Meteor Dash review - “A calming endless runner experience”

• Meteor Dash manages to make avoiding crashing meteors a calming experience
• The UI suffers from the lack of pause and back buttons
• Crashing into Cacti to earn points is surprisingly invigorating

Meteor Dash is a new Endless Runner that has you dodging meteors in a race for survival. You’ll journey through a scenic desert, putting the pedal to the metal as you collect coins, score points and avoid crashing at all costs.

Meteor Dash Tasks You with Dodging Falling Bits of Asteroids

Meteor Dash keeps things simple; your objective is to cruise through the desert dodging cars, meteors and other obstacles for as long as possible. You'll start out as a burned orange VW Beetle driving down a road in the midst of the desert. However, you can unlock other fun avatars, such as a rocket and even a flying creature once you’ve earned enough points.

You'll need to collect two things as you traverse the dangerous landscape: points and coins. Coins contribute to your high score, so the more you collect, the better. Points, however, are much more lucrative.

Earn Points to Unlock New Meteor Dash Avatars

You can use points to purchase new avatars from the game's store. Don't worry, Meteor Dash is refreshingly in-app-purchase-free. So, the only way to earn a new avatar is by racking up enough points. How you earn points, however, isn’t immediately obvious, and the game doesn't give you any obvious directions here.

You might be tempted to stick to the relative safety of the street as you dodge the meteor that rains from the sky. However, if you want to earn points, you’ll need to do some off-roading. On either side of the road is a patch of desert where streetlamps and fire hydrants reside and cacti flourish. 

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It's the cacti and fire hydrants that are of interest here, as hitting them will net you some sweet points.  Of course, you’ll still need to watch out for crashing comets and avoid streetlamps, as hitting one totals your vehicle and ends the round. After racking up some points, you can head to the store to purchase avatars ranging from a DeLorean to a UFO. 

Choose Your Control-style

If you're having trouble with the default controls, just head over to the settings menu. Here, you can choose between button, joystick, swipe, and tilt controls. This accommodating feature is very much appreciated as not everyone has the same control preferences. You can also increase the difficulty from casual to standard or hardcore to really test your ability to elude obstacles.

Meteor Dash's UI Issues

A few things keep this charming casual game from reaching its true potential. For instance, you can only access settings upon launching the game. There is no pause or back button within the game and no way to access the menu between rounds. Therefore, if you want to change your settings, you'll have to close and reopen the app. Further, to leave the game store, you must select an avatar, which isn’t immediately clear. 

While the game’s user interface needs some work, Meteor Dash does provide a Zen-like experience. Despite the looming threat of meteors, the game’s low-poly 3D graphics and calming soundtrack keep things feeling chill. The game isn’t complex, yet it still offers a joyous gaming experience.

Meteor Dash proves itself to be an engaging casual endless runner that’s good for playing on the go. Will you want to play for hours on end? Probably not; however, it’s great for short gaming sessions when you want to relax while also having fun. The UI could use some improvements, and some direction early on about how to earn points would be helpful. Still, Meteor Dash’s simplistic gameplay and calming atmosphere make it  worth your while