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iOS Movie games used to be notoriously  bad–so bad that even taking the time to read the game’s description wasn’t worth your time. Now Publishers and movie distributors are doing the smart thing by handing over their movie licenses over to iOS game developers that they know what they’re doing. We recently saw Hunger Games: Girl on Fire teaming up with Semi Secret Software that created a similar experience to Canabalt as well as Pussin Boots teaming up with Fruit Ninja and released yet a very similar but solid game, Fruit Ninja: Pussin Boots. Following the latter example, Disney and Pixar team up with iMangi Studios to release Temple Run: Brave.

Back in September of last year (2011) we reviewed Temple Run and overall we were pleased with its new take on the endless runner genre. In Temple Run the camera is pushed in back of your character that creates a nice chase camera view point that puts the action in front of you. Besides the repositioning of the camera, Temple Run also includes intuitive swipe and tilt controls (click here to read our Temple Run Review). In  Temple Run: Brave, all of this is the exact same (see why I cheated and linked to our original review) but with the inclusion of an archery section. Here you’ll occasional enter archery parts of the game that’ll have you tapping on targets in order to boost up your score. While this is great to bring in a new aspect found in Pixar’s movie, it doesn’t stop it from feeling tacked on…but that’s alright and this new element is still “OK” but not great.

The biggest improvement with Temple Run: Brave are the graphics. The graphics are bright and sharp and helps bring a completely new graphic overhaul along with tying in a couple characters from Brave. While I wasn’t the biggest Temple Run fan (I still gave it a 7.5), these new graphics definitely pull me into the experience that much more and want to continue doing “just one more run”.

The Bottom Line: 8/10

Temple Run: Brave plays almost identical to Temple Run but improves the graphics (don’t get me wrong, the graphics in Temple Run isn’t bad–they’re just not this good). We can comfortably add Temple Run: Brave to the “great” iOS movie game section.