Supersonic HD Propels Developer Kuuasema Ltd. Out Of The Gate With A Barrier-Breaking Boom
May 18, 2011
There is a preponderance of music games and generative rhythm apps available for Apple's mobile platform, and most of them are cookie-cutter, ramshackle affairs with little purchase justification at any price point. Sometimes, however, a really polished contender shows up and perfects the genre almost to the point of redefinition.
Supersonic HD, the first self-published iOS title from Kuuasema Ltd., is one such example. Instead of a sloppy, repetitive racer begging mastery of some impossibly difficult tunnel terrain, this game starts you off slowly, sinks you into a riffing Finnish techno groove, and gets your wrists twitching around colorful curves and random obstacles. Though you only get a single life in "Classic" mode, the courses are easy enough to take you pretty far each play; and there isn't that immediate staleness that usually permeates games of this type.
Supersonic HD's presentation is Sci-Fi simplicity, dragging you at a slow acceleration through a space-bound, tubular, first-person framework as you move and gyrate to avoid barriers and collect gems and score multipliers to the beat of the soundtrack. Though it would bolster replayability to include an optional third-person viewpoint with customizable and unlockable pilot vehicles, the provided angles are certainly immersive and impressive; and "Blitz" mode lets you don upgradeable shields and faster boosters while you race against the clock, time-trial style.
Still, there are a couple of caveats. The game is not a universal binary, so you've got to pay twice to get the full versions for all of your iDevices; and the iPad iteration, while plenty fast and smooth, is the tiniest bit more abrupt of control compared to the smaller-screened release.
That said, I expect future updates to refine everything even further, so go ahead and grab the pair. The iPhone build is free but ad-supported (with two $0.99 upgrade options), and the iPad's HD counterpart is on sale for $2.99 (normally $3.99).
