Sky Force

Summary

"Who says the iPhone has better games?” 

The Android world is constantly trying to prove it isn’t falling behind in terms of high quality graphics. Find out why Sky Force failed to score the highest rating in our test despite all of its potential.

 Sky Force is a classic arcade shoot'em up game in which you destroy enemy planes, helicopters, boats, tanks, and various bosses. You fly over water, fields, and meadows at the bottom of your screen while shootin' up all your oncoming enemies.

Your plane fires automatically, so concentrate only on the steering. You can steer by either moving your finger behind your plane across the touchscreen or using your phone's motion sensors to move around. Although motion controls can be more fun at times, both options work well. Feel free to use both steering options at the same time to keep things interesting.

There are eight different levels, three difficulty levels, and even three levels of steering sensitivity. Like most shooter games, there are different kinds of power ups along the way that increase your defense shield or fire power. You pick up points not only for destroyed enemies, but also for every star you collect on your path. You start out with three lives at the beginning of every game.

Sky Force is a game that shows what Android phones are capable of in terms of graphics and game play.

Visually, Sky Force is simply stellar all-around. There are, however, some issues with the menu navigation. On the Milestone things seem to work OK, but loading a game on the G1 really tested my patience.

After starting up the game, you first select the difficulty level, then the game level, and finally the steering sensitivity. You move through the selections by clicking on "next" at the bottom right corner. On the G1 the button only reacts when you clicked above the "t" in "next". Nothing happens when you click directly on "next". It would've made sense to use the phone's real buttons for the menu options. On the Milestone things ran a bit smoother, but I was still forced to press all around the button to finally get it to react. During the test, I came to the conclusion that you need an exceptionally soft touch to make the buttons work, but even that doesn't work 100% of the time.

Even though I got the hang of the menu navigation after a while, I was left with a negative impression during the test, especially with the G1.

On the start page you'll find the following options:

• Start Game
• Highscores
• Options
• Credits
• Help

In the options you can change the language, turn vibrate on/off, adjust music and sound effect volume, select steering type (Accel with motions sensors or Touch with touchscreen), and calibrate motion sensitivity.

Bottom Line:

I would've loved to give Sky Force the highest possible rating, but the menus were way too frustrating during the test. Sky Force is basically a great game with faulty menu navigation. Even though the menu doesn't affect actual game play, it does lower Star Force's final star count.

Even on the G1, Sky Force ran without any problems. If you happen to use a task manager, it wouldn't hurt to switch off any unnecessary apps that are running in background mode.

Sky Force is available to download from the Android Market for UK£1.99