Game: Rogue Planet
Price: £2.99/$4.99
Size: 82.3MB
Buy it now from the iTunes StoreUS/UK
Let's face facts: iPhone gaming is at its best when you're not depending upon imaginary control sticks and buttons being drawn onto the screen. And if Rogue Planet is any indication, iPhone is at its very, very best when it's being used to play a gridded, turn-based strategy game in the vein of Advance Wars, but with a sci-fi art style cribbed from Mass Effect and a plot that borrows a bitfrom Battlestar Galactica and Terminator. That enough hardcore gamer references for ya?
Rogue Planet begins with your ship more or less crash-landing on a desolate planet where civilization has been overrun byevil machines intent upon wiping out carbon-based life. Being human, this doesn't fit with your plans to keep breathing so your rag-tag group of space soldiers sucks it up and sets about reclaiming the world using your own soldiers, tanks, and other assorted vehicles with guns strapped to them.
Gameplay itself is tight and strategic, thanks to commander-specific special moves and a few clever map designs - one mission with multiple choke points and enough resources for both sides to keep cranking out units took us forever to beat. Our only real complaint is that it's sometimes tough to tap the exact square you want thanks to the complexity of the onscreen details. Small price to pay for the liberation of humanity, we say.
Jul 29, 2010
