game based on ancient BBC comedy than I’m available for competitive rates. Granny Smith, meanwhile, is the tale of a geriatric old lady chasing a young thief down a sequence of hills on rollerskates. Your mission is to collect apples before the young scrumper gets to them, and your jumps are somersaults that you must land perfectly to keep up momentum and prevent serious geriatric injury.
So far, so Ski Safari – but wait! Granny also comes equipped with a walking stick (a tap of the left of the screen) that’ll couple itself to overhead wires – letting her recklessly speed down the cables that litter her path. Instead of randomly generated terrain, meanwhile, are lovingly constructed levels full of incidental detail for her to smash her way through. Chalets, pig pens, cellars, mines, greenhouses… a delightful array of the various locales you’d expect a Roger Moore 007 to barrel his way through/over if left atop a mountain (in 1987).
The sensation of real movement, physics objects to bash through and Granny’s dangly mid-air legs conspire to make this an utter joy – even if the game’s name and initial concept perhaps won’t attract the floating voters of the App Store. It’s easily the best ‘going downhill’ game of the month, perhaps the season and quite possibly the year. Hookshot must play!
Hey brave Hookshoteer, why not buy Granny Smith for 69p from the App Store? If you want to make that transaction then click on these words, and we’ll whisk you there through the magic of the internet.
Oh, and for the young and American this is what I was going on about earlier:
