If you love old-school space shooters like Galaga, Galaxian, or Space Invaders, then you may want to check out Galactic Nemesis.  It’s styled after those classics and is available for download on iOS devices (reviewed on iPad here).

Simply use your finger on the touch screen to drag your spaceship around the screen.  You can move anywhere on the screen, so you’re not just limited to the bottom.  As long as your finger is on the screen, your ship will automatically fire.  Avoid enemy fire and shoot all the ships in formation to progress to the next stage. Watch out for boss gunships that appear later on, too.  You only have one life, but you do have an energy bar so you can take several hits before exploding.  Also, on the right side of the screen, you can tap and use available power-ups, like a super powerful laser or a handy shield.

As you play, you’ll earn coins by completing specific objectives.  Use these coins to upgrade your ship’s firepower and power-ups, or buy a new ship altogether.  It’ll take a while to do this, though.  You can also buy extra stock of power-ups before you start playing, too.  Stages are broken up in sets of four, and when you beat them, you can continue from the next set.  You can also unlock endurance modes where you must finish a set of 12 stages in one go.

The game has a few minor problems here and there.  Enemy ship bullets can sometimes be hard to see and avoid, especially as you reach tougher stages with new baddies.  Most aliens take multiple shots to kill, so it’s doesn’t have such a satisfying feel.  And while the game is entertaining, it feels a bit bland and made me want to play Galaga instead.  Power-ups don’t appear very frequently and there are no cool gimmicks like in Galaga or one of its updates (like Galaga ’88 or Galaga Arrangement).  A rockin’ 8-bit chiptune soundtrack could’ve helped, too.  But I think it’s still worth a look if you love old school space shooters and are really good at them.

Kid Factor:

Violence is minimal in Galactic Nemesis.  You just shoot at blocky aliens and spaceships that explode when destroyed.  The game starts out easy at first, but does get pretty hard later on, so younger gamers might get frustrated.  Reading skill isn’t needed to play, but little players may need help in the shop screens.  This game may be good to share with your kids so you can show them what kinds of games we played when we were little.

Tags: Game Reviews