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Dual-stick space shooters are fairly popular within the AppStore. It seems like every time I turn around, there’s another DSSS available. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, because since Meteor Blitz, one of the very first games I ever bought in the AppStore, I’ve been hooked on them. Lei Cao’s War on Geometry is the most recent title at the moment, but it’s not exactly what you would expect from a game that’s set-up like a dual-stick shooter. There are no joysticks.

The controls are set up so you’ll need to place your finger over your ship, and drag it all around the screen while using another finger to tap and hold where you want to shoot. It plays as frustrating as it sounds, leaving you to try and keep your hands and fingers out of your field of vision as much as possible while moving your ship all around the screen, and firing, usually banging your fingers together and wrapping them around one another quite a bit. That’s not to say that this is a bad game, because it’s not, and I’m sure that the controls are a lot easier to use on an iPad, with the HD build, but on a small screen, the controls do pose a very big issue. Especially once you find out how the game starts.

But if you can make it out of this first wave of enemies, the game starts to open up, but it’ll take a while to get use to the controls, because each following wave follows the same pattern. Enemies moving to the center of the screen from all sides of your device. But you’ll generally be able to face them with more firepower, as while you’re maneuvering out of the way of the first wave, or usually almost right after that, two optional power-ups appear on the screen, one a laser, and another a slightly powered up version of your original weapon.

There are no GameCenter leaderboards or achievements, but there is an in-game world leaderboard, which you are able to submit your highest score to, which means no hacked scores, but also no competing with GC friends, or replaying for achievements. For $0.99 (also $0.99 for the HD build), it’s not bad by any means, especially if you’re looking for a game with a real challenge, but hopefully in a future update, some joysticks will be added, making the game less frustrating for the majority of players out there. It would also be nice to see some added modes, as there are tons of dual-stick shooters available in the AppStore that almost all have loads of gameplay modes, and provide a more entertaining gaming experience for the same price, or even less (yes, that’s right, free – think PewPew).

Shoot-em-ups have become a fairly popular genre within the iOS gaming crowd. Thankfully, the 3rd person rail-shooter genre hasn’t been left out of this revolution. Games like Dark Break, Denizen, ExZeus, TheMars and the more open ended Battle 3D: Robots Sky have given iOS gamers endless hours of Space Harrier type 3rd person rail-shooting excitement, though sadly, it’s far from the amount of shmups that can be found within the AppStore. Hopefully with the growing hardware, more and more 3rd person rail shooters will be developed. Until then, we can add Wizard Ops to this small list of games, developed by Phyken, you’ll guide a Wizard through 6 levels of hectic action, as well as have an endless survival level to try and play through.

Granted, 6 levels does seem short, but the replay value is fairly high, and there’s apparently more levels coming in the future, and at the current price-point, it’s hard to get upset when the 6 levels can be played over and over again to earn more coins which let you unlock any of the 18 total weapons that you can mix and match, equipping 2 at a time, along with the endless survival level offering up hours upon hours of gameplay.

Now, I’ve already said that there’s 18 weapons, but getting into them while talking about the controls is probably a good idea, because there’s quite a few of them that auto-target, but in a nice way. You won’t be able to just stand there and let these auto-target weapons go to town on all the enemies, instead, you’ll need to scroll over the enemy with your aim, in order to enable auto-targeting. Other than that, almost all of your weapons will shoot straight in-front of where your character is. There are a couple that toss out bombs, or have a spread shot, but basically, you’ll be shooting right in front of your character, and with the 3D onslaught of bullets coming your way, actually getting enough shots off to kill the enemies can sometimes be a challenge, especially in survival mode, where the difficulty ramps up fairly quickly. There will be some gamers out there who feel that the 6 regular levels are fairly easy, especially those of you who are in to bullet hell gaming, but not to worry, the survival mode has the difficulty to keep you hooked for quite some time.

