Hands on with Battle Blasters on iPhone
Discs of Tron without the discs. Or Tron
Okay, maybe on reflection that strapline isn't quite as descriptive as intended, but this unique new shooter does pretty much fit the profile of the classic Atari game based on the Tron film.
Not that Battle Blasters hasn't got its own style and plot, of course. It's very much its own sci-fi entity and has managed to carve a very unique niche into the both the shmup and the one-on-one tournament fighter genres.
Shooter or fighter?Battle Blasters doesn't really need to make the distinction between shooter or fighter. It's both, for all that it matters, and it pits you against a similar laser gun-wielding opponent as you face off in a high-powered duel.
Your character moves horizontally along the bottom edge of the portrait orientated screen, while the opponent moves along the top. This doesn't allow you a huge freedom of movement, which is quite deliberate to keep the action hot as you unload plasma and fire bolts at each other from across the screen.
So in many respects it plays a little like a scrolling shooter, though the one-on-one battle more closely resembles a fighting game. Either way, Battle Blasters should appeal to fans of either genre and provide enough crossover to bring in the arcade gamers, too.
Let your fingers do the fightingTo bolster this unique angle on the usual gameplay styles, Battle Blasters throws in some equally stylised controls.
Avoiding the irksome virtual joystick system, the game is controlled entirely by gestures. Sliding along the bottom of the screen moves your fighter left and right, while a slow, short upward stroke sends off a power shot.
This is a slow, easy to avoid attack that delivers a lot more force if it hits, compared to a long fast swipe that throws a fast moving, less powerful laser blast across the screen.
The direction of the swipes handles your aiming, and combined with the facility to both block and deflect incoming attacks the combat in Battle Blasters is fast, intense, yet very accessible.
With Facebook Connect and a multiplayer function this unusual shooter should easily carve itself a hardcore audience while providing a bit of gratuitously explosive relief for iPhoners looking for something new to blow up.
