Call me crazy, but when I boot up an endless runner called Gravity Guy, I expect to be able to control gravity. It's no secret there's a lot of games to get to out there and I'm a man with only so much time. So going in to this, I was expecting this game to be an expansion on the ideas in the original Gravity Guy. After all, they got a shout out in Jetpack Joyride, so now it's time for developer Miniclip to answer back, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. Follow ups can be tough.

In terms of a story, because surprisingly enough there is one here, Gravity Guy has been captured by aliens since the last game. The action in the sequel takes place on the alien ship, where Gravity Guy has been cloned by the evil invaders from space. Each run in the game is the efforts of a new clone to try and make his escape. So there you go. Now, on to controlling gravity! Right?

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Wrong. Instead of letting you control one of the fundamental forces of the universe, Gravity Guy 2 gives you the infinite power of... hydraulic floors? Pretty much. Whereas in the first game, you could invert your character to fly up and down in order to navigate through the levels, the gimmick in Gravity Guy 2 is to make the floor rise up in order to launch you from one platform to the next. And that's pretty much it.

In addition to the platforms, Gravity Guy can do a midair boost, which pretty much serves as a double jump and will let him collect extra coins and just miss dangerous impediments. As is the case with pretty much every other endless runner title out there, the coins can be used for in-game purchases to gain new powers, most of which let you increase the number of coins you can collect.

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This misguided sequel, instead of being about gravity, merely just features it, much like any other platform game out there. This is a game about lifting floors and helping clones escape. Well, at least helping them for as long as you can. Because you can never escape in endless runners! Seriously, I think I'm overdosing on these games.

The thing is, if this game stood on its own, it wouldn't be half bad. Gravity Guy 2 is a well presented, fairly solid, middle-of-the-road endless runner title. But when it has to stand next to the interesting ideas of the original, the game becomes much less impressive. I suppose there's probably a sense, much like with a band's follow up album, to change things up and prove that you're not just about capitalizing on just one concept.

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But in the app world, there's something to be said for refining your gaming hook. I'm not suggesting that Miniclip has to go all Rovio on us, but I feel like there's lots more that can be played with when it comes to that original concept. Anyone who's played Mario Galaxy knows what I am talking about. And come on guys, Gravity Guy 2 is already taking place in space. There's plenty of cool stuff you could be messing around with.

All in all, I suppose that it's appropriate that the Gravity Guy clones are asleep in their stasis tubes at the game's title screen, because this game is a snooze.

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App Store Link: Gravity Guy 2 for iPhone & iPad | By Miniclip.com | Price: $0.99 | Version: 1.0 | 35 MB | Rating 4+

3.5 out of 10 arcade sushi rating

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