Game Impressions Alright guys, I was very impressed by the screenshots and video so I decided to get this one. I only finished the first mission, so take my impressions with a grain of salt. First off when you start the game, you're greeted with a typical gameloft cinematic with a space battle and cool techno music.. One of the better ones I would say. I tried online co-op first, but unfortunately I couldn't find any players. One thing to note is that the game supports both GameCenter and Gameloft Live. You can use GameCenter matchmaking, or you can join rooms a la Modern Combat 2 through gameloft's own servers. You're greeted with a simple tutorial in at the beginning of the mission. The controls are nice and intuitive, though I found the tilting to be a little sensitive. (You can change this in the menu though.) Doing barrel rolls and flips are a breeze, all you have to do is swipe the screen. The game supports both a tilting and analog controls (similar to HAWX). One thing I noticed is that the graphics look terrific: explosions look very nice and have a "weight" to them (unlike.. say explosions in BIA2). The first level is an ice level, and it looks great. There are lasers and ships flying everywhere and the skybox looks amazing. There is also a really cool blur effect when you use the boost. I would say the graphics are some of the best in the App Store right now. I have a touch 3g, so I would imagine that it looks even better on a retina display. Audio is a mixed bag. On one hand, the voice acting is mediocre... the woman character sounds especially forced and unconvincing. On the other, I absolutely love the music. It has a high tempo techno soundtrack, which made the whole mission seem more tense and exciting. Though I can imagine that it would get pretty repetitive if the music doesn't change for the other missions. The gameplay itself involves flying around and shooting at enemies (the game has an auto-aim feature, so it's not frustratingly hard) and completing objectives. Destroying enemies is satisfying and the game advances at a quick pace. This game allows you to fly all over the combat area, instead of having enemies fly up to you like Star Fox. Though one thing that kind of broke the immersion was that there are floating orbs that give you ammo.. which gives the otherwise realistic (as a sci-fi space shooter can be) game a more arcade-y feel. Also, I would imagine that the same aim/shoot tactics could get stale for some people, but that might be alleviated by the different ships you get to use. Another thing is that I was 7% done with the game after the first mission.. which would work out to about 14 missions total. And the first mission was short, I would estimate no more than 5-6 minutes, though it was pretty much a tutorial. So don't blame me if you get this game and find out it's really short. A thing that I really liked is that you get 2 AI wingmen who actually have pretty distinct personalities, which add more depth to the story and give you the feeling that you're not alone in the dogfights. On that note, the game also has a screen with descriptions of the people, the planets and the machines that are in the story. By the time, I started the first mission, I already had a good sense of what was going on. I can tell that Gameloft was trying to make a well fleshed out story for this game. Needless to say, this game has the typical Gameloft polish as well. The menus, HUD and pop up texts all look very professional. Overall, this is a very good game. Gameloft has been putting a lot of effort into their games lately and this is no exception. Highly recommended. tl;dr +Shooting is fun +Great graphics +Good music +Very polished +AI/online coop wingmen -Bad voice acting -(Possibly) short -Could get repetitive for some people
OK, VERY early impressions: Pros: visuals- looks very nice, especially on my iPhone 4. There seems to be a nice level of detail on the backstories of the characters, and information of the planets, ships, etc. Fun factor- I've just played the first mission, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I agree with the Star Fox feel of things- fly, target, destroy. Fun stuff. VERY basic, at least to begin with but fun. There also seem to be plenty of achievements. Controls- I have no problems at all with the tilt controls. For driving or flying games I feel that tilt controls are the way to go. They felt just fine to me. I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but it sure seems like this could be ripe for good multiplayer. Cons: length- I'm concerned that this may be a very short campaign mode. I finished the first mission and it shows as 7% complete. That mission took 6 minutes. Voice acting- I normally don't even comment about this since I feel like sometimes people overstate the problems with Gameloft's voice acting. That being said, I have a feeling people are going to go off on the cheesiness of the voice acting in this one. Throttle: this seems a little confusing to me. There's a slider on the right. You slide up to speed up, then slide down to slow. Simple enough, but I can't quite tell if there's a standard speed and the up swipe is a temporary thrust, or if you're permanently speeding up. I'd like some indicator of speed to have a comparative understanding. Overall, I like it, but have a feeling this will split people's opinions. It's not a slam dunk like Spiderman, NOVA, or Black Pegasus.
Um... What? Since when is 6.99 a new IP, hasn't every one of gamelofts big games been at 6.99 or higher for about a year or more? And what about anything with a license, they have had an IP of about 9.99
Anyone test this out on an iPad yet? Wondering if the controls are located well enough to play on the iPad.
Starfox is a very apt comparison. It's not on rails like SF but it has a similar feel. I've beaten the first three levels and while it's fun it's certainly not scratching the "Freespace" itch I still have. I'm using the virtual stick controls and they are responsive and easy to use. The combat is a little basic in that you are not leading your targets, you just need to get your reticle close to the enemies and your bullets automatically line up. Prolly not worth the $7 from the first 3 levels.
People are reluctant to take the plunge because it's a new Intellectual Property from Gameloft. Therefore, you can't be sure exactly what you're getting here. Uncharted waters, so to speak. The price point is high for something that is essentially unproven, hence the hesitation, and why there isn't enough people who have purchased this game for online matchmaking to be effective. That's what I meant with what I said earlier. I should have been more specific. If the feedback is positive enough, people might start to slowly jump on board. I just feel as if perhaps this should have been a little cheaper in order to entice a few more early adopter buys, which would have sparked more activity for MP.
Just played a co-op game online, fairly fun. Both players get scored on how much you kill, it even has an announcer to say "lost the lead"! Seems like a fun, albeit shallow game.
I've completed the first two missions, and so far it's pretty fun. The accelerometer is very sensitive, but the joystick is fine. The joystick will move to wherever you touch the screen, and the rest of the controls are fine.
Rogue Planet by Gameloft "New update! Try out the ONLINE MULTIPLAYER mode and go up against players from around the world, 24 hours a day! Play up to 32 games simultaneously in 3G or Wi-Fi."
Not on rails my good sir. Rest assured. The only complaint i have is that it feels simple of course its a gameloft game but they could add updates in the future. If you want to play on Game Center username is: Blues/Protoman
It's not on rails at all. You have a large mission map, and you have a few objectives on each map (ie kill all tanks, then fight off waves of ships, then take town a super freighter.) After each mission you load a new map. So far I've beaten the first 4 levels and they have all been on the planet, I'm still waiting for the open-space levels.
I replied to a post a page or so back so didn't see the post where people described it not being on-rails - didn't hit Submit immediately that's all. My only concern now is replay value / the length of the gameplay on offer. A bit off-topic but if you choose to have your mobile contract suspended while overseas (due to not wanting to incur large bills ), can you still use Wi-Fi spots to download/play games/etc?
