CobraMobile's 'Bombs Away' Hits App Store as 'iBomber'
posted May 28th, 2009 12:31 PM EDT by Blake Patterson in $2.99, Reviews, Shooter, iPhone games, iPod touch gamesEarly this month we previewed CobraMobile's upcoming top-down shooter Bombs Away. The game has just hit the App Store — after a name change — as iBomber [link].
iBomber is a totally unique top down arcade styled bombing game based in the Pacific Ocean of 1943. You play iBomber as a young bomber pilot protecting your fleet and searching out key enemy land and sea targets to destroy!!! iBomber will immediately transport you into the thick of the action with the games multiple missions providing a huge variety of gameplay.
Features listed by the developer:
- 12 action packed missions
- Super smooth game-play
- Amazingly detailed graphics
- Multiple bomb types and pick-ups
- Amazing audio and 3D spatial sound
- The satisfaction of blowing everything up
iBomber is a tilt-controlled game in which you play a WWII bombardier in the Pacific, bent on laying waste to as many land and sea targets as possible. The playscreen is your downward view from your aircraft's bomb bay doors, complete with targetting crosshairs and a radar scope. Maneuver the plane via tilt, line up the target, and it's bombs away. It's really a more challenging proposition that one might think in just looking at the video, given the need to take the movement of the bomber and, in the case of aircraft or ships, the targets into account in landing a hit.
A number of different bomb types can be picked up during combat — Blockbuster, Rocket Bomb, Grand Slam — that each deliver a different type of damage to the enemies. There are 12 levels in all (nine of which are locked initially), each offering a particular mission to complete.
The game has a highly polished feel, with very well done graphics and animation, a sentiment that has been echoed in our forums. Very nice, visually. Thanks to the aforementioned challenge posed by the game, playtime needed to complete every mission should be fairly significant. But practice makes perfect, and destruction fans should enjoy the carnage that comes with learned skill at the crosshairs.
See the developer's gameplay video.
App Store Link: iBomber, $2.99
They should've stuck with Bombs Away. iBomber sounds so generic, like one of those free apps you download just cuz it's there.
Totally agree.
Bombs Away sounds great.
iBomber just sounds dull and like every rubbish $1/free app out there
i think they had no choice but change the name, because there's 2 "bombs away" in the app store already.
Looks good but I wish there was a lite version to try. Kinda reluctant to risk $2.99.
It's great, but frickin' hard! I love it.
iBomber is not a game you can easily breeze through even with practice.
Agree that the new name is rubbish.
The game itself is brilliant. Addictive, fun and quite difficult. Was looking forward to this ever since the preview and I'm not disappointed.
They should've spent an extra five minutes thinking of a better name than iBomber. The iSomething name has been done to death, yet people still keep doing it.
It's probably for better search and browsing results in the iTunes store …
I'm just copying my post that I just made on the videos youtube page… because I'm lazy like that.
"Great game!
I won't lie.
I downloaded a cracked version.
It wouldn't load properly (obviously designed that way).
So I deleted it straight away, and headed straight for the App store.
I'd highly recommend this game.
Great stuff CobraMobile."
Do ya think they want your compliment after you tried to pirate/theive their software from them? It's people like you who rape any system you can then when that system is broken and ****ed up, you whine, and bitch about it and feel you were done wrong :^<
Actually, "it was good enough to buy" IS a great compliment. Made even more so when one already has the product for free.
OK!
You seem to be making a lot of (wrong) assumptions about me based on one post.
I was just being honest.
I'm sure that you, many people here and many (if not all) of the people involved in the development of the game have downloaded (illegally) music, movies, software and whatever else for free at some time.
There's much more important things in the world that you should be spending your time worrying about anyway.
Also, I had planned on paying for the game next week anyway. I just had a long/complicated reason for trying to get it free this week.
Anyway like I said, it's a great game.
I'd highly recommend it to anyone.
Kinda curious: do they model the momentum that the movement of the plane imparts to the bomb? That is, if the plane is moving with velocity X, the bomb should presumably have velocity X in addition to its downward acceleration. However, it seems like that'd make it almost impossible to hit anything…
Yes, slowing your plane increases accuracy by reducing forward momentum of the bomb, but you are then an easier target for anti-air.
Bombs also seem to be affected by wind resistance with fatter bombs falling more slowly. Spade bombs, however, hit the ground almost immediately after being dropped as if being rocket-propelled.
I heard that iBomber lite could be coming as early as next week.
I might try the light version. On the demo video it looks like the bombs are not guided and just fall down wherever. How do you control where they land? Is it just luck?
That's the hard part of the game. You have to guess where the bombs fall. Some bombs fall almost instantly, others fall so slow, so that it's next to impossible to hit something with them. The targeting thing on the screen is just used to show you the middle of the screen, as I doubt it has any other use.
Otherwise, the graphics and audio are great and if they would add an easy mode for training, it would be a 6/5.
The bombs fall the way you would expect them to fall from a moving plane, though some special bombs can surprise you. If you want more accuracy with your bombs, you can slow the plane down. This will make the crosshairs more useful at the expense of safety from flak and anti-air attacks.
It's an awesome game. Line up your bombing runs parallel to or in line with your targets rather than crossing their paths, and you'll find much more success.
Absolutely worth the price.
A few tips for bombing happiness:
The bombs do take the velocity of the plane when they are dropped, so the faster your traveling the further the bomb will travel.
Except for the spade bomb, it WILL hit whatever you drop it over.
The "grand slam" bomb is great for taking out lots of buildings at once, slow right down before dropping it.
The "grand slam" bomb can also be used on water based missions, just drop it on an island when enemy ships are passing to take out all the ships.
The tracer fire guns can't track your ship fast enough when you fly at top speed, so keep going fast to avoid damage.
The Flak guns can only damage your plane within a small radius of their placement, so avoid them if you can.