There are pick-ups in the game, with each enemy dropping a bronze, silver, or gold coin, health drops, and even some guns are dropped in-game. If you already have the gun, however, it will automatically be sold, usually for about 300 coins. A major difference with the survival mode is that there are no health drops. So along with even more hectic bullet play, and an increasing difficulty, you won’t be able to regain health, adding even more of a challenge to the endless play.

For those of you who are worried about IAPs, and are wondering if this game’s shop is pushed towards them, you can take a deep breath, and rest easy. There’s NONE. That’s right, an out-right FULL game for $0.99. Better yet? It’s Universal! And aside from the short regular campaign time, having only 6 levels, it’s hard to even bring that up as an issue since they’re all replayable, there’s an endless survival level, and there’s more levels to come. If you’re a fan of 3rd person rail shooters, or even if you aren’t big on them, but love action filled arcade-based games, Wizard Ops is definitely a title that deserves some attention. I, for one, am really hoping that it sells well so that not only can we get the planned more content, but also see more from developer Phyken. The game looks great, plays great, has tons of action, and essentially endless replayabilty, all without any added IAPs, what’s not to like?

Anti-gravity platformer games are really un-explored territory when it comes to iOS games. Actually, I can’t really think of one title that has taken complete advantage of gravity mechanics. Until now. Inertia: Escape Velocity, developed by Red Fly Studio, could very well be the first iOS platformer game to seriously manipulate gravity, using the mechanics as the core of the game, and they pull it off perfectly. I guess it should be brought up that Red Fly Studio has built Inertia: Escape Velocity expanding on award-winning gameplay that won Best Non-Professional Game, Achievement in Gameplay, Technical Achievement, and Gamers’ Choice Awards at DICE’s Indie Game Challenge this year (2011).

You’ll guide a robot who has crash landed on a distant planet through 35 levels, collecting items that you can use to put your ship back together. The fun part? You can manipulate gravity, and use a ton of interesting objects to get you through hazards and around difficult corners of the levels.

Now to the core of the game; physics and controls. Control-wise, you’re given the standard platformer layout of left and right buttons, along with a jump and secondary use button. This secondary use button brings us to the physics, and is your inertia button. Pushing it creates a small gravity field around your character, allowing him to use his momentum to keep moving in whatever direction he’s going until you let go of the inertia button, or he hits an object, sending him in another direction depending on what way the object is facing. If you can’t already imagine, a development team that uses these controls and core mechanics to their full advantage would be able to come up with some extremely interesting situations for gamers to play through, and Red Fly Studio just so happens to be a development team that has done this. Throughout the levels, you’ll be able to interact with walls that slow you down, speed you up, or make you stick to them, while using the inertia button. There’s also gravity fields that push or pull you towards them, fan-like objects that throw you in the direction they’re facing, walls that you’ll need to be going a certain speed to break through, areas that look like moving particles that are generally used on the floors and ceilings, pushing you up and down, angled platforms, and electric fields that you’ll need to avoid all mixed in with these interactive objects.

Inertia: Escape Velocity is, to say the least, a huge game. The 35 levels all have 3 badges for you to earn, one for completion, one for picking up all of the bolts in the level, and another for finishing the level in a certain amount of time. Getting each one of these will require multiple playthroughs. Once you beat all 35 of the original stages, if you want more, you can purchase another 24 levels, each called the Inferno levels, which are the original levels, but set up like challenge levels, with increased difficulty, and different objects to use, more hazards, and a certain amount of big red bolts to collect so that you can open up the Mastery Levels, which are 5 of the hardest levels in the game, each also having the 3 badges to try and snag, all for $0.99. The original game is $1.99, so for all of the levels it’ll be $2.99. But if you decide not to buy the extra levels, the original 35+ levels will give you quite a bit of gameplay, taking about 4 hours to complete, not counting all the hours you can sink into them going back trying to grab all of the items and beating the level times. For the price, Inertia: Escape Velocity is an amazing game, and a definite must buy. It’s very quickly moved up to the #4 spot on my top 5 games of the year, making it incredibly easy to recommend to any and all platform and puzzle lovers.

