Love Anime, Robots And Science Fiction? We’ve Got Your Game
Space Frontier. ($3.99) by Digitalfrog is a universal Sims style city construction game for fans of outer space, robots and anime. If you like sassy “fembots,” space-themed neighborhoods and controlling the housing market, then this game will make your geeky dreams come true.
Your first encounter with another being is Runa, the attractive but emotionless female robot, assigned to help you learn the game and make you feel like a winner. After reminding you that your politeness is lost on her, she walks you through the steps of building, upgrading, terraforming and selling houses. After the third level, you are on your own, more or less. Runa will still pop up and offer tips every once in a while.
The goal of each level is to complete a set of missions. The player may need to build a multi-story housing complex, complete terraforming on another set of houses, and generate $12,000 in monthly rent from tenants. Players seek out new islands to develop and compete against the local building tycoon in construction competitions. Rewards for winning competitions will earn gifts that will help in future development jobs.
On an iPad 2, the graphics are less than stellar. It is not a distraction to the game, but right from the opening screen, the images looks slightly distorted or overly pixelated. But not the way retro game developers will intentionally pixelate a game. It's more like the app was designed for the iPhone screen, but was incorrectly optimized for the iPad. Strangely, some of the graphics look fantastic. For example, the computer readout screen has high quality graphics.
Overall, this universal game is exciting and fun. Fans of anime, robots and science fiction will really get a kick out of the clever plot development and sexy female robots. The graphics leave something to be desired, but absolutely do not interfere with the game. At $3.99, the price is heading in the direction of “high,” but is still worth it, especially for anime fans. Pick it up in the App Store today.
