R Type for iPhone Review

Our rating:

By: Electronic-Arts

Version #: 1.3.2

Date Released:

Developer:

Price: 1.99

User Rating:

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Some people like strategy games, some like puzzle games and some don’t like games at all. But if you are like me you would like to take out your energy on shooting aliens that try to destroy your weapon-laden space ship. This is the 22nd century and you are fighting the Bydo Empire in this 2D side scrolling, action packed shoot ’em up!

After start-up you almost immediately get thrown in the deep end of the space pool; there are not many options to pick from before the battle begins. Pick the difficulty level and the method of controlling your space ship.

The R-Type developers from Japanese game company Irem decided on giving you three options for control; Touch, Tilt & Touch and Coin-op. Of course you should try them all, but considering the difficulty of this came you will probably end up picking the Touch option. The difficulty level depends on your familiarity with this kind of action. The game is very difficult. I recommend using the auto-fire option for your gun.

The fun starts with you flying in outer space with a myriad of different enemy space crafts and robots coming at you from the right and shooting at you. You just have to pick them off and stay alive. Easy enough right? The game gets hairy when you enter the enclosed spaces which are covered with ground artillery, launching countless bombs at you from all directions. And then there are the flying crafts and robots. And big ‘half boss’ aliens. This last remark implies there are end of stage bosses, and yes, the game doesn’t disappoint they are there and they are hard.

From the start you can power up your weapon by holding the firing button for a while and then releasing it. Disadvantage being you won’t be shooting any bullets during that time. Along your path through the game you can collect so called power ups which give you new weapons and more firepower.

For the fans this game is a blast. It’s a great remake of the 1987 R-Type arcade machine. Same graphics, same music; all looking swell on the iPhone display. The first ‘downside’ is that this game is very hard. For fans of the genre this is not a real downside, but if this is your first side-scroller you might think again. A real complaint are the controls though; even with the best interface, the Touch controls, you find yourself dying from bullets that hit you from behind because your big finger was in your line of sight.

We rate this app 4 out of 5 stars.
( At least until they fix the controls 😉 )