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Oh, technology! We can make flying robots that can shoot lasers and float through the
vacuum of space...but don’t you dare bump it into a moon rock. What are you crazy?
The game is Astro Lander. This is an App Store release with a very simple premise. Collect
as many stars as you can, save as many of your little alien friends as you can, get
to the exit platform. Obviously, you have to do this with a moon lander thing...one
capable of all kinds of crazy stuff, but apparently made from aluminum foil.
Like NASA couldn’t have spent the extra million on something thicker.
So I guess my big problem with Astro Lander is that the lander itself is just way too
delicate. The second you touch a rock, your health starts dropping rapidly. It drove me
absolutely crazy, and the thing is, it’s more than just bumping ground. If you shoot
an enemy nearby and you’re too close, the explosion from laser hitting enemy actually
drains your health, too. And, like, instantly.
I think the reason things like that irritated me so much is that, otherwise, I really like
Astro Lander. It’s a really fun, retro-inspired side-scroller that does a lot of things right.
The game has that risk-reward gameplay that tempts you to collect the stars and save your
friends...although your lander is running out of fuel. And I love that about Astro Lander...but
then you touch a wall and the whole freaking game ends.
There are 45 levels across three different worlds, along with three control systems.
Touch screen buttons are the standard, but if you’re a ***, you can also play with
tilting. The game looks good and plays great, but again...it was just really annoying sometimes,
and at least for me, that seriously affected its replay value.
I get that some people are really into challenging games, but not everyone is. For everything
Astro Lander does so well, its eagerness to kill you killed the game for me. Astro Lander
is a cool concept, but this ship is a bit too fragile for orbit.