Annihilation Arena

Annihilation Arena’s objective is simple: stay alive within a moderately roomy cage for as long as possible.

The game parallels shoot-'em-ups Geometry Wars and iDracula in its non-stop top-down action. It's how you survive and the tools you're given to do it into a with that makes a good shooting game into a great shooting game, though, and Annihilation Arena doesn't seem to be fully aware of this principle.

The eponymous arena is nothing fancy - simply a predefined, rectangular area in which you fly around looking things to shoot. Equally basic controls make it easy to jump right in. An analogue thumb pad on the left controls your movement, while an identical analogue pad on the right determines the direction in which you shoot.

It's an intuitive system and works as well in Annihilation Arena as it has in any other game, allowing you freedom of movement independent from the vital targeting system.

As you coast around the arena, a variety of different types of enemies spawn at random and rush headlong at your ship. While this makes for some heated action, it also means you’re always playing defense. While it creates intensity, the game would benefit from offensive objectives as a break from constantly running away from an endless stream of mindless goons.

It's one thing to be able to shoot in all directions, but most of your time is spent shooting behind you. Picking up power-ups - smart bombs, health packs, energy pick-ups, and various weapons - is the closest thing to an objective and nabbing them means guiding throngs of drones away from the collectibles so you can swing around and grab them.

When it works, there's some satisfaction in this run-around strategy, but it can be just as much of a chore as a battle tactic. Once you figure it out, it doesn’t add much drama to the game.

It’s in the visuals that Annihilation Arena shines. Beautiful, realistic-looking backdrops set the scene while imaginative, aggressive machines hunt you down. The framerate is top notch and the game never seems to struggle when the large number of enemies swarm on your ship.

Strip away the gloss, though, and you’re left with something fairly shallow, which isn’t quite up to the task. There's nothing fundamentally new or intriguing to be found here, but if you enjoyed any similar game then you’ll glean just as much amusement from Annihilation Arena as you did from them.

On the purely superficial level upon which the game has been built (and that’s certainly not a crime) Annihilation Arena is a moderately entertaining, great-looking shooter, even if it's short-lived.