Review: Blimp HD - Flying Adventures On iPad
by Staff Writer
October 21, 2010
Overview
Blimp: The Flying Adventures is now flying on to the iPad for a larger scale of the unique flying platformer. You maneuver your blimp though various locations trying to transport passengers, protect targets, and fend off enemies. You’ll need to adjust the amount of hot air to adjust height, and then you can tilt or use a slider to change horizontal direction.
Features
The game features a 20 level story mode with comic style briefs before each level. There are four locations the missions appear on with snow mountains, dark forest, mines, and red rocks. There is the new slider control option for the HD version, and there are three difficulty options.
The Good
Blimp: The Flying Adventures is one of the best iPhone platformers by being completely unique, and taking full advantage of the device. The same holds true for the iPad as you tap the screen to elevate, and you tilt the device to move around the landscape. The tilt controls seem like they wouldn’t be as nice because of the bigger device, but they’re really smooth, and allow for precise movements.
It’s truly like nothing else in the App Store flying around to various platforms while avoiding, and dropping bombs on enemies. There is constant danger as your blimp will degrade if it hits any of the walls or platforms too sharply. The levels are timed as well, and there are multiple pick-ups and objectives for most of the levels adding to the challenge.
The HD version does a wonderful job in maintaining the aspect ratio of the Blimp so it’s the same size as the iPhone version. With the extra space rather than just increasing the size of the assets you get a larger view of the level. You can see most of the level at once where as on the iPhone version you can’t even see a quarter of the screen at once.
By being able to see more it’s easier to understand the objectives, and deal with the various obstacles. The game looks beautiful on the iPad with hand drawn artwork environments that are packed with detail. It’s great to see all the animations whether it’s the bomb explosions or various particle effects from obstacles like steam, radiation, and fires.
The Bad
The game only provides one orientation with the home button on the left side. There are only local high score tables with no online component despite the iPhone version now having OpenFeint. The 20 missions are exactly the same as the iPhone version so if you’ve completed the story there is nothing new to see.
The new slider control doesn’t work very well because it is such a small scale. You have to tap right on the slider to move, when you want to just put your finger in the vicinity to control your blimp. You’re looking at the game, and you don’t want to look over to the slider to place your finger correctly, and it can become quite bothersome as stated above, though the original tilt controls get the job done nicely.
The Verdict
Blimp HD gives you a larger perspective of the beautiful Blimp worlds enhancing the already outstanding gameplay. The game’s tilt based controls are so smooth to maneuver through complex level layouts and obstacles easily. There are multiple objectives for each level in the story mode really challenging you.
Blimp HD is a should buy for $3.99 that brings the great iPhone game to the iPad, and takes full advantage of the larger screen.
