Parents' Guide to Swing Rider!

As if being simplistic and lacking variety wasn't bad enough, this game has so many ads that it's as frustrating as it is dull. In Swing Rider!, you and other people playing online compete in a race that has you swinging from ropes like you're Spider-man. Besides going fast, you can also go through rings to gain speed, or even pull off tricks like flips or going through the support beam of a bridge. All of which is done with simple touch controls and a little finesse.

But while this could be a fun moment in a much bigger Spider-man game, on its own, it doesn't offer enough content to keep anyone interested for long. Doing tricks, for instance, is all about when you stop touching the screen, not how you touch it or where, and thus doesn't add any real challenge. That's further rendered useless by an overabundance of ads that would make this frustrating to play even if it had more variety and great controls. It runs video ads between nearly every round, has a constant ad along the bottom of the screen and a moving one on the main page, and asks if you'd like to watch a video ad to skip a race. Even worse, while the game is oddly silent, the ads still have audio. All of this is why Swing Rider! is hardly a swinging good time.