Yes, we built a TARDIS. But hey, when you're travelling thousands of light years and blasting away at 3D pixel baddies, having a nice comfy ship that's bigger on the inside helps. Of course, this little time-lord piece of machinery is not the only thing out there. Thanks to Space Qube's impressive ship builder tool, there are already over two thousand user-generated ships available online. Expected space-faring favorites such as the X-Wing and TIE Fighter are already out there, along with a few stray Gundams and other geekish favorites.
As for the game itself, Space Qube is a fun space shooter for the Apple iOS, the controls are easy to learn and most of the game is centered around making your own ship. Hit the jump for our quick review of the game.
Over two thousand user-generated ships! As of the time of this writing, the game has only been on the app store for a while (sure, there was a beta testing period, but still). And while you'd have to contend with the occasional random doodle, duplicate uploads (some are valid, as creators tend to tweak their stuff, while some are just accidents of double tapping the upload function), and of course, the never ending parade of dong-shaped ships (dear internet, this is why we can't have nice things!). If you head to their official site, you can even check out a real time 3D model of the designs.
So yes, Space Qube's Ship Builder is an amazing tool that is both simple and fun to use -making it a pretty close rival of 3D Dot Game Hero's character creator (also 3D pixel based, but that one is a Zelda type RPG for the PS3). The animation of your ship for the game relies little on user input -the game simply tilts your ship a little bit sideways when you steer left and right in the game. When you die, your ship explodes to itty-bitty pixel bits.
The game itself plays a lot your typical top down shooter -your movement is restricted to the left and right while enemies move around the screen. Qube allows you to choose between touch or tilt controls which is a nice gesture -allowing mobile gamers the chance to stick to their preferred style of playing.
Much like the original 8-bit shooter games that it homages, Space Qube's stages tally a total of 13 (roughly), before they 'cycle'. Each stage has a boss, and after the fourth one, you fight stronger meaner upgraded versions or the originals. This loops around for a third time and then you get a special boss by the 13th stage -a boss that morphs into all 4 previous basic boss forms and one that looks exactly like your custom ship (we loved this part). After this, stage 14 is basically a harder version of stage 1 and so forth.
It's a paid/premium game, and shelling out $0.99 USD for this little gem of an app is a well spent purchase. Sure, the challenge level drops a solid degree after you buy the most basic upgrades, but the real charm of the game lies in the fact that you get to build your own ships then lay waste to a ton of enemies afterwards. That alone makes Space Qube a must-have.
[Space Qube on the Apple Appstore]
No comments:
Post a Comment