The game is a hybrid DSS, combining aspects from story driven dual stick shooters like Guerilla Bob and survival dual stick shooters like Isotope and revolves around you, Captain BomBom, and his supposedly happy vacation. From what we were given the Captain left the front fort R-69 (We assume this is a planet of some type, details are a bit scarce, which is huge a downside to the game.) for the space station, however, along the way he found an unknown planet that was under attack from Octopus Alien’s (Really? Some ingenuity could have gone into the naming of the enemies in my opinion, Antradian Squidmen would have sufficed). Having noticed the planet’s fragile state Captain BomBom put on his blasting equipment and began his assault on the Octopus Aliens.

CBB is partly retina enhanced meaning that part of the UI is optimized for the retina display and part is not, the in-game gameplay is not retina enhanced either (Neither is the icon). Having said this I expected the game to run smoothly and without any type of problems (Considering the devices we tested this game on are definitely over qualified). This is not the case. The frame rate does not stay constant and the controls will some times “skip”. When I say skip I mean that the controls will stick, and then become responsive again after a delay of some time. This causes a loss in control of the Captain, and in some cases, will lead to your death. Some of the UI animations are quite stale, and look glitchy at times, the character animations could also use some attention, as they appear to move in single digit frames. The game lacks the use of newer generation devices anti-aliasing capabilities, and causes the game to look quite pixelated while playing.

The premise is quite simple and follows the unwritten rules of mostly all dual stick shooters, kill enemies and destroy the drills before the planets life bar is gone. After the planets life bar is gone, or you’re destroyed its game over. Made available to you are a decent amount of weapons and explosives.

There are four types of weapons, one tank, and two pick-ups available. The weapon class includes two types of gun based weapons, and two grenade based weapons. The first gun based weapon allows for forward shooting and sideway shooting (the Captains arms are moved to the side of him and he shoots horizontally away from his body) and the forward shooting is just as the name implies. The second gun based weapon actually shoots mine type bullets that stay on the ground for a limited time and will blow up any enemy that passes over them. A glowing spot indicates where the mine is placed. The grenades are quite the neat little helpers. The first type of grenade is just your basic explosive, however, the second grenade creates a vortex that sucks enemies into its center holding them there until the vortex disappears. By combining the vortex grenade and the explosive grenade you can easily decimate a large number of enemies in a short period of time. The tank is acquired by obtaining three lighting bolts from the ground (Which are dropped from random enemies, in a random fashion) after which a tank is dropped off on the map. The tank has a health bar, and after that health bar runs out, the tank explodes and three more bolts are needed in order to bring it back. While driving the tank you gain access to the cannon. The cannon is a giant laser that easily kills enemies in a very quick manner, but its limited to its usage. The laser has to be charged back up after the charge bar is depleted.

Now on to something we at AppTapper found quite odd. Openfeint is the social platform chosen for the game, however the achievement points are quite ridiculous, especially for the tasks you need to complete in order to earn them. Below is a full list of the achievements and the points received for unlocking them.

           

            GreenSquidKiller

                        Kill 1000 Green Squid                         1

            GreenSquidButcher

                        Kill 10,000 Green Squid                      3

            GreenSquidExecutioner

                        Kill 100,000 Green Squid                    5

            RedSquidKiller

                        Kill 250 Red Squid                               1

            RedSquidButcher

                        Kill 2500 Red Squid                             3

            RedSquidExecutioner

                        Kill 25,000 Red Squid                          5

            RabbitFishKiller

                        Kill 100 Rabbit Fish                              1

            RabbitFishButcher

                        Kill 1,000 Rabbit Fish                           3

            RabbitFishExecutioner

                        Kill 10,000 Rabbit Fish                         5

            RedOctopusKiller

                        Kill 300 Red Octopus                            1

            RedOctopusButcher

                        Kill 3,000 Red Octopus                         3

            RedOctopusExecutioner

                        Kill 30,000 Red Octopus                       5

            Drill Killer

                        Kill 100 DrillTower                                1

            DrillButcher

                        Kill 1,000 DrillTower                             3

            DrillExecutioner

As you can see the amount of enemies you need to kill is astoundingly higher than they should be, especially considering you only get a maximum of 5 points. Killing 100 of any enemy type is a feat n and of itself in this game, and this oversight really seems like a cheap way to save some time and money. The lack of effort for such a small aspect of this game shows that they wanted to focus on the primary gameplay (which they did not even do well) more than anything else. The lack of ingenuity and the many oversights the developers had really disappoint me as a reviewer and consumer. However, the game is free as of right now, and at that price, the game is, content wise, where it should be. The achievement issue is not warranted by the price, and hopefully will be fixed in a future update.

What we believe is needed:

1) Full retina display support for all UI elements, and in game assets.

2) Optimization of the controls.

3) Better background story, (I would be happy to come up with something)

4) Removing of the speech bubbles from inside the actual game, as they block a players view and become quite an annoyance. (Visible in the fourth screenshot)

5) Openfeint achievement fixes, i.e,  updating the amount of kills and amount of points awarded to something that actually makes sense. Also adding something other than /ColorAnimal/Profession (Did you happen to notice the pattern, Green/Red/Rabbit/Fish/Butcher/Killer/Executioner?!)

The game has a really high potential, and it’s disappointing to see the lack of ingenuity in certain aspects of the game, but for a free game we really cannot complain all too much. If you are a fan of dual stick shooters, than theres nothing that should stop you from giving it a try.