Go Beyond Missile Command on the iPhone & iPad with Paratroopers: Air Assault HD

Bored in a waiting room? Looking to procrastinate? Let’s face it, sometimes we all just need some mindless game to kill a little time. While perusing the App Store, we found just that in the form of Paratroopers: Air Assault HD, from Software Factory, for the iPhone and iPad. As part of the OpenFeint network, it’s a quaint little jaunt through enflamed warzones where all the player has to defend themselves with is blood, sweat, tears, and a giant gun. Air Assault is basically an arcade shooter, and if one were to go way back into gaming history, it’s probably most like 1980s title, Missile Command from Atari. Of course, it’s been a little polished up since then, and rather than shooting down incoming scuds, the user is shooting down enemy paratroopers that have about the same tactical intelligence as baddies in most tower defense games. With a good sense of style, it’s certainly an amusing game, but has a rather repetitive nature and very shallow difficulty curve that will likely make the game a bit dull for many users. Players control a very, very large gun and have one objective: Survive. As best as we can tell, there is no real end to this game (either that or it takes a very long time), as wave after wave of paratroopers, in ever increasing numbers drop in on the player’s base. In order to take them out, the player must either tap the enemy itself to blow it up into gratifying tiny bits, or hit the parachute itself, sending them splattering into the earth. Either way the user chooses, score, money, and experience are racked up. Experience is perhaps the most important aspect of Air Assault. This, as with most games, is what is used to gate the different upgrades in the armory. Obviously, the money is also needed, in tandem with this, to actually make a purchase. Regardless, as more and more waves of enemies appear, upgrades become a must. The basic gun is one tap, one shot, but with infinite ammo. Once the player starts getting a couple dozen guys on the screen at any given time, however, this just doesn’t cut it. So to make things interesting, Software Factory incorporated a few nifty toys such as an AK47 turret, a shotgun, a gatling gun, a flame thrower, and even a missile launcher. Each weapon has its own purpose as each comes with special abilities such as rapid fire, killing units on the ground, or even blowing up the aircraft dropping the enemies to begin with. The only downside is that the more powerful weapons have finite ammo, that must also be purchased, and the player must manually switch between them, on the fly, as necessity demands. In addition to ammunition, the user must also purchase health for their turret and the occasional bomb. Should an enemy reach the ground, they will start draining the player’s hit points, and should the proper turret not be available, then only a precise air strike bombing can take them out. Granted, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and feels like using a shotgun to kill a fly, but hey, whatever works. As for the score, the user accumulates it over the course of his or her play lifetime, along with stats such as money earned, military rank (based on level), and so on. However, it is only the current scores – per Campaign or Skirmish mode – that is applied to the OpenFeint leaderboards. Obviously, this is the big social mechanic of the game, as it comes with five leaderboards that are based on the paratrooper kill count, and scores during Skirmish mode (a quick play mode where the player sets the difficulty themselves), or the Campaign mode’s City Assault, Sand Storm, or Blizzard levels. Moreover, as this is integrated with OpenFeint, achievements are also prevalent, with about three dozen to unlock. On the negative side of things Air Assault is, first and foremost, repetitive. It does have a nice cartoon style to it, but unlike tower defense games, there is no real strategy involved. Touch the paratrooper, and it dies. That’s about all there is to it. Part of the issue is that it takes a very long time to unlock the different weapons (which are a lot more fun than the first one), but even then, there is just no real challenge. Perhaps that is the biggest complaint of all. The pacing is surprisingly slow for an arcade style game. True, the screen can fill up with paratroopers, quickly, sometimes, but unless you play in Skirmish mode on a harder difficulty, you barely have to pay attention. Moreover, in tower defense titles, there are different types of enemies. Here, they are all the same. Yes, they look different, but they don’t do anything different. Also, once the game does get challenging, you usually end up unlocking a turret upgrade, and it becomes easy again. All in all, Paratroopers: Air Assault is amusing for a $1.99 app whether you prefer it on the iPhone or iPad. Whichever way, you choose; it’s more or less the same experience. Unfortunately, despite the style and potential of the game, that experience is a bit drab. It’s fun for a little bit, but it takes entirely too long to get to any real challenge outside the Skirmish mode. Moreover, any fun brought on by the new and bigger guns is quickly squashed as they make the game even easier most of the time. In the end, it’s an interesting game, but it really needs a bit of work in the challenge and game-balancing department.

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Go Beyond Missile Command on the iPhone & iPad with Paratroopers: Air Assault HD

Christopher Mack

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Christopher Mack