Game Reviews

Triple Shot Sports

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Triple Shot Sports
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| Triple Shot Sports

Hollywood's love affair with bullet time is infectious. Homages to the Wachowski Brothers' trademark have popped up in as many action games as there are minutes of slow-motion footage in entire Matrix trilogy.

More than just a stylish effect, bullet time helps add a sense of precision to what can sometimes be sloppy shooters, hampered by dodgy analogue sticks and buttons. Thanks to the touchscreen, however, better controls are literally at hand.

Touch to let the bullets fly in Triple Shot Sports, a compilation of three events: Archery, Running Target, and Rapid Fire Pistol. All three are nothing more than a case of holding down your finger on your target and then letting go when you wish to fire. It's a control method that becomes second nature, enabling you to enter a zen-like state.

The mechanics remain consistent across each event, all of which are available from the outset. Competition breaks down into Quick Play and Championship modes, where the former lets you get in for a quick trigger-pulling session.

Championship mode is a meaty affair where points earned in each sport contribute to your cumulative score. You take on seven professionals from around the globe in a bid to win a medal, Olympics style.

Archery is the simplest of the sports on offer. Holding your finger down on the screen and gently moving it aims the bow's blank at the target. Lifting your finger fires the arrow off. This isn't merely a case of lining up with the bull's eye, however. Success relies on you taking into account the direction and strength of the wind.

Wind isn't a factor in Running Target, which flashes a moving target board across the screen twenty times, quickening in the last ten runs. With just one shot per run, your aim is to beat your opponents' score with the leaderboard refreshed at the end of each of the two rounds.

Of all the sports, Rapid Fire Pistol probably offers the sternest test. The stringent rules have you firing at five targets in a row in one bounce. There's a clock to contend with (a generous twelve seconds in the first four rounds, rounding down to a tight eight in the final four) and protocol: no lifting your gun before the targets have turned to face you. Overrun the clock and you're disqualified.

It's an example of how playing Triple Shot Sports requires rigour from beginning to end. Though its possible to win gold medals in all three competitions at advanced level just an hour or so after your first play, there's always the knowledge that, on any setting, one missed shot or botched round can drop you from first to eighth.

There's a real weight to that tension, too, with the game featuring the best crowd noise you'll have ever heard on a handset, as well as five different international arenas giving the game the kind of authenticity so rarely attempted on the App Store.

You'd be hard pushed to call this a simulation or slap an official license on it, but Triple Shot Sports goes some way to proving that even the simplest of games can convey the passion and drive behind some of the tensest sports.

Triple Shot Sports

Triple Shot Sports offers a dedicated and atmospheric glimpse at the world of shooting, bringing an Olympic feel to what is quite a simple task
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Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.