Wakattack Extended

Wakattack Extended, the paid version of Wakattack, isn't at all what I expected it to be. It's funny how, from a text description in the Market, we can get a preconceived idea as to what a game is going to be about. And then when we actually play it... quite a different experience occurs.

The premise of Wakattack is simple. It's your job to defend the world from the Wakas. And, before terrorizing us, the Wakas have decided to dance back and forth on a line giving us ample opportunity to destroy them. There are a few different kinds of Wakas... first, the ones with a red dot above them have to be destroyed first allowing the game to dictate the order in which Wakas are killed. Then there are time bomb wakas with a green bar above them. Finally, there are boss wakas with two green bars above them... the first is the amount of time before they blow and the second the amount of life they have (aka hits it'll take to eliminate them). Oh, and let me not forget the nice, golden Wakas. If you kill one of them then game over (even if it's an accident) so each shot needs to be precise. You are armed with a pearl shooter which sounds awfully close to pea shooter. Either way it would be the same thing. You rapidly swipe from the bluish pearl at the bottom of the screen to fire your pearls at them in an arc pattern kind of like firing a sling shot. Essentially the game is supposed to be in 3D and you're in front of the dancing Wakas trying to pick them off of the clothesline before either time expires (from a bomb Waka) or you run out of shots (indicated in the upper left).

Wakattack has a nice accompanying audio score and some doodle style backgrounds. Actually, all of the graphics are doodle style although, other than the legs, the Wakas themselves are not animated. They just slide back and forth. Controls, as stated, rely solely on a simple flick of your finger. I'd classify this game as an arcade style game with a puzzle wannabe element. The variety of the Wakas could have gone much further. As stated, when I first saw this game I had pictured something different... I envisioned a 2D game where I flick pearls from the middle as Wakas rapidly approach kind of like the first phase of Cosmic Ark on the Atari 2600 (and the arcade game it's a copy of).

At first I really didn't care for this game, but I think part of that was my preconceived idea as to what it should be. Upon playing again it wasn't bad. The latter levels really start to get more difficult and the game is friendly enough to allow you to immediately retry a failed level. 50 levels are included that must be successively unlocked. I'm not a big fan of this style of firing... I'd much rather the game be 2D and have linear firing to increased accuracy. The game does offer a leaderboard and my dismal second play earned me spot #35 (initials ADR) as there's not much competition for those lower spots. I'm also disappointed that despite being advertising as supporting the 'Move to SD card' funtion that the game does not actually allow for that. Hopefully an update will fix that. The auther encourages potential customers to try the free version first and, as always, I appreciate when a trial is offered. 3.5/5 stars for a decent game that has potential.