One of the first top-down shooters worth playing to appear in the App Store was Lazrhog’s iPhone port of Kenta Cho’s 2003 “bullet hell" shooter rRootage. This weekend, Miko Wohlgemuth released his own iPhone adaptation of Cho’s vector-based shooter, rRootage Online [App Store].

rRootage Online is, of course, rather similar to Lazrhog’s early App Store offering, but comes packed with a number of additional bells and whistles. It features music and sound effects, multitouch controls, online scoreboards, and a number of different playmodes, which really notches up the experience.

• Normal Mode — This is the standard playmode. Your special weapon (two finger tap) is a bomb that wipes out enemy bullets.
• PSY Mode — The trick here is to closely graze enemy bullets. With each graze, an onscreen graze meter increases. Once full, your ship becomes invincible for a short period. Your special weapon is the ability to roll, slowing the ship and widening the range with which your ship can graze bullets.
• IKA Mode — A nod to Ikaruga, in this mode your ship is either black or white. The special weapon is to change your ship’s color. Bullets, as well, are black and white and those the same color as your ship cause no damage upon impact.
• GW Mode — In this mode, your special weapon is a reflector, which reflects enemy bullets away from your ship, tied to an onscreen reflector meter.

In each mode, the overall goal is to shoot shoot shoot and dodge dodge dodge. And, perhaps the most noteworthy feature of this release versus the earlier App Store version is full playability under iOS 4.

Anyone who enjoys a nice 2D shooter should grab this one instantly. After all, it’s free, funded by iAds on the high scrore screen. Our forum readers are loving it.