The Sky Really Is Falling In ArmageddonHD
ArmageddonHD (Free) by Single Button has you running for your life as asteroids rain down on your parade. Try to stay alive for as long as you can and gather coins and hearts to increase your score.
Your character can move side-to-side and jump as the purple asteroids crash onto the street. It’s funny to watch him run because he looks like a scuttling crab. The asteroids come in different sizes, though they are all capable of reducing your guy to a puddle of blood.
Small asteroids crashing into the ground will provide one point, while dodging the larger ones provides two points.
Also falling from the sky are coins and extra lives (now that part I wouldn’t mind). Collecting the coins increases your score, while the extra lives help you stay in the game. What’s cool is that if you have all three hearts filled, any extra hearts will instead give you 50 points.
The controls work by either using touch or tilt. Touch is the default, though this can be changed in the settings menu.
The touch controls work by tapping either the left or right side of the screen to move and tapping toward the top to jump. For a game exclusively for the iPad, the jump control couldn’t be in a worse place. The game is played in landscape mode, and I found that I had to stretch my finger to reach the top of the screen. All the while I wouldn’t be able to touch the bottom portion of the screen if I needed to move.
The tilt controls have it better where touching anywhere on the screen will make the guy jump, though the main function of it (moving the guy back and forth) is way too loose. Trying to control the guy in tilt mode is like running on a sheet of ice. Dodging the asteroids in this mode really becomes a feat.
I would say the one thing missing from this game is Game Center or OpenFeint support.
Trying to stay alive is great and all, but where’s the reward in it? Now throw in some achievements and leader boards and suddenly life is worth living.
I like the simplicity of this game. The graphics, music, and gameplay all have the feel of an arcade game. You can’t beat the price, either, especially considering that there are no ads or in-app purchases.
