Shoot the Fokkers

World War I is best known for its muddy trenches, the dawn of automatic weaponry, and the bloody battle of The Somme.

But it was also the first time that aeroplanes had been used extensively in combat situations, and so anti-aircraft weaponry became a must.

This is where Shoot the Fokkers comes in, placing you in the shoes of a gunnery soldier tasked with taking down the Luftwaffe.

To help create a more realistic experience, Gaia Technologies has made use of your mobile device's gyroscope. The screen is uncluttered, and the gameworld feels all-encompassing.

But, unfortunately, aiming never feels good, for the same reason that almost no gyroscope-based game feels good to play: it's far too twitchy.

Not only do you need a steady hand, but you can't be sitting in any other position than bolt upright with your device held out in front of you. If you're hunched over on a chair you'll be aiming at a patch of ground.

It's also incredibly irritating that you need to turn around and lift your device up to take out the vast majority of planes.

What starts as a neat gimmick quickly becomes a huge irritation, dramatically restricting the contexts in which you can play to places in which you can freely swivel. This is not a game you can play on the bus.

Control issues aside, this is a visually stunning game. Environments may be bland and daft (who puts a gun turret in the middle of a field of barbed wire?), but enemy biplanes and even your anti-aircraft guns look glorious on big and small screens alike.

It certainly helps that Shoot the Fokkers has a very simple and addictive premise to it, even if there isn't a wide variety of modes on offer to keep you coming back for more.

That said, you can work your way towards earning enough credits to start upgrading your gun turret to help mix things up a little.

But these upgrades are expensive, and acquiring them involves putting a lot of time into the game. Given the twitchy controls, and the relatively small number of contexts in which you might conceivably play the game, we suspect you'll be disinclined to do this.