A week ago now we got our hands on the first demo build of Ezone.com‘s new space shooting game, Galactic Gunner. Australian brothers Jamie and Simon Edis have taken an unconventional approach to the genre–Instead of having the player control the flying and shooting like Galaxy On Fire 3D [App Store], Galactic Gunner is a shooter on rails. As the title hints, you play as the gunner and shoot by tapping where you want to fire on screen.
According to Simon, the “secret" to Galactic Gunner is drawing from brother Jamie’s film school experience to create “sweeping cinematic paths for your fighter." As the trailer for the game demonstrates, they’re not kidding. Your pilot takes you on an exciting flight through asteroid fields, battling the menacing Trepidoids, flying inside of a colossal space station, and other scenes reminiscent of classic science fiction movies.
Along with the stunning visuals, the game has a delightful level of cheesiness to it. The voices of the Trepidoids remind me of the Daleks from Doctor Who, and if that doesn’t ring a bell, just imagine the most ridiculously overdone computerized robot voice. On top of that, similar to retro games, none of the characters have names. Your captain is simply the captain, and you’re accompanied by both Wingman A and Wingman B.
While the gameplay is simple and the App Store has no shortage of tap to shoot games, radio silence is rare with your squad constantly talking, and your ship is almost always doing various flips and rolls creating a really fun action-packed environment. The build that we’ve been working with is fairly short with only six levels and one bonus level, but Ezone.com plans on launching the game at 99¢ which makes length hard to complain about when considering the highly refined voice and camera work present in the game.
I’ve shot a short video of the first two tutorial levels which give a good idea of how the game is controlled, as well as leading in to the first mission as you save the colossal space station from a Trepidoid attack-
