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Aliens Invasion
Tested version: 1.4
Latest version: 1.9
Requires Android: from 2.1
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Summary
Every now and then the best thing in the world is to find a new game that's fun to play without having to give your grey cells a crazy workout. The last thing you then want are long, tedious instructions or really complex gameplays. Get your phone out and get to it – it can be as simple as that. At first glance Aliens Invasion seems like a perfect candidate; find out why we're not quite convinced in today's review.
Features & Use
Test devices:
Samsung Nexus S
Android version: 2.3.4
Root: No
Modifications: None
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7“
Android version: 2.3.3
Root: Yes
Modifications: No
App details:
Runs as of: Android 2.1
Apps2SD: Yes
Permissions: Network communications
Aliens Invasion is a brainless shoot 'em up game, and let's be honest, sometimes that kind of game really hits the spot. I'm not saying I don't love roleplaying games, strategic games, Tower Defense, etc., because I do! But every now and then I want to switch off the old noggin completely and just play without having to think too hard. This is where Aliens Invasion comes in: blow 'em up, shoot 'em, bring 'em down – it doesn't take all too much to eradicate the aliens from our glorious planet. Does the game have any kind of narrative? Nope. You play a sort of cowboy who's fighting an alien invasion in some city in the Wild West. What does a real man do in said situation? He grabs his ax and his gun and slays whoever gets in his way.
Aliens Invasion doesn't come with any sort of backstory or background information on what's going on, which is a bit of pity, but on the other hand it doesn't take too much imagination to speculate on what's been happening. Basically, the aliens are here and we have to defend ourselves.
As mentioned previously, you start off with a pistol and an ax; the former can be used for long range combat, the latter for close combat. Makes sense, right? There's an advantage to using close combat weapons: it pushes the aliens back, whereas otherwise you have to fight them off the right seeing as they are coming at you from both sides. The nastiest scenario is when aliens dig themselves out of the ground. Gross!
Along the way you will see houses every now and again. When you're standing right in front of it you can tap it and then enter it in order to collect ammunition or money. You also receive money for killing aliens, which you can then use to buy more ammunition, weapons or health at the end of each level.
The arsenal is nothing to sneeze at: three different pistols, two shotguns, a sniper, plasma weapons, a sabre and a nasty kind of hammer. Most of the weapons aren't accessible from the get-go, however – you have to gain access to them as you go, and trust me when I say that you need every weapon you can get, because the aliens are becoming tougher and tougher.
There are three types of aliens: standard aliens (the purple ones), fast aliens (they're green and they're fast but not as robust as the others) and strong aliens (they're green and brown, slower but very strong). Every 10 levels there's a battle with bosses in which you'll have to deal with a giant foot that comes stomping down. Unfortunately these battles are somewhat boring: you have to fight off a whole bunch of aliens and every now and then the giant alien foot comes down and stomps around and you have to shoot at it. Every battle with the big bosses is the same.
Bottom line:
Mindless violence can be fun, and hence Aliens Invasion is too, but there's still room for improvement. For instance, the variety of aliens could be richer, boss battles more challenging and the levels - which are always the same - could be more diversified. In conclusion, Aliens Invasion is definitely good for killing a bit of time (and a whole bunch of aliens), but it becomes somewhat lacklustre pretty quickly.
Screen & Controls
Aliens Invasion has a cool comic book look about it. The aliens are reminiscent of the aliens we're all familiar with from the Alien blockbuster.
That being said, the design of the levels is somewhat monotonous and do with more diversity.
Controls, on the other hand, are really well done: two arrows are used to navigate the cowboy character, and there are two buttons for long range and close combat
Hit the ammunition button on the top right corner of the screen to switch weapons.
One major drawback: you can't play Aliens Invasion on the Galaxy Tab – the image isn't scaled properly, there are lots of issues with the graphics and to top to all off the game runs in slow-motion.
Speed & Stability
The game crashed once at the beginning of our test run, but aside from this there were no issues with the app's speed and stability. Plus, Aliens Invasion takes no time to load.
Price/Performance Ratio
Aliens Invasion is available for free from the Android Market; there are ad banners.
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Fabien Roehlinger
This game looks pretty nice. I have not checked it so far. But I will give it a try.