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3G iPhone Downloads

Meteor Blitz

Alley labs, Games, Meteor Blitz, Reviews, Super Starshine HD, dual stick, isotope, shooter, space shooter
Developer: Alley Labs
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.45 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 4.45 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 4.45 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.61 out of 5 stars

Top down space shooters are all the rage for the iPhone, and with solid games such as Isotope, Nanofighter, and Anomaly, it seemed any more entries would be superfluous. That notion was obliterated with the arrival of Meteor Blitz, and with its superb graphics, smooth controls, and challenging gameplay, Meteor Blitz stands at the head of the class as the best by far of its genre.

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At it’s core, Meteor Blitz is a dual stick shooter. You move around a completely open battlefield trying to save planets from malignant meteors falling from space. In addition, enemy ships will try to destroy you as well. When you destroy enemies, rings will appear that can be used to upgrade ship attributes such as weapons and speed. Unlike other App Store shooters, Meteor Blitz utilizes a variety of weapons. The standard lasers to equal damage against all meteors, but the flamethrower does higher damage against ice rocks, and the ice bullets can demolish lava meteors. Thus, you have to switch weapons constantly on some levels according to the situation. The coolest weapon in Meteor Blitz is the gravity gun. With the gravity gun, you can suck in a meteor or enemy ship, use it as a shield temporarily, then unleash it with some hefty blast damage. In the coolest move of the game, if you time it just right so that you move your ship just as you are sucking in the enemy, you can swing the object around, destroying other enemies. You can upgrade the range and effectiveness of the gravity gun. There is also the typical screen-clearing bomb, of which you have a limited arsenal. In addition to these weapons, there is also a speed boost, that when activated, makes you able to plow through objects. One element that really makes Meteor Blitz challenging is the enemy formations. Enemies will drop from space with little warning surrounding you and quickly closing in, and quick reflexes are necessary to escape. To help with the difficulty there are bonus powerups scattered throughout levels such as shield and slow-down. If I had one complaint about the gameplay of Meteor Blitz, it would be that overall, the game derives a little too much from Super Starshine HD without adding much new.

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Meteor Blitz has two gameplay modes: arcade and survival. In arcade, there are six worlds with five levels each. After blasting away for a while, a boss appears at the end of each level. Destroy the boss to get to the next level. If you unlock a world, you can start a new arcade game from the from the first level of that world without having to start anew from the easiest world. Survival is simply one infinitely long level. When you lose all your lives, you’re finished. Both modes have local and online scoreboards. Two features really show the level of detail the developer put in the game: the pause function and the auto-save feature. Instead of having to clumsily reach for a pause button, you can pause the game by simply letting go of the screen. This works fantastically and is very helpful. If for some reason you don’t like this feature, however, it can be turned off in the options. The auto-save function is the best I’ve seen in an iPhone game to date. If you quit the game in the middle of either arcade or survival time, the next time you boot the game up, you’ll almost instantly be placed in the exact level in the exact place in the exact situation you were in before you quit. No menus necessary, and no rough checkpoint approximations.

Meteor Blitz is controlled via two analog sticks; the one on the left is for moving and the one on the right is for shooting. These sticks are both amazingly sensitive and responsive, and the best for a game with this control scheme. You can deftly maneuver between two enemies with ease. Buttons around the right stick allow you to detonate bombs and switch weapons. Double tapping on the left stick activates a boost, and double tapping on the right stick uses the gravity gun, and you can choose to enable shaking for either of these, though I don’t know why you would.

The graphics in Meteor Blitz are stunning. The meteors look like meteors and the enemy ships look like enemy ships, but it is the backgrounds that are truly impressive. The backgrounds contain vibrant, crisp colors and impressive artwork. In addition, as you move through the level, the background rotates on the edges just a bit to give the cool illusion of traveling on a sphere. The techno soundtrack is great, and sound effects are above average. You can also play your own music.


Meteor Blitz is a smooth, beautiful shooter that zooms ahead of Isotope as the best space shooter on the App Store. For $1.99, there’s absolutely no reason to pass up this gem.

Iphone Media
3G iPhone Downloads!


Monday Morning App HQ

Aera, Against the Fire!, Alley Gator, Alley labs, Blog, Castle Warriors, Champion Archer, Chillingo, GameResort LLC, Ghost LLC, Licentia Software, MMAHQ, Meridian, Meteor Blitz, Robocalypse - Mobile Mayhem, Scarecrow, Steamroller studios, Super Shock Football, Underground, Unify, Vogster Entertainment LLC, aves, dungeon hunter, ezone.com, gameloft, gamevil, glu mobile, godzilab, hybrid: eternal whisper, iBlast Moki, iChromo, josh rosen, ngmoco, plus+, pocket monkey games

Random musings of the app store

App Alluvion

This week’s only news story also has the sign of the apocalypse and the apps of the week built in – handy, eh? Over a 24 hour period, 453 new games were released! What happened Apple, did someone finally wake up? This is a great disservice to developers, as it’s exceedingly hard for an app to get noticed when so many other good games are released on the same day. Sure, developers can set release dates, but if they do, their app is placed on the latest releases section in iTunes according to approval date not publication date, therefore burying it beneath the first page and limiting valuable exposure. Please fix this, Apple! Anyway, enough ranting, here are some of the most notable releases this week. We’ll try to have reviews for as many as we can in due time, but until then, here’s a quick rundown:

Hybrid: Eternal Whisper

Gamevil’s action-RPG follow-up to Zenonia certainly has great aesthetics and a nice online component, but for me so far, the story has been too intrusive and the gameplay mediocre. At $5.99, you may want to wait for our review.



