The Flintstones: Bring Back Bedrock for iPhone

Rebuild Bedrock in this lacklustre cartoon spin-off

They may not have been on our screens for years but that hasn't stopped the modern Stone Age family invading our mobiles. The Flintstones: Bedrock is a city-building game where you must reconstruct the beloved town of Fred Flintstone and his crew. It's gonna take time and a whole lot of patience if you want to restore Bedrock to its prehistoric glory.

Wiiiiiiiiilllllmaaaaaaaa!!!!

Of course, the Flintstones aren't the first cartoon family to be immortalized in this type of game. The Simpsons and Family Guy have already utilized the tap-build-wait or pay-tap-build-wait or pay mobile game mechanic to successful effect.

So is there room for another family on your smartphone or tablet? Well, only if you're a die-hard Flintstones fan, and I can't imagine there are too many of these people left!\n

The idea of The Flintstones: Bedrock is that the town has been hit by a giant meteor and it's your job to get things in order again. You start off by redecorating Fred and Wilma's house and play through the game unlocking new houses, buildings and characters as you progress.

The Flintstones: Bedrock features many of the hilarious gizmosaurs from the original series, as well as some new ones. For those who don't remember, these are the wacky prehistoric creatures that perform the tasks of modern day gadgets. There's Ringo the Record Player, Curtis the Cuckoo Clock, Fabio the Fan, Jack the Jackhammer, and many more weird and wonderful beasts to enjoy. For me, these characters are the highlight of the game, injecting some humor into an otherwise stale game which is light on human characters.

Get your rocks off

There are three types of game currency in The Flintstones: Bedrock, which you'll need in order to build stuff: gold, clams, and stones. These are earned by completing missions or putting your characters and gizmosaurs to work on tasks. These tasks take time to complete. The quick ones earn you a few bits of currency, the ones that take several hours earn you much more. You can pay real money to buy game currency in order to speed things up.

Unfortunately, The Flintstones: Bedrock isn't that exciting. As a result, you'll probably find that you give up coming back to it once the waiting times ramp up.

Caveman capers

Graphically, The Flintstones: Bedrock will appeal to fans. The artwork is authentic, the characters look and even sound as they did in the original cartoon series, and that famous theme tune is used to great effect throughout. There's plenty of interaction between the characters and even some cut scenes that hark back to the days when The Flintstones ruled the family viewing market.

However, the game isn't as slick as it should be. The initial download and installation takes an age, and there are times when the game freezes or crashes while running. Hopefully this is something that can be rectified in future updates.

Yabba dabba don't

I was a bit disappointed that the license to use The Flintstones has been wasted on yet another city-building game. Frankly, we don't need another one of these games, and many existing titles of this ilk do it much better.

Fans of the show are encouraged to check out The Flintstones: Bedrock for the nostalgia factor. However, it won't be too long before you switch off.