iBomber (iPhone) Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

Sometimes the simple ideas are best

On the face of it iBomber is a simple game. It is an overhead shoot em up viewed from the bomber's perspective. It's a little different from other titles and, if nothing else, the novelty factor will drag you in. After playing a few levels the novelty may well wear off and then the addictive gameplay comes to the fore.

There is only one viewpoint for the game and that's from the bombing bay. You can control the plane by tilting to steer and also adjust the speed (obviously there is no reverse gear). Your altitude and attitude is always fixed and purists may complain that it's not a true sim (which it never pretends to be).

It's not as simple as it seems though. The centre of the screen is dominated by your crosshair. Different bombs fall a different speeds through the sky and your aim has to be adjusted. For example, with the standard bomb, your target should be around the halfway mark on the reticule before you press the big red button and there is a large element of hit and hope. The rocket bomb does allow for more precision and you can centre your target in the middle before firing. As you blow things up, bomb and health icons appear for you to touch and recover.

There are 12 levels in the initial release with more promised (and a big gap in the selection screen). Each level has a number of objectives but they all involve blowing as many things as you can. We've made it up to level 9 before we got stuck - it's a tricky level where you have to protect your base and not hit your own planes while destroying the enemy ships. Up to that point the difficulty gradually ramps up and iBomber is great fun to play. There are also 4 medals to collect for each level. Some of the medals are tough to collect especially the 90% bombing accuracy but there is always a reason to come back.

Future updates are planned with more levels and hopefully a survival mode with online scores.