Full on destruction games are kind of a niche genre within the AppStore, there’s really only a couple of titles that I can think of using destruction as a core mechanic, Destructopus, Robot Rampage, and to a lesser extent, Blast Zone Mega, and Burn The City, which is really more in the line of an Angry Birds type physics puzzler, but you get the idea. It’s not a genre that’s been well expanded on. Andrew Wang, and Ayopa Games (W.E.L.D.E.R., Chicken Rescue) are giving us one more title to add to that very short list. Inspired by the classic arcade game, Rampage, and taking influences from The Simpsons and Futurama, as well as trying to incorporate the customization of Mechwarrior, BigBot Smash is now available for our iDevices, and fingertips that are hungry for destruction.

To start it off, the controls in BigBot Smash will take quite a bit of getting use to, but once you do, even more problems show their face. There are two different control schemes included in the game. The first control method uses the iDevice’s accelerometer, tilting to turn the world that you’ll be destroying. This can be extremely difficult to use, as you’ll need to turn your device completely around to turn your robot around, and tilt it in pretty uncomfortable ways to turn. Tapping on the screen controls your robots projectiles, and tapping on the robot will make it jump. If you tap on a building that is close to the robot, it will smash it with it’s fists. Here’s where it gets even more difficult. If the building is just a little bit too far away, you’ll shoot at it instead of smashing it, which takes up quite a bit of time, which can be pretty frustrating in the Speedrun Mode, but outside of the Speedrun Mode, it’s just bothersome. Tapping on your robot also does not always make it jump, sometimes it will jump, and other times it will destroy the building right in front of it. There are touch controls as well, which have the same sort of issues as the tilt controls, except you won’t be tilting your device in uncomfortable ways, instead, you’ll be dragging your finger on the screen to change the robot’s direction. However, this also has it’s own issues, as more than half of the time, dragging your finger across the screen is registered as a tap, and will result in the robot shooting it’s projectiles. It’s not so bad that you won’t be able to play the game, but once you hit stage 4 in the campaign mode, and the game gets a little more hectic, you’ll be constantly wanting to turn the game off out of frustration. The same goes for the speed demolition and survival challenge modes, once the game reaches that point where the action picks up, the controls become a real issue.

If you can look past these, especially the control issues, which could be fixed in an update, BigBot Smash does have quite a bit of fun gameplay at it’s core. Using three different robots, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, you’ll smash buildings, blow up buses, police cars, squish people by walking on them or jumping onto them, and shoot them with your lasers, which will give you a nice little laugh when the sound effects for this go off, and you can hear the people scream when they die. In the campaign mode, you’ll need to destroy buildings, looking for pieces of your robot girlfriend. Within most of the buildings are parts that you can use to upgrade parts on your robot, along with some power-ups, and recharging items. In the speed demolition, you’ll need to destroy a set amount of buildings before the clock runs out, and in survival mode, you guessed it, you stay alive as long as you can. Both of these extra modes will have you collecting bits and pieces to upgrade your robots as well, but are not saved or transferred over to the campaign robot, so you’ll start from scratch every time you start to play in these modes.

For $0.99, it’s not a bad game by any means. The controls can be worked with, and might actually just have so many issues if you’re playing on a small screen. Gameplay videos on the iPad show the game in a completely different light, and since the game is Universal, you won’t need to buy an HD version to find out. There are GameCenter leader boards, though only for Survival and Speed modes, but do have 48 achievements to try and grab. There is quite a bit of replay value, and the core gameplay looks like it could be great fun. But until an update hits with some tighter controls, it’s hard to really give the game a fair play on my small screen, but I’m excited about having the opportunity to.

Shoot-em-ups have expanded quite a bit since Cave hit the iOS scene in April of 2010. However, very few games have done what Cave’s releases have done for the scene, so it’s nice to see a developer realize this, and take the genre in completely different direction. DarkWave Game’s new title, Act of Fury: Kraine’s Revenge, is a different kind of shmup for fans of the genre. A game in which, instead of shooting your enemies down, you get as close to them as you can, disabling their systems, and taking them down with a tornado like force that surrounds you.

