Space Out

Rating:

4.0

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Reviewed by Christopher Meinck
July 30, 2008
Top 10 Reviewer

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Space Out for the iPhone is a mashup of two retro arcade games, Space Invaders and Arkonoid. The result is suprisingly good.

At first glance, I thought SpaceOut was going to be the classic Space Invaders. As an avid fan of retro games, it was high on my list of apps to download. To my surprise, the game is much different than the classic. While you still have the ruthless invaders marching towards you, you don't have the standard missile launcher to defeat them. Instead, the gameplay mixes with that of Breakout or Arkonoid. You have paddle that you control from left to right. As the ball starts coming towards you, you deflect it to destroy the invaders. When you think about the iPhone, it would have been difficult to pull of the controls of the old school game. You could move your missile launcher left and right, but that would leave double tapping for firing. Could it be done? Quite possibly, and I'll be checking the App Store regularly to see if someone releases the Midway classic.

The graphics are excellent, a nice mix of the classic Space Invaders look with a colorful planet as the backdrop. More impressive are the sounds and this seems to be a growing trend with iPhone games. The arcade style sounds suit the iPhone very nicely and make for a better experience.

From a gameplay perspective, Space Out is easy enough to control. It might not come through on the video, but it's easy enough to go left and right. I was focusing on keeping the iPhone from moving too much in the video and it's obvious that my gameplay suffered. There are some fun powerups in the game. For instance, a +1 or +2 will through multiple balls into the game and mayhem will ensue.

Space Out is priced at $4.99. It's visually appealing, offers true arcade sounds and proves to be a worthwhile mashup for retro gamers.