Alien Invasion

Michael (Admin) | Sep 3, 2008 Games

User rating:

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

Loading ...

Are you a total bonehead who can’t figure out any of the 5 million puzzle games available in the iTunes App Store? You just wanna sit around and shoot crap without having to decipher a damn riddle, right?

Alien Invasion was made just for you.

Flying saucers crowd your screen and all you have to do is wipe them from existence with a tap of your finger, but some of those bastards have hostages so you can’t blast them! If you do, the public gets all pissy and your popularity level takes a dive. When your popularity meter runs out it’s Game Over, Man.

PHD Gaming has done a pretty nice job on this arcade-style shooter. It lacks the gloss of some of those games churned out by the bigger development companies, but it has power-ups, achievement “awards”, chain bonuses, and even the sound is very arcade-like. The in-game graphics are pretty nice, too.

Like most games there are plenty of areas that could use improvement, but the only ones I really think are needed are (a) a better scoreboard, and (b) the ability to continue playing after an interruption.

The scoreboard only keeps track of your highest score, and you can’t put in your name or initials. Being able to compete with friends who steal your iPhone from time to time would be great, and so would a global scoreboard. Even if the global scores are web-based, it would be pretty sweet to be able to compare your score against others.

And here’s your hot tip for the day: if you’re kicking ass at Alien Invasion and you get a phone call, decline it! No matter who it is, hit that red decline button because otherwise you’ll lose your progress. Same goes for replying to text messages.

Overall I have to give this app a thumbs up. Despite a couple of minor shortcomings, Alien Invasion is a good game that’s worth the $.99 price tag.