RuPaul’s Drag Race: Dragopolis 2.0 Review

Despite my weirdly low tolerance for all things campy, I got sucked into RuPaul's Drag Race by a friend last summer, and by the time fall rolled around I had marathoned every season, save for the first. Now I'm champing at the bit in anticipation for the launch of the seventh season, which happens in just a couple of short weeks. So it should come as no surprise that Mama Ru, ever the shrewd businesswoman, saw an opportunity to capitalize on this with a major update to RuPaul's Drag Race: Dragopolis, which was originally released back in May of 2013.

Dragopolis 2.0, which has since replaced the original in the App Store, offers up a whole new experience. The original Dragopolis (which is still available inside 2.0 under the Classic option on the main menu) was an action-y endless runner of sorts that honestly wasn't anything to write home about. The controls were stiff and the gameplay repetitive. But this time around, a new runway sensation is trading on the addictive nature of a certain pachinko-inspired action puzzler from PopCap.

This fusion of drag and Peggle (which, against my better judgment, I'm going to call Draggle) tasks Ru and a whole new batch of queens with defeating Apocalypstyk, the nemesis from Dragopolis 1.0, yet again. Each batch of levels is themed around the new girls (featuring such recent notables as Alaska, Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon, and more) firing balls to collect set numbers of colored rhinestones, recover outfit pieces and more.

The ball physics don't feel quite as lively and energetic as they do in Peggle, but the basics of the gameplay are still more or less as addictive as they ever were. What the decision to download really comes down to are individual consumers’ love for the Drag Race crew and their tolerance for innuendo and cheeky double entendre. Pass both of those criteria? Then you're in, squirrelfriend!

I do wish there were a bit more variety to the gameplay, but then again, it IS free. And RuPaul's Drag Race: Dragopolis 2.0 is definitely ahead of the original in terms of production value and presentation. The queens are all appropriately catty (and voiced by themselves), and the character artwork is cartoony but still iconically recognizable.

I honestly wouldn't be too surprised to see a third revamp/update come next season. But the question is, what genre is Ru going to take on next? Draggy Bird? Clash of Queens? Actually, I really wouldn't mind seeing that last one.