Back in March we previewed Virtway’s upcoming Graviton, an iPhone gravity game in the vein of classic Thrust. The game has just arrived in the App Store [link], published by Chillingo.
After devastating the largest cities of Earth and extracting all of its natural resources, the Xugg’zak left behind a planet buried in debris.
As the pilot of the Graviton ship, your mission is to salvage the scarce energy spheres that the Xugg’zak have left behind, and take them to a safe place where will be processed to rebuild what’s left from the human race.
In Graviton, the player is given tilt-based control of a ship equipped with a magnetic grappling hook. The mission is to pick up a metal orb with the hook and carry it through a series of five different post-apocalyptic environments filled with a variety of obstacles, some of which are interactive (drop the orb into a moving cart, charge the orb to unlock doors, etc).
The game features “2.5D" graphics and a realistic physics model that delivers gravity, inertia, and momentum, adding to the challenge of completing the objective. In-game tutorials explain the action, three levels of difficulty help tune the game to the player’s particular skill level, and on-line leaderboards add to the competitive value of the game.
I’ve played through several of the game’s environments and find it to be a worthy take on the Thrust formula, with particularly clever obstacles. My only real complaint with the game is to do with its hovering mechanic. While most gravity games require constant triggering of downward thrust to remain aloft (which can be very challenging in close quarters), Graviton‘s ship will remain safely pinned in mid-air if the device is held at the proper angle. It’s a control mechanic that I find a bit too forgiving for my taste, but isn’t reason enough for me to recommend that gravity fans pass on this challenging title.
See Virtway’s trailer video.
Chillingo indicates that if the game sells well, additional levels will be provided in a free update to owners.
App Store Link: Graviton, $1.99
