FingerGaming

Fabtek’s Cabal was one of the most popular titles in what turned out to be an unfortunately short-lived arcade subgenre — the “crosshair shooter.” Meridian follows in Cabal’s footsteps with Ace Commando ($1.99), a side-scrolling, forward-facing shooter that takes inspiration from one of the genre’s best games, SNK’s Nam-1975.

Ace Commando features much of the same gameplay found in Nam-1975. You control a lone soldier as he slowly strafes across a battlefield, blasting anything that appears directly in front of him. You have a variety of weapons at your disposal, but gameplay largely revolves around dodging enemy bullets and rolling to escape danger.

The biggest problem I can see with Ace Commando is that the directional buttons are mapped to opposite sides of the screen. Combine this with a drag-based shooting mechanic and you have a recipe for tangled fingers as the difficulty ramps up. Luckily, the game also includes an accelerometer-based control scheme, which should hopefully work out better in the context of Ace Commando’s gameplay. A demonstration video is below.

Tags: ace commando, cabal, crosshair shooter, meridian, shooter