To start things off, the graphics in Act of Fury are great. I have run into some slight jumping around of the screen when the levels start to scroll left or right, or zoom in and out, like when an air-strike comes in, however it’s nothing game-breaking, but is noticeable, and should be brought up. Aside from this, the variety with enemies is nice, the 4 different environments look great, and the animations are fantastic. The music and sounds go along nicely in passing on the feel of the world in Act of Fury as well.

Each of the 9 stages offers 3 star ranks which are based solely on your score. Not at all on how many times you get hit, or how many lives you loose, which is fairly different from every other shoot-em-up game out there. You’re then able to use the stars that you earn to ’buy’ upgrades and power-ups in the shop. There are some more powerful upgrades that you can only use in Hell Mode, which helps drive players to play the Harder Difficulty after beating the Normal Mode. You are able to change how you allocate your stars for power-ups before each stage, so experimentation does come into play, which is a great addition to the core gameplay. I should mention that ,right now, there seems to be a problem with a couple of the stage’s rankings, but is being worked on by the developers and gamers, and a fix for the one or two levels with un-balanced score/star rankings should be available fairly soon.

Act of Fury is a very interesting addition to the shmup genre. It does a fantastic job of mixing the Spirit/Bit Pilot/Silverfish type mechanics with shmup influenced gameplay, and presenting it all in an extremely polished and well rounded package. There are GameCenter and OpenFeint leader boards for each of the 9 stages in both Normal and Hell Modes, as well as a total score leader board for both Modes, along with 32 achievements, all adding immensely to the replay value, which, once you get into the Hell Mode levels, is already fairly high. With the price being $2, it’s definitely a game that’s worth every penny, and then some, especially if you’re a fan of the shoot-em-up genre. Act of Fury also runs on 2nd GEN devices, which, with this genre, is fantastic news.

Act of Fury: Kraine’s Revenge gets a score of 4 out of 5.

With enough titles being released in the AppStore, a lot of them start to play similar to one another, and it’s not too often you’ll come across a game with some interesting mechanics. Lucky for us, there are developers out there that see and recognize this, and don’t want to just make a game that’s like other games, but a game that brings something, not necessarily new to the table, but something that‘s not done often, and can actually pull it off, fitting it into their game flawlessly. P@ssword Studios first release into the iOS scene just so happens to be one of these titles. Unknown Defender, a base defense arcade shooter in which you’ll need to mix up different types of energy to make new types of projectiles, also researching your opponents, and finding out what types of energies they are resilient, and which they are weak against.

The controls in Unknown Defender are pretty simple. You’ll drag your finger across the screen to control which direction you want your gun to point, and then tap on the different energies you have unlocked at the bottom of the screen to fire. Each different type of energy has a certain amount of shots in storage, so you’ll need to be careful when deciding what to shoot at the enemies. After the 5th Stage, you’re able to mix the energies you have unlocked, and can create much more powerful shots. To use these, you’ll need to make sure you have enough of the energies stored up, and then tap on your cannon, which will bring up a menu, brining the game almost to a stand-still, then deciding which mixture of energies you want to fire at the enemies heading towards the bottom of the screen. Once enemies make it to the bottom of the screen, they’ll start attacking your base. There are some enemies that will start attacking with projectiles of their own once they’re about halfway down the screen, which makes for some added strategy in deciding which enemies are a higher priority.

After you get more accustomed to the game, there’s two more modes alongside the Normal Mode. Rush Mode, which offers weaker enemies, but more of them, and an Extra Mode, which is pretty much a Hardcore Only mode, offering the hardest challenge. Both the Extra and Rush Modes offer the same type of upgrades, and Stage 5 Mixing Energy options that the Normal Mode offers, but with different types of strategies involved. There are only a certain number of Stages in each Mode. Normal Mode has 25, while Rush Mode has 30, and Extra has 15.

