Not all apps or games on Android Wear blow you out of the water, especially with the hundreds upon hundreds of apps available in the Google Play Store. Wear Rider from Teensy Studios is a free game that has a lot of promise to be an awesome, engaging and fun game. The issues that it has are enough to almost make it not worth it though.
Wear Rider has a simple premise, made to be played for fun. You ride a motorbike down the highway, weaving through traffic to avoid the other vehicles on the road. If you run into one of them, the game will end. It's simple, but definitely addictive even with the issues that the app definitely has.
As you move along down the road, your speed will gradually increase and your score will go up depending on the number of cars you pass, and how well you pass them.The controls just involve tapping the left and right lanes of the highway to move to the left or right. Super simple. If you get a game over the screen you'll get your score during your last game, your all time high score and the option to replay the game. On the main screen along with the option to start a game, you'll see what looks like a tiny store. Inside you can buy power ups, or better bikes by using coins you get from playing the game. You also have the option to purchase more coins in game using real money.
So, while this seems like it should be a pretty awesome game for your Android Wear device, it has a few serious flaws that take away from the gameplay. To begin with, sometime the game doesn't like to load or will take it's good old time about it. There are no instructions, options, or settings within the game. There are no levels, which means a lack of any kind of change in what you're seeing.
Most frustratingly, the smartwatch will sometimes slip into ambient mode when you are in the middle of the game and you'll need to relaunch the whole thing and hope that you have time to see what's going on before you crash. When you have Wear Rider open there is no way to close out of the app and return to your screen, unless your smartwatch goes over to ambient mode.
The flaws with Wear Rider don't seem huge, and honestly they're not. This is a tiny game, on a tiny screen, it's just a shame to see something that could be an awesome game become mediocre because of these issues. If you're willing to overlook the problems Wear Rider can be fun, but with the issues it has, it often becomes far more frustrating.
