Alien Assault

I keep hoping for a good, simple vertical shoot 'em up in the same vein as Galaga and my Droid keeps letting me down. I noticed Alien Assault a few days ago and at under a buck with two glowing reviews I gave it a whirl. Key phrases like "intuitive control" and "fast paced" lured me in like a seductress in the night, but if this is "fast paced" then have mercy on me if this developer ever releases a "slow paced" game.

In Alien Assault there's a gun at the bottom of the screen and it pivots back and forth for aiming. The sirens blare and the alien hordes arrive. You touch the screen where you want to fire and then the gun rotates and fires a shot. And then the waiting begins for the shot to finally reach its target. Usually, by then, the incredibly slow flying ship has moved out of the way of the incredibly slow shot which is a puzzle in and of itself. Somehow these aliens have the technology to travel to earth in the traditional flying saucer variety spaceship, but once they are here apparently they are mesmerized with the need to sight see... at least rubbernecking is the only explanation I have for their lack of speed.

I had hopes that this was going to be like Sabotage on the Apple II (which I can now play with the cAndy Apple emulator) or Paratrooper on the PC or even just a Droid friendly "All Your Base" when I saw the pivoting weapon, but no such luck. The only challenge here is trying to line up my shot and time it right, but I started going gray as I waited to see the results. 2/5 stars because it doesn't crash, but it's not worth any hard earned cash.