I spent upwards of twenty minutes waiting for players to join me, often with little or no success. Online multiplayer is a great idea for this sort of game, however every attempt I made to connect to other players failed. Sounds cool, right? Well, in truth it might be, but unfortunately in my experience that has not happened, and I suspect that is for a number of reasons. The twist is that while you are fighting your way through the various arenas, other teams are doing so as well and upon reaching the final boss you will battle it out with them also. After successfully completing every five arenas or so you will encounter a boss fight, until you reach the final level. Once your team is assembled you are thrust into randomly generated arenas where you must fight through waves of enemies. Pitched as a party game, you can play locally with up to four other players in split-screen, or if that doesn’t take your fancy there is also an online element where you can play with another three players. But it is, in reality, barely any of those things.

Robot Entertainment’s game pitches itself as a fast-paced multiplayer dungeon crawler that “packs a big twist”. ReadySet Heroes earnestly wants to be a good game, and there is a fair bit that I do like about it, but objectively speaking, it is not a game I can recommend. Sometimes you come across something that it is just cynical, trying to quickly cash in on a passing fad, but most of the time it is clear that the ideas and execution don’t meet up. It makes me feel bad knowing that a team of people created something that with all the good will in the world doesn’t quite hit the mark. You know, I really don’t like it when a game isn’t good.

Free for apple download ReadySet Heroes