I agree - linear space shooters can potentially be fun, if they're done right. I think SB in general is a decent game, but it's ruined (IMO) by the boss battles - namely the big frigates and the escape pod (that's about half way through the game). They were VERY repetitive and uninteresting, and the frigates were buggy/poorly designed to boot. Or at least that was my experience - I didn't see many others complaining about the same issue, so maybe my installation got corrupted or something. It's hard to imagine Gameloft would allow something so terrible to be designed as those frigates, so I don't know...
From Gameloft, I would expect something with more polish. As I said in the post I just made though, it could have been I had a bad install since I didn't see many others complaining about the same issues. Someone said in a previous post that the side panels on the frigates are supposed to open and close (and you shoot them when they're open) - I only once saw one panel open out of all the attempts I tried against those things. So who knows - maybe it was just my copy of the game. I'm curious to know if anyone else had this experience... In all, I played the game for a couple hours, and probably half that time was fun. But I uninstalled once I got to the escape pod battle (about half way through the game) - I'd had enough.
to my understanding this was made between Gameloft's "let's just release our cellphone games like Brothers in Arms" and "let's make lots of $$$ with real games," putting it kind of in the middle of the quality that has ramped up. unfortunately they are still hampered by believing casual gamers buy their games, but whatever.
Started the game today after grabbing it sometime last year, October maybe..but, my goodness was this a pleasant surprise. After reading all the dirt and complaints about the game, I was expecting trash that I'd delete right away, which isn't uncommon among Gameloft's single player games. It turns out, this is now one of my favorite Gameloft games. Not only was there an enormous amount of polish in the gameplay, I actually found the story quite intriguing for once. The story is told through cutscenes, tons of dialogue, and journal entries. To be honest, I don't think any other Gameloft game has tried so hard in advancing the story as for this game. Each of the characters even have profiles detailing their history and such. The combat is what you'd expect. You have primary lasers and secondary lock-on on missiles. You'll have the opportunity to use three types of ships throughout the game, each with it's own advantages. Dogfights make up most of the game, but that's definitely not a bad thing. The controls are incredibly precise. You're given the option to choose between a joystick or tilt controls. Both work great. Swiping the screen to either side triggers a barrel roll. Swiping the screen up triggers a 180 spin. Both of these actions definitely will help you get the upper hand. In each level, you're also accompanied by two allies, who help you out in combat, but leave most of the work to you of course. There's 15 missions in total, giving you about three hours of total gameplay for the single player campaign. This is actually quite a decent length after reading through all the complaints on the game time. I was thinking it'd be an hour long from those comments. After each level, you're scored for your accuracy, time taken, kills, and penalized for deaths. The composite score will determine how you're ranked for each mission: bronze, silver, or gold. I guess this would provide some kind of replay value for people who are interested in achievements. Oh, this is the only game by Gameloft that uses GameCenter as well as Gameloft Live. And yes, there's achievements to be earned for both, 15 to be precise. There's also leaderboards by individual levels and by total score. GameCenter can also be used to play the game with friends, which was a decent experience from the short time I tried it out. Finally, the graphics. The game was only recently adapted for retina display, and my goodness does it look good. To be honest, the graphics outshine every Gameloft game besides Nova 2 and possibly MC2. It actually doesn't feel like their usual graphics engine for once. The sound effects are what you'd expect from a space dog fighting game. The voice-overs also aren't half bad in this game. That's definitely another surprise. What's more? The game is currently only $0.99 and only takes up 267MB when fully UNCOMPRESSED. The download file size is of course smaller. Like I said, this was a great game in my opinion, and I am definitely surprised the popularity of this game wasn't that high. Either way, check out this game if you're even half-interested. I'd place it up there in Gameloft's top 5. All things considered excluding price: 4.5/5
Bummer that this seems to have been pulled from the store. Perhaps it's no longer compatible? Or they don't want to update it for current devices.
Still got this game on my account. Yeah. It was the true original ever made from Gameloft. Only one till now.
Could we possibly convince Gameloft to put this back up on the App Store? It was definitely one of my favorite! I hate the concept of disappearing purchases.
I would like both this and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six back on the appstore but Gameloft probably doesn't want to rework stuff to make it compatible with newer iOS version and they are focusing only on new games even though I haven't seen anything new from them in months.
