R-Type

Shoot 'Em Ups have been around since the early inception of arcade gaming. Arcade games, however, are quite another animal when compared to today's console and now mobile gaming arenas. The big difference? Arcade games were geared at offering a minimal amount of play time while providing enough incentive so as to quickly consume your quarter, but leave you willing to spend another. Today's games have to entertain for far longer than a few minutes to stand a chance. This means just getting harder and faster no longer works. Games need levels, power-ups, or a myriad of other reasons so that you want to game on. An early example of this, in my life, is a game called Astro Warrior on the Sega Master System. It was a vertical scrolling shooter that offered a variety of power-ups and levels and keep my attention for a long time. It was also a $30 game. How spoiled we can now be when a game like R-Type is available for Android phones and tablets for $2.99 (or $0.99 if you grab it while it's on sale in the Amazon Appstore).

R-Type is a game that first appeared in arcades back in 1987 and is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up. The Android version is faithful to the original with graphics quite reminiscent with 8-bitness. The game has since made the jump to many consoles and computers and maintains quite a following today due to its difficulty and its many levels, each of which must be experienced in order to learn how to 'beat it'.

As stated, the graphics for R-Type aren't anything special by today's standards. However, purists will appreciate the fact that little has changed and the look of the original game remains intact. The same goes for audio. My biggest question mark was the controls and they've addressed that beautifully. In a nutshell, your ship is constantly firing. Now I know in the past I've said I can't stand that, but in the case of R-Type it works and it works well. As for movement, your ship responds to relative 'touch and drags' meaning it mimics your fingers motion on screen and does not require that you touch the ship to move it (i.e. you can touch anywhere, drag to the right, and your ship will mirror a right movement). This avoids the problem that other games have with one's hand getting in the way.

As for the game itself, it's as good as ever. I had a lot of fun working my way through some of the early levels (no, I have not beaten then game) in testing the game out. It played very smoothly and may be the best shooter I've played on my Android device. It also works well on both phones and tablets which is much appreciated when I see many companies milking me out of my money by trying to sell me the same game in both SD and HD formats versus creating one Universal app that works on both devices. This is a shoot 'em up that truly has me entrenched in the speedy arcade action and succeeds as getting my adrenalin pumping.

R-Type is a good value at $2.99 and at $0.99 it's a must get game if you derive the slightest pleasure out of arcade shooters. It doesn't make any new advances, but it's an oldie and a goodie done right on a modern platform that has stood the test of time. 5/5 stars.