Not having traveled yet to England, I do have to wonder how bad the traffic really is. I mean someone has gone and made a game where you control traffic light switches to create order and shuffle through as many cars as possible unharmed, but if a crash does happen, well then there's as much mayhem as your little tapping fingers and heart could ever desire. It's very rare that a game comes along where its lose state is inherently more enjoyable than the game itself, but that's exactly what we have here with Traffic Panic London.

In fact, you're liable to crash within the first few seconds of playing. Tapping on the screen changes the lights from red to green and vice versa. The thing is that you only control the lights facing you (while the cars traveling along the intersected road have a permanent green to look forward to as they zoom along without a care in the world). The longer you wait for an opening between the cars, the more traffic piles up behind you, and unless you have an ambulance wailing its siren in your queue, the cars going the other way are not going to stop and it's pretty inevitable that a crash will occur.

Once you crash, the game enters what we'll call destruction mode. The camera changes angle every few seconds, and until you press the continue button and end the game, you can spend as long in this mode as you like. Tapping cars will cause them to explode, often flying into the air and causing carnage as they slam into buildings and other cars. Once you've had your fill, the game awards you currency based on how long you played the game for, and how much damage to the city was caused in destruction mode (as well as bonuses if you completed any missions)

The currency is used in the store to buy new cars, new locations, and bombs that will allow you to cause explosions wherever you tap. The game starts you off with a solid chunk of change, but after buying a few cars or a new stage, you'll deplete that, and realize having to grind for cash is gonna take a lot longer than the novelty of the game will probably keep your attention for. You could pay for more in-game currency and there's even an 'unlock all' button but the price is set a lot higher than the game would be worth in the app store if it wasn't a free-to-play title. Lastly, the biggest blow is that the tap explosions eventually run out and you have to pay money to get more. Seeing this is the main drawing point of the game, this is pretty inexcusable.

As fun as the destruction is, the sad fact is that the game itself is plagued with imbalance and acts as a prelude to blowing things up. As a diversion, it's fun enough, and the presentation is commendable, but as a game, even a free one, it just leaves a lot to be desired.