Mobile gaming powerhouse Gameloft has been accused of baiting and switching Android gamers with its title ‘The Adventures of Tintin HD‘, after users downloaded the game only to find that the 3D world they were expecting was actually a 2D, almost 8-bit experience.
Kuwaiti blog Kuwaitful noticed the inconsistency after buying the game and finding that despite the lavish textured graphics and in-game shots displayed on the Android Market, the game resembled a “Gameboy Color 2D pixelated game”.
The Tintin title is currently part of a Gameloft promotion which has seen all of its Android games reduced to $0.99/£0.69 and is displayed on the carousel on the front page of the Android Market, ensuring the publisher’s titles are experiencing a rise in visits and almost certainly downloads.
According to many Android users, gamers are required to download an initial 20MB file and then install a 970MB update which contains the in-game files. However, when a large percentage of Android handset owners have tried to run the game, instead of experiencing a 3D environment, they see something like this:
(Image Courtesy Kuwaitful)
The gaming experience is obviously quite different.
In Gameloft’s defence, it does state on its Android Market listing that:
The graphics and content of the game may vary according to the phone model.
But what it doesn't do is provide an explanation of what models are affected by the graphical and content changes, nor does it display a screenshot of the 2D platform alternative on the Android Market, leaving many users in the dark and leading to accusations that the company has use ‘bait and switch’ tactics.
It appears that the issue is caused by Google’s latest Android update, Ice Cream Sandwich. A large percentage of users that are experiencing problems are using a Galaxy Nexus handset or have updated their Nexus S to the latest Android firmware.
Running the game on an Ice Cream Sandwich-powered smartphone or tablet immediately reverts to the 2D version and in some cases crashing. Google has yet to update its web-based Android Market portal to recognise Ice Cream Sandwich capable devices, hence the lack of a handset name in the reviews embedded above.
However, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and HTC Flyer owners have experienced the alternate gaming experience when running the game on Gingerbread and Honeycomb devices.
