Game review: Inkvaders - iPhone / iPod Touch

It’s no good a game looking awesome but playing badly. Conversely a great game can be spoiled by bad presentation.

In the case of Inkvaders, the scales are tipped in favour of style. This presents a few issues which prevent the game achieving greatness, at least for now – but it is still a good game in its current form.

The design of this side-scrolling alien shoot-em-up is sensational.

The concept of the art style is that someone is in a lecture when the Martians they have doodled come to life on their notebook. To defend the planet a superhero is needed, so Generic Marine (known as G).gets drawn and the battle begins.

This leads to a comic book, sketched sort of style prevalent throughout the game.

The cartoony graphics are vivid and vibrant, including our spaceman hero with brightly coloured blasts of his laser gun as he bobs along and the yellow aliens with their electricity-zapping hands.

There are some nice embellishments to the presentation, such as the pages of the notepad being pulled back between levels.

In tune with the great art style the game has a good, albeit slightly warped, sense of humour. The aliens make a good squelching noise as you shoot them into smithereens, while weapons and upgrades are purchased from vending machines of all things.

Inkvaders is a fun and fast-paced game.

You must guide G through 30 levels spread across three environments.

He is controlled via two arrows at the bottom of the screen to move him left or right. There is a jet pack to launch him into the air, and also a fire button.

He starts out with two weapons, the aforementioned laser gun and a pistol. The pistol is better but both are pretty rubbish. G can buy a rocket launcher later on, and upgrades can be purchased for all three weapon types creating an arsenal of 15 weapons.

The weapon upgrades as well as ammo, extra boost to replenish G’s jet pack and health packs are bought using cash. Cash is gained by collecting rocks and meteors in the air as well as by blasting enemies.

You can also find health, boost and ammo packs in crates along the route.

The aim on each level is to go from one end to the other, moving left to right.

Along the way Martians are beamed down from their spaceship to attack you if they get close enough. A zap from an alien depletes G’s health bar and when it runs out he loses one of his three lives.

The game runs very smoothly, save for a few laggy moments here and there.

Inkvaders undoubtedly has huge potential which isn’t quite fulfilled in this first release.

For instance, when this is described as side-scrolling it’s meant literally because all the game does is move sideways. There is no variation in terrain, no up or down, no slopes or ramps – the layout of all the levels is very linear and flat.

Aliens come at you from in front or behind – there is also no variation to how you are attacked. Though it’s entertaining splattering the Martians in the beginning, it gets monotonous doing it in the same way after a while. You can’t fly and fire at the same time, so there is no creativity in how you deal with the onslaught of enemies.

Other than the aforementioned pick-ups and vending machines, there are no objects to interact with or use.

There is no deviation from the walk-and-blast gameplay, other than the ‘rush’ phase which is activated when you touch a box marked with an R. This sees you come under attack from both sides by hordes of aliens who are easier than usual to blast away. Even rush mode offers only a slight change in pace rather than anything wildly different to deal with.

Though resource management is an intentional part of the game in terms of preserving ammo, jet boost and cash, it does get frustrating when you run out of one of these things, usually resulting in a quick death.

Outside of playing the main game there are some additional plus points aside from the pretty visuals.

For instance, there are easy, medium and hard difficulty settings to choose from and there is also an endurance mode to play which sends endless Martians coming your way with no chance to restore G's health.

These settings and modes add replay value and depth to the game, but unfortunately Inkvaders is let down by a poor scoring system. There are no high score charts, either local or global. Instead all you get is a page showing the number of Martians purged and what level you have reached. For me, this kind of scoring system just doesn’t suit a shoot-em-up.

Inkvaders isn’t flawed, it’s just there are areas for improvement.

To their credit, developer Games Faction and publisher Chillingo have announced a raft of enhancements coming in updates. These will include online leaderboards, boss battles, new weapons and being able to fight while using the jet pack.

Right now Inkvaders feels like a work in progress rather than the finished, fully round article. These planned improvements should take the game to the next level.

If you fancy offloading some pent-up frustration by blasting some deserving, and very squishy, targets then get your space suit on and prepare for the inkvasion.

Verdict: 7.5 out of 10 – A stylish shoot-em-up with high production values. The game is a blast in more ways than one. Improvements are coming which should make it even better.