HYBRID: Eternal Whisper
Category: Games / Adventure
Released: 2009-09-17
Price: $5.99

Unify

Zach Gage’s first iPhone game is a very stylish Tetris variant with OpenFeint integration. Instead of blocks falling from from the top, the fall into the middle from both the left and the right, where you have to manipulate them using multi-touch controls. Match four or more of the same color to clear blocks. The game starts out slow with only black and white, but quickly becomes challenging with the addition of more colors and faster scrolling. From my time with the game, I can say it’s one of the more fun puzzle games on the App Store.



Unify
Category: Games / Action
Released: 2009-09-17
Price: $0.99

Aera

This beautiful flight sim had our editor Chris in a frenzy before its release. From initial impressions, it seems the game delivers on the hype, but if you don’t want to shell out the $2.99 now, Chris will have a review up very soon.



Aera
Category: Games / Action
Released: 2009-09-18
Price: $2.99

Aves
Aves contains some truly magnificent animations and entrancing binaural audio, but with its simplistic gameplay, it plays more like a tech demo. Still, if you want to see some really cool technology, it’s worth the $.99 price of admission, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for Ghost LLC’s future projects.



Aves
Category: Games / Action
Released: 2009-09-18
Price: $0.99

Above and Beyond Air Combat

Young developer Josh Rosen’s followup to SciFly is a totally different beast. It’s still an arcade plane flying game, but it shines with OpenFeint integration, a huge level of customization, open-world gameplay, and shiny graphics. In any normal week, this would easily earn the app of the week award.



Above & Beyond Air Combat
Category: Games / Action
Released: 2009-09-18
Price: $2.99

Robocalypse – Mobile Mayhem

Robocalypse is a humorous and strong entry into the RTS genre, which is relatively weak on the App Store. Featuring a lengthy campaign and full online multiplayer, Robocalypse is a safe bet for RTS fans.



Robocalypse - Mobile Mayhem
Category: Games / Strategy
Released: 2009-09-15
Price: $4.99

Alley Gator

Alley Gator is Glu’s entry into the quick $.99 games category with accelerometer-based gameplay.



Alley Gator
Category: Games / Racing
Released: 2009-09-04
Price: $0.99

Champion Archer

From the guys who made Sparta comes a port of an addictive online flash game.



Champion Archer
Category: Games / Action
Released: 2009-09-18
Price: $0.99

Against the Fire!

Meridian’s followup to their smash hit Alive 4 Ever is a similar survival shooter but with theme of a fireman putting out water monsters.



Against the Fire!
Category: Games / Action
Released: 2009-09-18
Price: $0.99

Dungeon Hunter (pulled from the App Store)

Otherwise known as Gameloft’s Diablo clone, Dungeon Hunter was said to be very impressive, but was unfortunately pulled due to a bug in the game. The game should be available for download again soon.

Castle Warriors

Castle Warriors is another nice addition to the RTS genre on the App Store. The gameplay is similar to Galcon and the graphics are very nice overall.



Castle Warriors
Category: Games / Action
Released: 2009-09-17
Price: $0.99

Super Shock Football

After App Store giants Gameloft and EA turned out full football sims, you would expect Chillingo, publisher extraordinaire to follow up with one of their own, right? Instead, developer Steamroller studios has produced a light-hearted throw back to vintage vibrating football games that is ultimately more suited to the iPhone than either Madden or NFL 2010.



Super Shock Football
Category: Games / Arcade
Released: 2009-09-17
Price: $1.99

Underground

This Chillingo “shmup” is very stylish but adds little to the genre gameplay-wise.



Underground
Category: Games / Arcade
Released: 2009-09-15
Price: $3.99

Scarecrow

Scarecrow is Ezone’s take on Doodle Jump and also the latest 3rd party game to incorporate ngmoco’s plus+ network.



Scarecrow
Category: Games / Action
Released: 2009-09-18
Price: $0.99

Apps of the Week

iBlast Moki

iBlast Moki is the best puzzle game on the iPhone, period. This physics-based puzzle game contains challenging gameplay. The goal is to, using bombs and eventually other elements like balloons, get all of the mokis to the exit of the level. It sounds simple, but some of the levels are head-scratchingly devious. There is almost unlimited replay value with over 70 levels, Plus+ integration, and a full-featured level editor/sharer.



iBlast Moki
Our Rating: :: VIRTUALLY IMPECCABLE
Category: Games / Puzzle
Released: 2009-09-09
Price: $1.99

Meteor Blitz

By the same token, Meteor Blitz is the best top-down space shooter for the iPhone, surpassing even the famed Isotope. The dual-stick control scheme is incredibly fast and responsive, the graphics are simply stunning, and the gameplay is livened up by the inclusion of RPG elements and many different weapons. The game also features superlative pause and auto-save functions.



Meteor Blitz
Our Rating: :: WOW!
Category: Games / Arcade
Released: 2009-09-15
Price: $1.99

Wow, so many great games, and I’m sure I’m missing a few. Of course, I won’t expect any good game releases for the next month couple with reports of month-long approval times.

Iphone Media
3G iPhone Downloads!




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