Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters Review
PROS
- Slick visuals; aesthetics in keeping with both the comic and movie designs.
- Intuitive one-finger controls; easy to pick up and blast away.
CONS
- Thin on variety and complexity; higher difficulties do change up the AI, but not enough to remain interesting.
- No story to speak of; simply assumes you’re a fan of Green Lantern.
VERDICT
Rise of the Manhunters should be praised for at least trying something out of the ordinary for a movie tie-in, but despite its detailed appearance the game is short on actual gameplay and content.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
As I write this Australia is yet to have the (dis?)pleasure of watching the 2011 release of Green Lantern - why we’re subjected to a two month delay is beyond my understanding, but it does provide a great opportunity to spend some time with Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters for the iOS.
At first it’s nice to see the game forgoing the expected 2D/3D brawler in favor of something slightly different as you control Hal Jordan in this 3D shooter. Better still, the less-traveled path is used for the shooter as well as you’re placed in a 3rd-person perspective, blasting enemies as they appear while Hal flies through the cosmos.
The game itself features intuitive single-finger controls, allowing you to tap enemies to fire projectiles; hold down on enemies to activate homing rockets; hold down on Hal to activate a shield; or simply drag him around the screen to touching and moving around your finger. Along with the ability to grab and hit enemies directly, there’s a lot of firepower at your disposal, so the game limits your options by depleting your available energy. This can regenerate over time (slower or faster depending on your upgrades), though it’s easy to find yourself in a bind with no energy to alleviate the pressure.
This is where upgrades come in (like the aforementioned energy rate increase), either making your abilities more efficient or increasing your base health and energy to help work through tougher moments in the game. Sadly ‘tough’ tends to equate to ‘more and faster’ with regards to the enemies as their variety is limited. Each area adds something new to deal with, though ultimately there’s no real strategy changes required; avoid what you can and fire all your weapons until they’re dead.
Rise of the Manhunters may be pretty and may feature some neat canonical touches for fans of the Green Lantern series, but there’s little substance beyond the basic gameplay. With no real story or depth to the gameplay, there’s no hook to keep you playing. Even teaser of an unlockable character isn’t enough to keep things interesting.
An easy game to avoid unless you’re a die-hard fan after a new shooter.
Screenshots
$2.99
