Kapsula for iPhone

Houston, do we have lift off? Nearly

There are already a lot of racing games in a crowded and competitive market, but Kapsula brings an original concept to the genre, while also looking super stylish and having a great accompanying soundtrack.

Who am I?

What is Kapsula all about? Is it a racing game where the aim is collect gems to upgrade your vehicle? Or is it a strategy game where you must try and collect and dispatch as many identical kapsulas as you can as you race along different tracks? Even after going through the tutorial, I wasn't quite sure.

It's billed as a mix of a puzzle and a racing game, but it's never quite clear what puzzle you are solving.

Saying that, the concept and storytelling are strong. The Soviet theme of everything being the same and a clone of one another is interesting - and it's set in space! It's also not another avoid-the-traffic and get as far as you can while collecting coins to upgrade your car kind of game. Kapsula is a clever and well-designed game.

One false move and you're dead

Kapsula is difficult to play and the developer is up front about that. That's not a problem: after all, who wants to play a game that you can complete in 30 minutes? But the controls are kinda slow; it takes a while to get from one side of the track to another and, by that time, you've crashed. The way the camera angle works means that sometimes you can't see your 'car' so you end up crashing into a kapsula and dying.

On the plus side, it takes no time at all to pick up the controls - tap on the left side of the screen to go left and on the right side to go right. This means that, even though the game is tough to master, casual gamers can get into it as well as die-hard racing game fans.

Kapsula is also a slick and fast game, meaning you don't have to wait a long time between rounds, which is good because one crash and you're dead.

Racing into Soviet airspace

The graphics in Kapsula are awesome. They have this washed out yet intensely colorful, retro style. In fact, they look like drawings. The graphics change, not only based on what part of the course you are on, but also according to the time of day.

The electronic soundtrack accompanied by countdown to blast off announcements help draw you further into the Soviet-space theme.

This game doesn't quite reach orbit

I really enjoyed Kapsula because I haven't played anything like it before and it's got that addictive 'just one more try' quality to it. Given the strength of its graphics, concept and theme, this game has a lot of potential, it just needs more work on the gameplay and controls.