We get hands-on with Tue Axis and Pom Pom’s hardcore shooter, before it’s release later this month.
As we mentioned in the Touchdown a few weeks ago, the game is nearing release. This weekend we finally got our grubby paws on the game to put it through it’s paces before our review.
Space Tripper is a balls-to-the-wall shooter, in which you control a spaceship around various arenas, taking out a plethora of enemy invaders.
It’s an incredibly challenging game, no doubt inspired by those ruthless shooters of yesteryear (like R-Type), intent on swallowing up your heard earned coins.
Unlike R-type and similar games, the levels do not spread across a continuously scrolling backdrop. Instead, you are place in a hi-tech arena and can only face one of two ways (left or right). Your ship auto-fires one of two weapons, a single forward facing laser, and a spread-shot laser that is less powerful but has a better attack range.
Moving your ship around the arena is done by tilting your device, while tapping the left or right sides of the screen will alternate your weapon or change your ship’s direction respectively.
The main campaign mode is made up of four worlds, with each level requiring you to defeat a set amount of enemies before the time runs out. At the end of each world you’ll have to defeat the boss, before unlocking the next.
While the game is top down, it is fully three dimensional. As well as the scenery protruding upwards, you can also move your ship up and down ramps to higher and lower parts of a level. Occasionally you can use this to your advantage to escape enemies, but for the majority of the time the levels design serves only one purpose, to make your life even more difficult.
Despite it’s difficultly, Space Tripper is so far delivering on a classic shooter experience that seems to be dying out on the Appstore. You’ll find no sign of in app purchases, or ways to fast track your progress. Instead, it’s the simple concept of kill or be killed.
We’ll have to tame this tricky beast before we can offer up our final thoughts, so while you wait for our review, be sure check out this video below.
