The AppToyz AppControl is a portable controller that can be clipped to your keyring. You simply place it on your touchscreen device and the rubber material ensures it doesn’t slide around. It is small, light, soft and easy to stick on. I tried this with the Samsung Galaxy S3 where there are three games available from the Google Play Store.
These are:
- Invaderz – a variation of the classic Space Invaders
- Appteroidz – a variation of the classic Asteroids
- Mission Control – a variation of the classic Mission Control (the game did not load for me and would only load an advertisement)
I really wanted to like the AppControl as I think there is a huge potential for it with phones having larger screens these days and games that require a more tactile feedback to the controls. Whilst the AppControl worked well, it is ultimately let down by the poor selection of games. For me, only two out of the three worked. The worst thing about Invaderz is that the hit detection coding is really inaccurate. If you dodge a shot from one of the invaders and even leaving a decent sized gap between yourself and the shot, you will still get hit. I have a similar problem with the Appteroidz game. This is slightly more playable but when you think you’re going to have a nice near miss with an asteroid at the nose of your ship, think again as you’ll be hit! Mission Control is the final game and this would not load at all.
In conclusion, the AppControl worked well and does provide a nice tactile feel to the games, but it’s nothing more than a keyring without the games. So taking this into account, I would have to rate the AppControl 1 star out of 5. I could not recommend this to anyone with the current selection of games but I hope they can develop better games in the future as there is potential for it. I would recommend you try installing the games first to see if you like them before buying the AppControl as the games can be played without it.
Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own.