Originally, I gave this game 1 star in a fit of anger and disappointment. However, I've had some time to cool off. Now, I'm going to try and be as objective in this review as I possibly can so that you, the reader, can effectively determine whether or not this game will interest you.

As many of the 5, 4, and even 3 star reviewers have mentioned, this game is highly addictive, entertaining, and fun for individuals of all ages. For all intensive purposes, it's a pretty awesome game. It's similar in style to Temple Run. The concept of the game is to dodge trains, barriers, walls, etc. to avoid capture by the Inspector and his dog. You can move left, right, jump (swipe up), or roll (swipe down) in order to avoid these obstacles. Running into any of these obstacles head on will cause your immediate capture and end your current run; "bumping" into or "stumbling" upon these obstacles will allow the Inspector to catch up. If you make another mistake within seconds of the first (~5 or less), you'll be captured.

The game picks up its pace the longer you play, making it more difficult to avoid trains and obstacles. However, it becomes rather repetitive after a while (i.e. you'll see certain sections over and over again). Nevertheless, the game gives you incentive to play for several reasons:

1. During each run you have the opportunity to score coins, which you can use to purchase new characters, boards, boosts/boost upgrades, and hover boards. You start off with one character, Jake, and have the opportunity to purchase/earn more in the shop. The cheapest character, Tagbot, will cost you 12,000 coins. The most expensive one, Prince K, will cost you 980,000 coins.

Earning coins is no light task. You'll have to play often to bank a decent amount of money. But this is one of the incentives of the game. If you want to buy something, you'd better earn the coins to get it. Some people believe that these prices are ridiculously high, especially when it takes a great deal of effort to score a large number of coins. But that's up to you to decide. Also, you can purchase in game coins by using actual cash in the Amazon store.

2. Hover Boards (HB) are nifty little boards that provide you with "protective insurance." You start out with 3, and they cost 300 coins a piece. Aside from looking stylish, and being fun to ride, they give you a great level of protection. While riding on an HB, if you slam into an object head on, or bump into a couple of obstacles, instead of being captured by the Inspector, the current whole section of your run will disappear with a *poof,* allowing you to continue your run. Essentially, HBs are equivalent to having an extra life, and each one lasts 30 seconds. After using an HB, you must wait ~5 seconds before using another.

3. During your run, there are several "boosts" that you can pick up. The Magnet (attracts coins in your vicinity), the Jet Pack (lets you fly above the course in the power lines, allowing you to avoid obstacles while scoring loads of coins), the Super Sneakers (allows you to jump higher and attracts any coins beneath your feet- my least favorite), and the x2 Score Multiplier (doubles your current score multiplier for a period of time [e.g. x20 → x40]). You can use these boosts simultaneously (i.e. picking up the Jet Pack when you already have the Magnet will NOT replace the Magnet with the Jet Pack. You can use both). However, if you get the Jet Pack while using Super Sneakers or a Hover Board, these "on ground" boosts' timer will pause until the Jet Pack use is up.

Initially, each boost lasts for a relatively short period. However, you can "extend" the usage of each boost, and max each one out to 30 seconds in the shop. It will cost you somewhere around 60,000 coins, in increments of 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 and 30,000 I believe, to max out each one (so ~240,000 coins to max out all boosts).

At the beginning of your run (within the first 5 seconds or so), you have the opportunity to use Mega Head Starts (which allow you to fly above the course and earn you a set number of points; each one costs 2,000 coins) and x5 Score Multipliers (a relatively new boost that turns all the x2 Score Multipliers in the course into x5 Multipliers, allowing for a generous score boost; each one costs 3,000 coins). These are useful for certain missions, and when you're trying to reach a new high score.

4. Mystery boxes are items that you can pick up during a run (usually 1/run), or purchase in the shop for 500 coins. They contain a variety of "common," "uncommon," "rare," and "very rare," prizes, including trophies (which don't do anything, but are nice to have), coins (ranging from around 200 to a very, very rare jackpot of 100,000), character tokens, Mega Head Starts, x5 Multipliers, and HBs (ranging from 2 to the very rare 10s and 40s).

Let's discuss character tokens here. There are 4 characters that require a certain number of character tokens to be unlocked. These tokens can ONLY be found within mystery boxes. Tricky requires 3 Hats, Fresh requires 50 stereos, Spike requires 200 Guitars, and Yutani requires 500 UFOs. Aside from Tricky, earning these characters takes a lot of work, and weeks to months of play time. While purchasing Mystery Boxes helps, you're never sure of what you're going to get. So, like I said, unlocking these characters will take you quite a while, and is a pretty daunting task.

5. Leveling up. What some people call "levels" is actually a "score multiplier." You start off with x1 and, through the completion of various missions, reach a max "level" of x30. Each mission set includes 3 separate missions ranging in difficulty level. If you don't want to/cannot complete a mission, you always have the option of "buying out of it" in the shop for around 2,200 to 4,400 coins. Aside from allowing you to increase your score during a run, at the completion of each mission set, you are awarded a Silver Mystery Box, which contains rarer items than their typical counterparts. Once you reach x30, you can still complete various mission sets to earn Silver Mystery Boxes.

