#3 - Bit Pilot

Game: Bit Pilot

Price: £0.59 / $0.99 | App Store |
Genre: Arcade, Retro
Developer: Zach Gage Sound: Sabrepulse
Rating: 9+

Design: 7/10
Sound: 9/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

It's What We Call A Global Killer... The End Of Mankind
An absolute classic game that will not only bring back old memories but also create fresh ones. It's a bid for survival dodging specks of mere space dust up to global killing asteroids whilst cruising around in your spaceship in deepest, darkest space. The longer you survive, the higher your score will rise but, simultaneously, the likelihood of going 'splat!' increases. Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Design
It's a retro game so it's unfair to criticise the design based on other more colourful and graphical iphone releases. It has achieved exactly what it set out to by having the look and feel of an old skool arcade game, so with that in mind, it scores favourably. The graphics are very simple and although this is in keeping with the arcade theme, you could argue that perhaps an updated design would work better on the iPhone. Personally, I like the fact they kept it old, but I'm docking points as this has almost certainly put off new gamers.

Sound
The soundtrack to this game is unbelievably good. I'd buy the game just to listen to the music. There are a selection of songs to choose from (or you can have it set to random) and they have each been produced by Sabrepulse, an 8 Bit techno producer who is amazingly good at his job! The SFX have been tweaked perfectly and the whole package combined offers one of the greatest gaming soundtracks of all time. My only criticism would be that there should be more songs, but having said that, there's a certain charm about only having a few and there's always Youtube for the biggest fans.

Gameplay
Survival is your only mission. Using your thumb (my preferred method) or thumbs (can be hard to see) to swipe or stroke your spaceship movements between increasingly fast and large asteroids within a limited rectangle of space. That's not to mention the random enemy explosions that try to destory you every so often. Your score increases the longer you survive and there are regular power ups in the form of blue (shield) and green (bonus points) coloured pills - presumably a play with the themes related to techno music! The first few times you play the game, you wonder what it's all about and perhaps even grow a little bored. Then you have one amazing run where you score upwards of 10,000, hear nearly the entire length of a quality techno tune and suddenly you're hooked. The game offers two difficulty settings (Easy and Normal), Open Feint online scoring and a bunch of unlockable content, making it a very competitive and rewarding experience.

Conclusion
It'll take you a little while to appreciate this game, but after a few plays you'll experience one of the simplest yet most entertaining gaming experiences available on the iPhone. The music is amazing and I say again that I would pay the price just for the tunes. Coming in at £0.59, this game really is a steal and one of the biggest 'hidden gems' on the entire App store. It's games like this, developers like Zach Gage and musicians like Sabrepulse that I started this blog to promote. I highly recommend you grab this game and I challenge you to top my highscores on Easy (E) and Normal (N)!