For $0.99, it’s an excellent take on the base defense arcade shooter, offering multiple types of gameplay, and strategy, along with loads of experimentation with upgrades and energy mixing. There is no GameCenter or OpenFeint support, which does take a bit away from the replay value, as well as the drive to get the best score you can. It can also feel like your finger that’s controlling the direction of your gun gets in the way quite a bit, though, with the current set-up, and gameplay. But it’s fair to say that P@ssword has given gamers quite a bit of gameplay, with pretty interesting mechanics that are definitely worth checking out if you’re tired of the same games being basically re-skinned and sold within the AppStore. Here’s hoping they stick around, and release, at least, a couple more games for the iOS in the future.

Unknown Defender gets a score of 7 out of 10.

We’ve all experienced the thrill of endless games on the App Store.  Looking way back at games like Cube Runner, it’s easy to see that we have come a long way. Xperimentalz Games’ newest creation, Don’t Run With A Plasma Sword, boasts some unique features for an endless runner.
The first thing you will notice when you load up DRWPS is its awesome, retro style.  Artwork is very crisp, and the story of the game is told in a “comic-book” fashion.  There is a good sense of humor as well with some funny lines on loading screens.  In terms of music, the soundtrack and the sound effects are a perfect mix of a spooky superhero theme and retro.  The upbeat tunes match perfectly with the genre and create an addicting experience.
One of the most important aspects of platformer style games is the controls. After playing for a while, it’s apparent that Xperimentalz put some good thought into it because they nailed the controls. The left side of the screen is reserved for jumping (top half of screen) and sliding (bottom half), while the right side is reserved for attacks. This layout is perfectly comfortable for me and hasn’t cost me any deaths. (that’s a GOOD thing)

Moving deeper into the game, there are a total of 28 story levels spread across 4 chapters. Levels are randomly generated, meaning enemies, platforms, obstacles and power-ups are different each time. Your goal in each level is to run a certain distance while jumping, stabbing, and sliding your way through anything that gets in your way.  Each chapter features its own boss battle which proved to be pretty challenging. Bosses ranged from giant UFOs to evil robot-stilt-wearing mastermind. Basically, to beat a boss you have to dodge all of his attacks and wait until you have an opening to attack. It sounds simple but timing and reactions are crucial to these levels especially.  There is also an endless level to go along with each of the 4 chapters. These are randomly generated like the story levels, but your goal is to run as far as you can.

Character Upgrades Rock!

DRWPS sports a slick RPG-upgrade system as well. Character upgrades like additional attacks, extra health, and double jumping are available, as well as cosmetic stuff like different colored swords or clothes. There are some IAPs included, but I can’t stress enough that they are completely optional. Don’t shy away when you hear “IAP”. They are simple point packages that speed up the upgrade process. Honestly, if you play the game enough to enjoy it, then there won’t be any need to buy extra points.
To add to the replay value, Xperimentalz has integrated GameCenter and Openfeint Leaderboards and Achievements. There are leaderboards for every level along with a total of 36 achievements.
Xperimentalz Games has created what I believe is a unique breed of endless running game. How often do you get to play a game that isn’t called “Star Wars” where you run around with a light saber? I can assure you that Don’t Run With a Plasma Sword will be worth every penny that it costs. Grab your sword and save the world! Don’t Run With A Plasma Sword will be launching on November 30th for $0.99.

Platformers are anything but a rarity in the AppStore these days. About a year ago, that was not the case. Fans of the genre have been flooded with platform after platform game, and couldn’t be more happy with most of them, even though the very unique and original plat former is still kind of hard to find. Luckily, there are still developers out there with quite a bit of imagination and skill. Grass Fed Games is new the AppStore, but their first iOS title, Run, Jump, Kill, is one that platform fans should definitely check out.

