Dam Buster is a game about busting dams. You get to pilot a British bomber trying to avoid incoming fire while collecting fuel to gain speed. Enemy fighters are also trying to ram you, and they will sadly succeed time after time. The scene is too zoomed in meaning you have very little room and time to manoeuvre. You control your aircraft by tilting, and it is quite responsive but to little avail. If you manage to pick up any fuel it is more luck than skill or at the cost of losing just as much speed by being hit by enemies on the way to the fuel. Once you reach a certain point or your speed is too low you enter bombing mode.
To bomb you have to rotate the bomb by touch, and aim it at a good angle to reach the enemy dam. The circular bomb then bounces on the water, and if you hit a duck you gain altitude. If you reach the dam your bomb will do damage to it according to the speed and height it has. You can also miss the dam completely by shooting above it. If the dam survives you need to take another shot at it. If it is destroyed you get to progress to the next level. If you fail to destroy it within your three attempts it is game over, and time to chalk your name on the high score board next to Ace, Raf and Cap.
The patriotic music, and graphical details such as movie reel effects when starting a level are good. The graphics as a whole is above average, it has it’s own cartoon take on the war. Other than that this is a game lacking a lot of content. I don’t find any part of it particularly good. The flying portion is too much about luck than avoiding stuff ninja style. Thanks to comments by Spiny Norman, revolver.1 and Brian Rubin I now know that water bouncing bombs were used for real during the war. It was codenamed Upkeep, and actually worked quite well. In Dam Buster it is sadly a dull experience watching the bomb fly towards the dam.
Hitting a German duck gives your ball of TNT extra power.
Only local score boards, and nothing to unlock makes for a short life span. I think this is a missed opportunity, and after trying the lite version of iBomber from developer Cobra Mobile I know they can do much better than Dam Buster. To me this is a game to skip unless you are really patriotic, and dream of bombing German ducks. Get Hotdog Down A Hallway(review here) if you want a fun casual game in the same vein but without the awkward flying.
Final Rating
