“What an apt title for a game..”, I was thinking to myself when I was reviewing Wingbreaker, an arcade shmup like no other on the iPad. At first glance it has a lot in common with most games in the same genre, there’s a plethora of weaponry to choose from and a bunch of alien UFO-enemy types to blast them with.
Here’s the part where the game differentiates itself from the competition, in the area of handling damage. The ship that you control in-game comes with a rechargeable shield but when that shield fails, the first two things that gets destroyed are your wings. You may think this as trivial but losing either wing would result in one less weapon slot for all those nice power-ups you collect along the way. Lose both and you’ll have a really hard time destroying certain enemy ships.
Wingbreaker’s control scheme is bog-standard iPad-tilting fare but I don’t think you can go any better than this. The 3D graphics on the other hand are pretty nifty. There are 22 missions available in game (along with an arcade mode), and players are graded with a star-based system on how well they fulfill mission objectives. Having said that you’ll need to fulfill at least one mission objective (in effect gain one star) in one level before proceeding to the next.
The developers added a nice touch to the game with a UFOPEDIA, with entries explaining the various weapons and UFO ships found in the game. It wasn’t necessary but not many devs go about doing that in the first place. Nineoverten.com rates Wingbreaker at a 4.5 out of 5. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Created by the folks at RiggermanGames, the game can be found on the iTunes App Store for free for a limited time. Check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/wingbreaker/id555119638?ls=1&mt=8