You’ll play as the king of a kingdom that has been ravaged while your brother, Lord Locke, was put in charge for your vacation. Your loyal subjects are no-where to be found, there’s hordes of crazy monsters running around, and your trusted friend Follo is the only one who can help guide you to your brother so you can find out what all has happened. It’s a hack-n-slash platformer fest that’s incredibly enjoyable. While it lasts.

The levels, while designed fairly well, are lacking. There are springs, but they’re really linear, which is a shame, because hidden areas, and some exploration would fit within the game so perfectly, it would be borderline magical. But while you’re playing, you will be constantly wanting to know what’s coming next, what the next boss will look like, and what you’ll have to do to kill him, Run, Jump, Kill is a very hard game to put down.

For $0.99, Run, Jump, Kill is a decent hack-n-slash platform game that while it doesn’t give you loads of content, it is very satisfying to play. It would do well to add GameCenter support, with a leaderboard and achievements, to help with the drive, and add some replay value to the game though. But what makes the entire game even more impressive is that it’s all made with GameSalad. Usually, I’m the first one to turn my head right when that word is uttered, but with Run, Jump, Kill, I wasn’t really completely sure that it was made with GameSalad until I asked the developer. There is the typical GameCenter loading circle in the corner, but aside from that, this is unlike any other GS game I’ve ever played. Nice physics, great controls that are responsive and work very well, no lag or framerate issues, incredible graphics, and the game is just a blast. Hopefully we’ll see more added to the game with future updates, but I, for one, will be watching Grass Fed Games very closely from here on out.

Run, Jump, Kill gets a score of 3 out of 5.

The Tilt To Live and Shmup genres have been mashed together a few times, and have had extremely nice results. FlipShip and Blue Attack come to mind right off the bat. Though it’s no surprise really, as the whole Tilt To Live genre is basically bullet hell without any bullets, dodging and weaving through enemies like you would a bullet onslaught in a Cave title. True Axis (Jet Car Stunts) is the most recent publisher to see the potential with this genre, as they’ve released PomPom’s title, Space Tripper, their highly anticipated iOS port of the PSN and PC game, Astro Tripper.

In Space Tripper, you’ll shoot and dodge your way through 14 levels, split up across 4 different worlds, of wave-enemy battles, with quite a few boss fights, and even a task or two to mix things up, all building up to a final boss battle that could very well cause your heart to explode from adrenaline. One of the first things you might notice about Space Tripper, if you’ve never played it before, is that it is set up more like a shooter than a Tilt To Live type game, making it more reminiscent of Blue Attack than FlipShip or any other TTL genre’d title. However, if you go into the game thinking it’s going to play like your typical shooter, you’ll be in for quite a surprise, and maybe even disappointment.

You will need to be careful with how you handle all of the enemies though, as you won’t always have enough time to play cat and mouse with them, because all of the levels have a time limit. This adds to the already fairly high difficulty, and to the adrenaline you’ll pump out while playing Space Tripper. You’re given 3 lives in the beginning, and if you waste those, you’ll have an option to reset your score for one life. Don’t be fooled, even veteran Tilt To Live and Shmup players will have a fairly hard time with the game on Normal difficulty. The game is incredibly fun however, which will give you that ‘one more time’ thought over and over again, until you’ve wasted an hour of your life hammering away at a couple levels. The game is saved once you beat a world though, so you can come back and start a world with the lives that you had when starting that world, even after a game over, and once you finally do beat the game, you can try out the Hard and Very Hard difficulty settings, as well as the Score Attack and Challenge Modes that all provide an insane amount of replay value. On top of that, there’s OpenFeint and GameCenter integration, containing 21 different leader boards, one for each level in Score Attack Mode, one for each difficulty of the Campaign, and one for each of the 4 endless Challenge Levels. Not to mention the 8, incredibly hard to achieve, achievements.