6. New Themes. Subway Surfers is currently on a "World Tour." Each month they offer an upgrade which will take you to a new place (January was NYC, February is Rio, etc.). New themes have also been offered during the holidays. Aside from vastly changing how the course looks (the run is basically the same as in the original), each theme offers a new, Limited Edition character (he/she will cost you 95,000 coins), as well as a new, Limited Edition Hover Board (which will cost you 50,000 coins) related to that theme. These characters and boards are only around for as long as the new theme is up (30 days tops), so you have a relatively short period of time to get them before they're permanently unavailable for purchase. It certainly is a plus to see what new themes, characters, and boards will be available each month.

7. Daily Challenges are easy "missions" in which you have to collect certain letters to spell out a word or two. These words are usually related to the current theme or holiday. By completing these challenges (which are offered once every 24 hours), you can earn petty cash (anywhere from 500 - 2,000 coins), or Silver Mystery Boxes which can contain a lot more coins or other items.

8. You can connect with your friends on facebook and challenge each other's high score. There's a leader board that ranks you and your fellow facebook gamers high scores, with the leader being number one. It's fun to try and beat the gamer with the highest score or, if you have the highest score, to either maintain it or even surpass yourself. Also, if you complete 50 runs (i.e. play 50 times), you earn a petty coin bonus for all your facebook friends (usually 70 - 250 coins). The same goes for you. If your friends complete 50 runs, you can also earn coins. It's a great way to pick up extra cash and help each other out.

So, now that you have an idea of how the game works, let's get into the issues.

Minor Issue #1: The game often glitches when there isn't an internet connection. Now, the extent to which this causes a "real" problem varies. If you're in the midst of getting a high score or completing a mission (particularly "collect 5 Xs in one run") and all of a sudden a glitch occurs, then you're essentially screwed. You'll either get hit by a train or run into an obstacle because your touch screen didn't respond due to the glitch. Now you can survive many of these glitches in any given run... but certainly not all, and certainly not for long. So, if you're going to play this game often without internet connection, then keep this in mind. It can get very frustrating very fast, believe me.

Minor Issue #2: When you do have an internet connection, the ads that pop up before you engage in a run, enter the shop, etc. can become annoying. They often cause the game to freeze or shut down all together. Nevertheless, it's not such a huge deal if you otherwise enjoy the game.

Minor Issue #3: Hover boards are supposed to keep you safe, right? For the most part, they do. Other times... not so much. There have been several occasions where I used a hover board and, right as I was about to jump over a barrier or roll under one, my hover board's timer would run out. As it disappeared, the game would temporarily freeze or glitch, causing me to smack right into the barrier. However, this tends to occur most often when there is no internet connection.

MAJOR ISSUE: This, my fellow gamers, was the deal breaker for me, and may very well be for you. For no reason at all, the game can "forget," or rather erase, your data. One day you'll click on it to play and, to your surprise, horror, anger, and disappointment, come to find Jake, 3 HBs, a score or "level" of x1, and nothing more. Every single character, item, board, etc. that you worked so hard to earn will be gone FOREVER, and there's absolutely NO WAY to get it back. Your high score will remain, but nothing else.

I was personally devastated by this loss myself. I had been playing for months, and enjoyed this game a great deal, despite the occasional glitches that would cause me to lose a mission or screw up my attempts to beat my own high score. Up until February 5th, I had a high score of 9.5 million (yes, I played a LOT), 375 hover boards (I rarely used them because I rarely needed them to get insanely high scores :P), I was already at x30 (i.e. level 30) and had completed numerous missions thereafter, I had a little over $300,000 coins, 232 Mega Head Starts, seven x5 Score Multipliers, all trophies, I had maxed out all of my boosts, and I purchased all the limited edition characters and boards (from the Halloween and Christmas themes, to NYC and Rio). I even unlocked all the characters that required character tokens, including Yutani, and that took months of playing. As I've mentioned before, obtaining character tokens takes a great deal of time and effort, and is amongst the most time consuming challenges of the game.

On February 5th, I clicked on the game and BAM, just like that, everything that I had built up over the course of several months was gone in a second. No new updates had been made to my Kindle Fire. It hadn't even been shutdown. In short, this happened for no reason. At first I was completely surprised, and made several attempts to restart my game to see if my data would come back. Surprise gave way to extreme anger which, in turn, gave way to disappointment.

I mean, I worked so hard to achieve everything that I had in the game, and it was all gone (save my high score). The mere thought of having to do it all over again (I mean, collect 500 UFOs from the mystery boxes to get Yutani? Never have a chance to re-purchase the limited edition characters and boards I had? etc.), was daunting, and I couldn't fathom the idea of playing again.

In short, I believe this is a great game. It's fun and addictive. Despite the repetition and even occasional glitches, it gives you a number of incentives to continue playing. But, if you're the type of person who enjoys making achievements in a game and, you know, keeping them, this is definitely not the game for you. Whether it's days, weeks, months, or years, there's a great probability that one day you'll awake to anger and disappointment when your data gets deleted. It'll be worse when it happens after you've played it for so long, grown to love it, and prided yourself on your in game accomplishments. Once your data is gone, you can't get it back.

In short, this is an addictive, exciting, and amazing game for individuals of all ages, especially if you already like Temple Run. But, if you're going to get the game, keep in mind the very real, very common risk that, at some point in time, your data can be deleted and you can never get it back. So, if you just want this game for the occasional fun, have at it. If you want it to win trophies, unlock/purchase characters, boards, etc., and basically get the fullest out of this game, do so with caution and at your own emotional risk. Personally, I deleted the game, and I want nothing more to do with it. Now, whatever you decide is up to you. Well... cheers!

Brand	N/A
Rating	4.1 (102000 ratings)
Price	$N/A
Category	Games