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• Price: $2.99 (Get It)
• Version: 1.2
• Developer: Nathaniel Adleta

Version 1.4 Update: The updates for this version is meant to improve gameplay. While reducing the size of the game’s assets is a step in the right direction, and the GUI doesn’t seem so clunky anymore, the gameplay has actually gotten worse. With new enemies, and gunfire from enemy ships, the game is too hard from level 3 onwards. In order to fire upon enemy ships, you have to get in direct line of fire. The unwieldy tilt controls exacerbates the whole thing. As a result, the rating for this game has gone from 2.5 stars to 2 stars.

DeadlySpace is a top-down 2D vertical shooter in space that has you shooting asteroids, capital ships, and comets to gain experience. Once enough experience is gained, you can upgrade your pimrary weapon, secondary weapon, shields, or hull. You complete each stage by staying alive for a certain period each level.

As you fire your primary and secondary weapons, the energy bar for each goes down. You have to manage this energy as you progress through each stage to keep from running out and not being able to shoot down incoming objects. As objects crash into your ship, your shield weakens, and then when the shield is gone, the hull will weaken. Once the hull is wiped out, you lose a life.

Once it is Game Over, you can add your name to the scoreboard, which is local online. There’s no global scoreboard as of yet. In the main menu, you can read instructions on how to play the game, start a normal game, or play the Survival mode. However, Survival mode is either not implemented yet, or there’s a bug preventing me from playing it. When the ship selection screen come up, nothing happens when choosing a ship.

Speaking of ships, you can choose from four different ships, each with its own unique look. Each one has different characteristics based on energy power, shield power, hull amount, and ammo amount. Each ship has 3 primary weapon types – the regular bullet one, a rail-gun like laser, and a EMP shield burst. You’ll find yourself just sticking with the default bullet weapon, as the other two are too weak and consume too much energy for what they do.

To control your ship, you tilt the iPhone/iPod Touch to the left and right, and the ship glides to the left and right. I say glide, because it feels sluggish, no matter which ship you choose. The buttons on the GUI are large enough so that there’s no accidental presses, or missing them entirely, and they work quite well. Upgrading the ship is as simple as tapping the aspect you want to improve.

The visuals are nice, it’s not terribly flashy but it fits together well. The GUI, which wraps around the entire screen isn’t ideal, as it eats up a chunk of real estate and the screen isn’t that big. For the most part, DeadlySpace is a good-looking game.

The sound is fairly decent, but sounds pretty tinny in that they don’t really sound like powerful weapons at all. Each ship has the same sound used. Sound effects is used sparingly in the game, so there’s not much to say about it. It was only just recently in the 1.2 update that sound was added; previously it was completely silent. There’s no music to speak of.

DeadlySpace joins the rank of shooters that has come out for the iPhone and iPod Touch that just isn’t fun. The other shooters are Tilt Fighter, MetalAngel, and Starsmasher. MetalAngel is the worst of the bunch, but has the most potential, while DeadlySpace, I fear, can’t be made fun due to how the game is laid out. Since you play the game in landscape mode, the incoming objects has to be slow to give you time to react in the short space it has to travel to damage your ship, which in turn makes the game boring as you plod along.

Tags: deadlyspace, nathaniel adleta, shooter