Gamers have been waiting for this iOS port of Astro Tripper for quite some time, and even if you’ve got Astro Tripper, the gameplay in Space Tripper is different enough with the tilt controls that it’s basically a new gameplay experience. You’ll need to change your strategy, as tactics that are memorized, and fairly easy to pull off with a controller, are not to easy to pull off on a device utilizing tilt controls. $3.99 for this Universal game is a great deal, and one that any arcade, old-school, shmup, Tilt To Live, or adrenaline fanatic should jump on immediately. PomPom has definitely shown that they are the equivalent of Cave Inc. within the Tilt To Live genre.

Space Tripper gets a perfect score of 5 out of 5.

I don’t know what it is, but seeing cute little animals get butchered in video games is something I find extremely entertaining. There’s aren’t too many games on the AppStore that feed this little guilty pleasure of mine, but when they do come around, I enjoy them as much as I can, which is probably a little too much. When I saw the trailer for Bunny Reaper, developed by Assyria Studios (The Glowing Void, Future Racer, and more) with help from artist Molly Proffitt, and published by Daily App Dream, I couldn’t stop laughing. A platformer that had you play death, and go around and kill cute little bunnies. The gaming gods have heard my prayers yet again.

In Bunny Reaper, you’ll control a little Grim Reaper, who has the job of taking little bunnies when their time has come, and then making it to his underworld portal safely so he can move on, doing his job again and again. You’re given platform controls, left and right buttons on the left, and jump and attack buttons on the right. There’s also a zoom out button in the top right, which lets you see the entire level. You can also move your character when you’re zoomed out, which comes in handy quite a bit. To make things a little more interesting, you are able to turn back time. But, you can only do this after you fall off of a platform. A clock icon will show up at the top of the screen, and holding it down will send you back in time, so that you can reverse yourself back up to the platform that you fell from. This does add quite a bit of interesting gameplay to Bunny Reaper, but also takes away a lot of the challenge. Knowing that you can just tap a button to place yourself back up at the top of a level, instead of having to climb all the way up again takes away the pressure of needing to nail your jumps.

The graphics in Bunny Reaper are done in a silhouette styling. The backgrounds change color as you move on through level groups of 10, and always have clouds floating around. There are some levels with snow, which looks pretty nice, and adds to the atmosphere of the world, as does the extra environmental growths on the second world’s platforms. Each world has enough of a different look to give the game just enough variety so it won’t get boring. However, there are only 2 enemies that you’ll face, and one of them, the bunnies, can not hurt you. The other, heart monsters, are kind of like snapping plants. Seeing more enemies in a future update would be great. The animations are very well done though, and are a big part of the entertainment in the game. When you kill a rabbit, it will essentially explode, sending blood EVERYWHERE, even raining down on your character, and have the soul of the rabbit fly upward. The heart monsters shoot out green goo when you slice them in half, which looks pretty neat. It would be perfect if the bottom part of the reaper’s outfit moved more while you were jumping, but that’s just me being picky.

Bunny Reaper is $0.99, which gives you the first 20 levels. The last 20 levels can be unlocked with an in app purchase of $0.99, so the full game is about $2. It is supported with GameCenter, and has 57 achievements, but no leader board, and a lot of the achievements are “finish level 1” “finish level 2” and so on, so there’s not a whole lot of replay value to be gained from the GameCenter integration. And though the game is fairly violent, it’s also very simple. The first 20 levels will give you about an hours worth of gameplay. There is a puzzle element, with trying to figure out how to reach each level’s exit, but zooming out once or twice will give you the answer pretty much right away. For it’s price, I’m personally very entertained, and also very impressed with the developers interaction with gamers on the Touch Arcade forums, which counts for quite a bit in my book. If you’re looking for a fairly gory, just plain fun to play game, Bunny Reaper is probably just up your ally. But if you’re looking for a game with substance, and don’t have much of a sense of humor, or hate seeing video game violence towards virtual animals, chances are, you won’t like this game at all. It seems more like a game my daughter would take to school and show off to her friends, while hoping to make her other classmates think she’s weirder than she really is. But then again, I had those days back in high school too.

Bunny Reaper gets a score of 3 out of 5.