Yes this is a Sonic site, dedicated to all things Sonic, but sometimes you just have to take a moment to talk about something else, and today I’m going to talk about Lets Tap Runner for the iphone.

This is the creation of Mr Yuji Naka one of the men behind the creation of Sonic the hedgehog… wait… that’s my tenuous link to this site so I’m justified. Read on for my impressions.

Alright for those of you who don’t know, Lets Tap was a game released earlier this year for the Wii, created by Yuji Naka’s new studio Prope, and published by SEGA. The game involves putting the Wii-mote on a cardboard box and tapping the box to perform actions in several bright and colourful mini-games. Now there’s an iphone version of one of the mini-games, Tap Runner.

The aim of the game is to get your runner from the start to finish while jumping and running through obstacles in your path… simple enough isn’t it? Except its not, instead of just having a button to move forward and jump, you have to tap in order to make your runner move, tap quickly to make him run faster, tap harder to make him jump.

There are several ways you can tap as well, you can place the iphone on a box and tap the box like its the wii game, except its on a small screen, or you can tap the screen, or even just free style (tap anywhere near or on the iphone). I found myself going with free style as this option seemed to get my taps across the best, plus I didn’t have a tissue box lying around. Initially I found it very difficult to tap normally just to run and then tap to jump but as I played it a bit more I found I settled into a nice rhythm allowing me to run and jump perfectly, however each time I came back to the game even if it was after 10 or so minutes I found myself having to relearn the right levels of force to apply, this could get tedious over time but it may be just me.

In total there are 16 levels to tap your way through with an increasing level of difficulty with new and obstacles introduced, the latter ones only being unlocked once you complete the earlier ones, the 16 levels are split into four sub-areas of four levels each with a slightly different colour style and background providing a bit of variety. The levels are very bright and colourful despite the backdrop of space with a simplicity that reminds me a bit of the early Sonic games but that may just be a bit of Mr. Naka showing through.

Overall I found the game very simple and entertaining with a good pick up and play ability, and at the price tag of only £2.39/$3.99 its well worth it. Other Lets tap games are also now available for the iphone including Gem game, bubble Voyager, Silent Blocks, who knows I may review them as well at some point.