As I may have mentioned in the news piece for
Sky Force, this game is right up the alley of those who enjoyed the likes of true classic shooters like Raiden, Slapfight and 1942. It is all old school, down to the beepy 8-bit synth music, the steady pace and eventual progression to bullet-mayhem. While it might look 25 years old, Sky Force is actually at least 5 years old and has done the rounds on most portable formats, but is a welcome addition wherever it lands.
Featuring auto-fire, just dodge the bullets and line up the waves of enemy planes, ships, tanks and avoid the 3D obstacles that loom up at you. A neat additional touch is rescuing the troops on the ground, just by flying over them, which means you need to keep a sharp eye out for the Oids-sized strandees for bonus points
Your main aim is to collect stars from the remnants of waves to score points (you need to hit a certain percentage to pass the level) and power-ups to boost your offensive capabilities. The weapons are non-switchable, which is kind of a pain and there are no bomb-level weapons to help you out of a sticky-spot, just lasers, a slow-firing missile attachment.
It does feel strange not to have to hammer the fire button, or even use the triggers as a smart bomb, or burst rate mode to give you some extra clearance power in tight spots, but hopefully, if there's ever a sequel to this old-yet-great little game, it'd be at the top of the wish list.
Spread over six levels attractive levels with lots of smart extras, across three difficulty zones, with three levels of hardness that offer an increased challenge and three ship types that vary in speed and shield power, this is pretty much the perfect mini within intense bursts of action for the classic games fan.
Enemies are all pretty much by the numbers with hulking great WW-II style bombers, lumped in with attack helicopters, modern tanks and other quirks, but its all great fun as you hone your patterns and circling techniques - its almost like we never left the eighties, and for those who don't know what the eighties was - try this for some great entertainment.
Available on PSN for £2.49 [IDreams] 8/10 Awesome shooter fun, despite the forced autofire with bags of detail.
