Air Penguin: Flightless Birds Continue To Dominate iOS Gaming Success
Air Penguin ($0.99) by GAMEVIL Inc. is keeping the birds at the top of the charts for now. First we loved launching birds at pigs, then it was helping a flightless bird glide through island-filled hills. And now the latest trend is helping penguins bounce on ice patches and avoid dangers coming at them from the water.
While I waited for Air Penguin to load, I was really hoping it wouldn't be another launching game - I'm burned out on those. Thankfully, it's not. Air Penguin uses a tilt-to-control orientation rather than touch-screen controls.
There's a cute, wordless story at the beginning about why the brave little penguin must make it through perilous Antarctic waters to his family, then gameplay begins. The graphics are cute and optimized for retina display. Definitely easy to look at. Bouncing. gliding and dodging is easy to get used to.
Choose from campaign level (over 100 stages) or survival mode. Before starting level one, you are instructed to avoid the water by tilting your device forward to go forward, left for left, right for right and back for back. Easy enough.
For the first few levels, you are mostly concerned with bouncing on patches of ice, avoiding the water and collecting gold fish (that are suspended in the air) for more points. Once you reach the flag, you know you have finished the level. Replay if you want to try for a higher score by beating your time or collecting more fish.
As the levels progress, more challenges are added. Slide on long patches of ice without falling through holes, avoid sharks, ride on turtles (which are hard to land on), etc. Every good developer knows interesting things elements have to be added regularly in order to keep the gamer's attention, and Air Penguin doesn't fail here.
Normally I am not a fan of tilt-to-control games because the controls are so sensitive that I end up over-correction and constantly losing. I am glad to say, however, that the tilt controls for Air Penguin on not overly sensitive and are easy to get used to.
Air Penguin works on iPhone and iPad, but is not yet optimized for the iPad. I really hope to see an HD iPad version hit the app store soon.
I like that Air Penguin has achievements to unlock and is GameCenter enabled. This adds a fun element of friendly competition.
If you didn't like launching Angry Birds, or sliding with Tiny Wings, Air Penguin is a fresh new take on a popular theme and is worth checking out.
