For me personally, the military shooter genre is one that holds very little appeal on any platform.
But on mobile, the selection is even more dire.
Most ape console and PC hits so closely that they completely lack any of their own identity.
Their control systems veer wildly between complex configurations unintuitive for touchscreen and those that overcompensate with tedious simplicity.
Repeated errors
Of those I've played (and there's been a few) none had previously held my interest for more than a couple of hours before I deleted them.
My experience is borne out by wider statistics, too, which consistently show a lower retention rate for action games on mobile than those in any other genre.
Imagine my surprise, then, when Rival Fire - a culturalisation of Tencent's third-person shooter WeFire by Glu Mobile - quickly established itself in my daily routine.
It's become not only one of my favourite mobile games of 2016 so far, but is also well on track to be among my most played.
So, how has Rival Fire succeeded where other mobile shooters have failed? What makes it so sticky? Click through below to see how the rest should follow its lead.
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