Space, the final frontier.
With all the craze surrounding the latest reboot of the Star Trek franchise, there’s been a number of releases related to the movie, including an official game, which basically consists of you piloting the NCC-1701 USS Enterprise as a fighter craft of sorts – yes, the official game is a an action-adventure shoot ‘em up game.
The VOID makes its attempt in filling up the void (no pun intended) of space-themed games. This is not your typical shoot ‘em up game.
You play the role of a janitor who dreamed of becoming a feared and renowned space pirate. Saving up your slave labor wages, you finally managed enough credits to purchase your own ship. And so begins your adventure into the vast openess of the galaxy.
That seemed like some storyline to begin with, but in actual fact, the storyline is just as simple as that. You begin the game in the hyperspace gateway. The hyperspace gateway also serves as your homebase, where you purchase and manage your ship’s loadouts. It is divided into four zones, the galaxy map, weapons loadout, equipment loadout and the shipyard. The galaxy map lets you navigate to different stages of what must be a very large galaxy. Weapons and equipment loadout screens speaks for themselves – configuring your ship’s loadouts. Finally, the shipyard. This is where new ships becomes unlocked and purchaseable by the player, provided you have enough credits to do so.
Beyond that, there’s no chance of interacting with any other non-player characters. A majority part of the game involves you flying your ship throughout the galaxy, destroying anything that moves – including those that don’t move! Indeed, your task at every level involved piloting your ship through the hypergate and then destroying all the enemies there (including static meteor rocks) and picking up the goods that they drop. Most of the time, you’ll pick up credits, while some of the times, a certain equipment might be dropped by the destroyed.
Aside to the lack (or in the game’s case, void) of a storyline, your game does not end when your ship gets destroyed. In fact, you are sent back to the hyperspace and reenacted again, as if the mission never took place. On certain harder levels, this might turn out to be very repetitive. However, if you proved your mettle, then its back to the hyperspace, where you get to gear up your ship with new weapons and equipment. On certain levels, more better ships are unlocked and purchaseable.
The VOID uses the iPhone’s accelerometer for its control. Aside to that, the only other control available are accelerate, decelerate and your weapons. The accelerometer controls the turning of the ship. If you’ve not played Asteroids before, then you’ll probably need a little bit of time to get yourselves accustomed to the controls.
On-screen during missions, the game displays a miniature radar that tracks the other crafts in the zone. On the other end of the screen, you’ll see your ship’s gauges like energy, shields and armor. At the lower right corner is your weapons. Here, you may group your ship’s weapons and fire them separately, which may be configured separately while in the hyperspace screen.
Graphics-wise, the game looks okay. Take note also of the 80′s-like music that accompanies you when you blast those ships into smithereens.
Overall, my experience with the game has been pretty crashing. It crashes occassionally during loading and missions. Otherwise, if you really like space-themed games, The VOID will definitely fill the emptiness.
Highly-recommended if you are a hardcore space junkie.
Get The VOID from the iTunes Store. Available now for only $2.99. There’s also a lite edition for you to try out before deciding.
Also, do check out the game play video of the game below.
Rating: 3.0/5.0 Taps
App Data
App Name: The VOID v1.1.0 | Developer: Alex Wayne | Purchase via: iTunes App Store @ $2.99 | Released: Mar 13, 2009 | Reviewed on: iPod touch v2.2.1
