Go Series: 10 Second Run (Nintendo DS) Review

The set up is very simple: in each level you must navigate a series of platforms and obstacles to reach a goal. The catch is, you’ve only got ten seconds per attempt on each stage. Early levels pose little challenge, and most people should be able to sail through them quite quickly. It’s not long before hazards begin to get introduced - fire, burning so hot that it’s blue, disintegrating or moving platforms, mine-like enemies, huge gaps to fall into - and the jumps get more demanding, forcing you to make death-defying mid-air maneuvers at the apex of each leap. That’s when you realise that the concept and the basic presentation are all just one big ruse, hiding away one heck of an addictively difficult game.

Despite the toughness setting in once you’ve bested half of the 50 trials on offer, 10 Second Run never gets particularly frustrating, mainly because you just don’t have the time to get angry at its microscopic levels. Immediately after death you’re always given the chance to try the level again. Do so and the clock is soon back on screen to start the count down from three, a terse tone at each number, before the quickening music bursts in again to build tension and bring sweat to your palms, the hundredths of seconds slipping away as you attempt the current obstacle course once again.

It’s very cleverly designed. Each level gives you a whisper of the knowledge of what was to come next whenever you die, the next obstacle often just grazing the right edge of the screen. The infinite retries also encourage the ‘one more go’ mantra, and what better game to have another go of than one that takes ten seconds, plus a few extra as the levels are restarted, to have another crack at? The result is an instantly addictive game, and before you know it you’re on your tenth, twentieth, thirtieth attempt at a brutal stage. Yet all levels are unlocked from the very start, meaning that you can skip levels and come back to them later whenever you choose.

In addition to the standard levels, 10 Second Run also presents a training mode so that you can traverse levels at your own pace - and, unless you have the hand-to-eye co-ordination of a god, that might be the only way you get to finish some of the later levels. Marathon mode has you going through each level in succession without time limitations, restarting from the start of any stage that you die on while the time continues to tick on, the aim being to complete the whole lot as fast as possible. Normal stages save your completion times also, adding a record-beating aspect to a game that is already essentially a collection of extreme speed run challenges. The only negative is the lack of online leaderboards, which would have been perfect for 10 Second Run. Also be warned of some ambiguous translation on the options menu: ‘Initialise Data’, as suspected, actually means ‘clear data’, throwing all your hard-earned records into the abyss in less time than it would take to complete one of the game’s levels.