I usually like to start my reviews off with a quick mention of the genre of the game. I think it sets the tone. It lets you, the reader, and potential player of said game, get a general idea of what to expect. However, with No Red T-Shirts ($.99, Universal App), I have no idea what genre the game is, so I am just going to call it casual. That seems broad enough to describe this odd game.

Is this game just odd, or is actually fun? Stand by to find out! “Jump in the role of Robo, the police-bot that is not quite “feature complete” after his close encounter with the explosion at the Police-Bot Factory. Travel from location to location, give fines when the law isn’t obeyed, build and upgrade shops, catch thieves and even most wanted criminals.”

Gameplay

So what do you actually do in No Red T-Shirts? Basically, you play as a robot cop who is tasked with giving out fines to people who break various rules. The rules change as you play, so one minute it might be tapping the people who are on rollerblades and the next it could be people walking dogs.

As you fine people, you earn money that helps you purchase buildings. These increase the amount of money you collect from fines, which allows you to buy more buildings and the cycle continues until you beat the level and move on the to the next one. And you get to do it again.

Sadly, the gameplay just is not much fun. Tapping people committing “crimes” gets old quickly, and this was one of those rare instances where the only thing keeping me moving through the game was the fact that I needed to review it, and not the fun of the game.

Controls

The controls are incredibly simple. You tap the person you see committing the infraction and that is about it. There is not exactly much depth. You rotate the world to find more people to tap by sliding on the screen in the direction you want to rotate. You can swap the sliding out for tilting in the options menu if you should so choose.

There was one problem with the controls and that comes from the enemies on pogo sticks. The hit recognition on them seemed a little messed up, and I would often have to hit them three or four times before the game recognized what I was trying to do.

Presentation

No Red T-Shirts is not a bad looking game, but it is not great either. The opening cutscene looked incredibly blurry on my Retina display, which was quite disappointing. The characters look pretty blah, and are generally just the same cartoony model repeated over and over again.

The levels look a whole lot better than the characters, but they are still nothing special.

The colors in the world are bright and cheery, and it matches right along with game’s soundtrack. The music did not get too repetitive, but the sound effects did after a while.

Suggestions

I am having a hard time coming up with a suggestion. The game is just boring, so the only thing I can think of is to find a way to make it not boring.

Generally, games that are not boring are better, so I think they should work on making this game less boring, and it would be better.

Conclusion

Technically, there is nothing wrong with No Red T-Shirts. Sadly, the game is just not fun. Coupled with the fact that it does not look so great, I would probably avoid this game. 5/10