Rotastic is clearly going for the Flash animation visual style popularized by several casual games (most notably Angry Birds). The cheerful, whimsical visuals only go so far, especially if you've grown tired of the overplayed motif. The theming is solid, though it clashes with the game's concept a bit. The Vikings, Elves, Boars, and Skeletons you'll play as have a lot to contend with, from guns that shoot live ammunition (a la Oddworld Stranger's Wrath) to battering rams that literally look like rams to others that look like the unholy offspring of several medieval torture devices. The physics also work just fine; your trajectory is always a direct consequence of when you let go of a grappling point, and it always looks natural enough. Apart from that, Rotastic plays it safe with a relatively bland cartoony aesthetic.

Rotastic is an unimpressive-sounding game. It isn't offensive to the senses, but it is forgettable. There's not much voice acting, and what's there isn't atrocious, but it's redundant and gets old very quickly. If I never hear the phrase "It's simple: get everything!" again, it'll be too soon. The cries each character utters upon death are pretty funny, but most of the time you'll probably be too pissed off at the game to chuckle. The music is like the rest of the presentation: bland and forgettable.

What's the first thing you think of when you hear the word "Viking?" Is it Erik the Red? Is it Iceland? Is it death metal? Or is it flying through the air with a grappling hook while collecting as many gems as you can? If it's the fourth of those, Rotastic offers the complete Viking experience. To everyone else, it's just a bizarre and brutally difficult casual game.

The rules of Rotastic change every now and then, but the central focus of the game remains the same: you are dropped into each level with no means of controlling yourself save for a grappling hook. There's also no floor, so falling too far beneath the screen results in instant death. Strewn across each level is a series of grappling points. By latching onto these, you can gather some momentum and send your character flying across the level to wherever you need him to be. Most levels require that you collect a set number of gems, but others feature objectives such as hitting switches, surviving, and battling A.I. characters.

Rotastic only offers local multiplayer, but it's not something that will be particularly missed online. You can duke it out in Combat Mode with up to three friends, or you can play against bots. Combat is pretty fun, but like the campaign, it's a bit too unpredictable for its own good. Cutting the ropes of your opponents and sending them crashing down to their deaths is one of the few joys that Rotastic provides.

Rotastic features seventy levels divided equally among seven worlds. It isn't a very long game, but it doesn't waste any time cranking up the difficulty to maddening levels. Frustration abounds from World 4 on, and it's not the kind of frustration present in games like Ninja Gaiden Sigma -- you know, the kind of frustration that is aimed squarely at yourself for not having the proper reflexes.

Rotastic has you on training wheels for the better part of the first three worlds, but once it gets to the fourth, the relationship gets abusive. Once you get there, the game takes away the bike, brings you a unicycle, blindfolds you, and then administers a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to the face once you're on the damn thing. This game asks too much of you without giving you the barest of essentials. Luck is a huge factor in the later worlds.

What's worse is that merely unlocking new worlds is too complicated a process. Not only must you complete each level (a teeth-grinding affair to begin with), but you must do it efficiently and with lots of time to spare. The game judges your performance and rewards you like an Olympian: with bronze, silver, or gold helmets. These are your tickets to each consecutive world. I didn't even make it to World 7. And frankly, I don't even want to anymore.

Like most casual games, Rotastic is a one-trick pony that focuses on one core mechanic to drive the entire game. And to be fair, it's a pretty fun trick. Since you have no way of directly controlling your airborne Viking/Elf/Boar/Skeleton, you must make use of the environment to ensure he gets where he needs to be. Pressing (A) while in range of a grappling point will cause the player to automatically latch onto it and begin swinging. Pressing a shoulder button while swinging at full speed will reverse the direction with no loss of momentum, and letting go of (A) will send the character flying along whatever trajectory he was last following.

Rotastic encourages the player to pull off stunts in order to boost their score even further. For example, performing a Figure-8 between two points will net you some points, as will traveling on the outside of three points, forming a triangle. While this is a neat addition to the foundation in earlier levels, later levels will have the player ignoring them and merely trying to survive.

Rotastic features a really neat idea, but its unforgiving difficulty level hamstrings the entire game. I give it credit for the concept and its charm, but the rest of it is just a brutal, frustrating experience that is difficult to recommend.