Onslaught from Space: iPhone Game Review

Today I will be doing a mini-review of Onslaught from Space available, from the iTunes App store(.99¢ here!) for the iPhone and iPod Touch format; from local Philadelphia developers Scatter Circuit Games. The developers were nice enough to hook us up with a copy so we could review it for Geekadelphia. When I first downloaded and booted the game up on my iPhone 3GS it seemed very reminiscent of those old arcade cabinets from back in the day, where they had 3D vector graphics. If you have played the old Star Wars Arcade(1983) you know exactly what I mean.

Like those games of yore, one thing the game definitely has going for it in my opinion is its simplicity, which is a must for games on mobile platforms as far as I’m concerned. The story for the game goes like this, you’re alone in space; and you must destroy or be destroyed! Sounds good to me! The game heavily relies on the accelerometer of the iPhone for all movement of the game, and you touch the screen to fire within the cross hairs at the center of the screen. You aided by radar screens that help you find ships in the “space” and reminded me of the that old school Mac classic Spectre.

It’s kind of hard to explain, but imagine one of those arcade machines where you can pan and tilt in a virtual space with the aid of wearing a helmet, with a built in monitor. Well the iPhone is your “helmet” and you use it to see in this virtual space and blow stuff up. Which is really cool. It took me a bit to get the dynamics of the movement but after a minute or so I was going Last Starfighter on this game. Here is a short video game play so you can kind of get the gist of things.

The sound effects and graphics definitely do everything to keep the old school vibe going. You can also easily re-calibrate the accelerometer while your playing, if your not happy with they way it is set-up, and to change up orientation of your movement. The game boasts 33 levels of increasing difficulty and five types of enemy ships, you can also buy upgrades for your ship as you go along in your quest as well.

I had a lot of fun playing this game and for .99¢, I think it sits in the sweet spot of app pricing and is not a bad deal at all. If you’re into old school gaming and still look fondly on the early days of 3D gaming where all you got is a wireframe like I do and you have an iPhone or iPod I suggest you check it out.