The anticipation surrounding Godfire: Rise of Prometheus, the new mobile game from Vivid Games, was palpable. The launch trailer had us at GameNGuide intrigued, anxious, salivating. "At last," we thought, "a worthy action game from the App store!" The combat looks exquisite, the storyline involves neo-futuristic gods and men waging battle, which is always a winning combination, the graphics push the limits of a phone or tablet. Godfire is, on the surface, exactly the type of game the mobile market has been waiting for: impressive, "hardcore", simple.
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Then you play it and the whole thing crumbles down around you like a clumsily built house of cards. I should have known not to trust anything with 'Rise' in its title.
The game centers around Prometheus, a ruggedly handsome, chiseled, shirtless Titan who has stolen the Godfire Spark from the halls of the Gods in order to give humanity a touch of the divine. The beginning of the game has Prometheus tussling with Zeus as they fall from the sky in a chariot. Zeus himself is something out of a weird historical David Lynch/Stanley Kubrick film, a metal mask hides his face and he looks like the progenitor race of all steampunk cosplay known to mankind. It is up to Prometheus to reclaim the spark and allow humanity the chance to telecommute from home in their pajamas, truly the mark of all divine beings.
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Godfire is a perfectly average game trapped in the body of something far more impressive.Visually, the game has no mobile equal, and I believe this game could be used to showcase the graphical capabilities of the iPhone and iPad. It overwhelms you with its technical prowess. Surely, this cannot be a game on your phone! You could easily find its equivalent on the PS3 or Xbox 360. The game will push your phone to the limit and that is not necessarily a good thing, as after a short period of time your phone will heat up and it will start to be very uncomfortable for you to hold. I have an iPhone 5S in a thin protective shell and my palms were sweating after a little over five minutes of playtime during multiple sessions. The heat was slightly diminished when I removed the shell, but still very much present, which diluted my enjoyment even further.
There are plenty of upgrades, such as weapons, armors or perks, to be found or bought. The game can be played through without purchasing any additional items, thankfully. The game isn't too long and can be completed in only a few hours, if that, and after a playthrough, you unlock the survival mode that pits you against waves and waves of enemies. You can also run through the game again on the Hard or Immortal difficulty settings. although I struggled to complete the first time through. Actioners like this are meant to evolve; hell, I couldn't put any of the God of War games down, yet here, I never desperately needed to know what happens next.
Godfire, like its protagonist, wants things to be different, it wants to be a part of a world where mobile games are just as good as the consoles. Unfortunately, it stumbles greatly and I fear that for its hubris, Godfire will be chained to the mountain and have its liver eaten out every day, for all eternity. Godfire: Rise of Prometheus just cannot rise above the technical limitations of its chosen platform.
But I cannot wait for the day it, or something like it, does.
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Godfire: Rise of Prometheus was reviewed from a code provided by the publisher. It is available now for $6.99 on the iOS App Store- an Android version is coming later this year.
