Road Blaster Review
PROS
- Sharp, responsive tilt and touch controls.
- Smooth video transitions between sequences.
- Multiple difficulty levels; attempts to smooth out a rough learning curve.
CONS
- No 'help' or instructions explaining options.
- Trial and error gameplay still very unforgiving.
VERDICT
Road Blaster for the App Store is a solid adaption of a classic arcade game and arguably better for the transition even despite its unforgiving gameplay and lack of in game help.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
It's never too long before the 'interactive movie' genre of games get a chance to shine again on newer media devices and after the previous porting of Cobra Command, developer Revolutionary Concepts has moved on to another Arcade title by Data East - Road Blaster.
In what essentially amounts to a plot based around revenge, you'll take control of a lean-mean fighting machine as you attempt to take down the biker gang that killed your wife. Much like any interactive movie, the controls are broken down in to simple up/down/left/right controls, each one depicting either a turn of the wheel or boosting and braking. In order to survive you'll need to have sharp reflexes to respond to the actions given to you on screen, though often enough you can hazard a guess to what you might need to do ahead of time and lower difficulties try to extend to window of opportunity given to you to succeed.
Unfortunately the game is still disproportionately based on trial and error, with some of the more complicated sequences requiring rote recall to survive as the game's animated visuals can be extremely confusing to watch, especially as the perspective is often horribly out of sync with the actions you're asked to perform. Though it should be said that the conversion of this title to iOS devices has been a near flawless one as the tilt controls provide a far more intuitive way of interacting with the game than simple touch or swipe controls ever could. 'Deaths' are far more often the result of poor timing on the part of the user and not from poor responsiveness from the controls.
Road Blaster for the App Store is about as good as it can get without playing the original arcade title, though this release is arguably far more forgiving than the original release ever was. This is definitely a title aimed at the old-school crowd of gamers who are willing to push through the game's sharp difficulty curve, but casual gamers may still get a kick out of mastering this reflex-based title.
Screenshots
$3.99
