Hands on with Modern Combat: Sandstorm on iPhone

The word 'stunning' comes to mind when playing Modern Combat: Sandstorm. Gameloft's jaw-dropping shooter will have you blinking in disbelief. No question about it, this is the most graphically impressive game to hit iPhone yet, and after going hands on we're confident it has gameplay to match.

Modern Combat: Sandstorm puts you in the boots of an American soldier fighting extremists in the deserts of the Middle East. After an introductory tutorial mission, we took to the sand-swept streets of a town to hunt for insurgents.

Foiling their deadly plot was a matter of disabling a network of communications towers using explosives. Getting to the towers meant eliminating enemy resistance, then setting the charges to blow the towers down.

Moving through the streets and dilapidated buildings, tangos appeared in small groups that we dispatched with well-aimed shots. Explosive barrels could also be fired upon to knock several enemies out in one instant. In one alley, we were able to sneak up behind an unsuspecting patrol and issue a kill using a context-sensitive melee attack.

The missions were noticeably linear, although it actually served to heighten the tension of combat rather than drain it. Tight corridors packed with terrorists made combat dangerous. Taking cover behind corners and aiming carefully is a must, otherwise you end up with blood on the sand.

Sandstorm wrestles with the same fundamental issue as any other first-person shooter: control. The amazingly detailed graphics are among the most polished of any iPhone game, yet it's the nitty-gritty elements of control that will determine if it's a whirlwind success.

Movement is mapped to a virtual analogue stick situated in the lower-left, while your view can be adjusted by sliding a finger anywhere on the right side of the screen. It's a scheme similar to that used in Terminator Salvation, the entire screen serving as a touch-pad from which you can orient the camera.

Forgoing dual analogue sticks prevents any problems with thumbs veering off the screen, yet it poses other challenges. The fluid movement afforded by discrete analogue sticks is traded in for ease of use. Sliding a finger across the screen to move the camera feels natural, though continuous movement isn't possible. Instead, any significant turn requires a quick succession of swipes.

Compensating for this slower turn rate, the game features aim assist that hones in on enemies whenever you position the firing reticle within a reasonable distance. The reticle snaps to the nearest enemy, though it doesn't appear to mitigate the level of difficulty.

Taps of the 'fire' key (appearing as a spark icon on the right half of the screen) lob bullets with an accuracy dependent on whether you're manually aiming down the iron sights or firing with aim assist, the latter being less accurate.

Between the two introductory missions played, we loaded up two different guns and a pair of grenades. The default semi-automatic rifle could be swapped out for a shotgun by double-tapping the weapon icon in the upper-right. A single tap reloads. Similarly, fragmentation and flash grenades were changed with a double-tap of the grenade icon, while a single tap chucks one at your target.

The system has no problem recognising single taps, yet it gets finicky with double-taps. A couple of accidental flash grenade detonations demonstrated the trouble with having so many control elements in close proximity on the screen.

We'd prefer to see some sort of generic weapon select button in the corner that can be touched to overlay a larger menu while the game pauses. An alternative would be to switch weapons by shaking your handset.

Beyond the single player campaign, Gameloft hasn't made an announcement regarding alternate modes of play. That isn't stopping us from hoping for multiplayer - local or online, we'll take either. We'll know later this month when the game arrives on the App Store, at which point we're keen to see some of the control quirks smoothed out.