iPhone Games: iFighter Review
There are plenty of advantages to handheld/mobile gaming, and one of the foremost in my mind is the ability for developers to try new things and take chances like they rarely do in console gaming, but also to relive the past and re-imagine old genres and styles of gaming that have died inglorious deaths on modern systems. The most notable of these genres is the 2D shooter.
Shooters ruled the arcades and 8 and 16-bit eras back in the day, both top-down and side-scrolling. The gameplay was simple and many would say repetitive, but flawless controls, blistering action, and challenging play kept gamers such as myself enthralled. iFighter is very much akin to these old-school shooters, reminding me very much of the original Raiden (Raiden Trad), both in graphics and style.
Before you begin you have multiple control options to choose from. There’s accelerometer controls, called motion controls, where you tilt the iPhone to guide your plane, joypad mode where a virtual on-screen pad allows you to play like you had an actual joystick in your hands, and swipe controls, where you move your plane around via the touch screen and shoot by tapping the screen. There’s also an auto-fire setting that can be turned on, though that’s tantamount to cheating in my book, and went unused.
I tested out all three control methods and they all worked fairly well. As a general rule I prefer the touch screen over tilting, so I mainly stuck with those two control methods, but the tilting was responsive, and there’s also a handy feature available for calibrating the accelerometer controls to suit your preference. If there’s one control issue, it comes from the swipe controls and the fact that you can inadvertently block your view of the screen when manoeuvring around if you don’t have the perfect angle (and ideally, long, slim fingers). As enemies come from both the top and bottom of the screen, you can’t safely reside near the bottom, but must stay closer to the middle of the screen. For this reason I usually opted for the joypad controls.
iFighter takes place over 4 large and varied levels, sending you up against forces of opposing planes and ground structures. The maps are slightly larger than the screen, which is typical for top down shooters, meaning you can move to the left and right to shift the view over slightly. Defeating enemies occasionally rewards you with powerups which can add additional planes to help battle with you and upgrade your firing power so that you can fire multiple and/or more powerful blasts of fire on your foes. Each level features a massive boss at the end, which have several sections that must be taken down.
The graphics are sharp and well designed, from the planes to the beautiful backdrops. You’ll fly over the ocean, through a town area, along train tracks, and more. Enemy fire is large enough that it’s easily seen without being too jarring. The music is a nice collection of rocking tracks to accompany you on your mission.
iFighter certainly doesn’t do anything that we haven’t already seen, but what it does, it does well. The game is clearly an homage to shooters past, and will prove nostalgic to any and all old-school gamers who give it a whirl, while making the younger generation question why such an exciting form of gaming ever left the scene in the first place. Unfortunately its lack of any unique element is indicative of just why it did.
Pros
- Beautiful backdrops
- Solid and customizable controls
- Frantic and classic action
- 3 difficulty settings
Cons
- Only 4 levels
- Not even the new controls can hide the fact that it’s a standard shooter that’s been done many times before
Score: 8.5/10
Price: $0.99