Premium Spotlight: Iron Square’s Surface to Air Mayhem
by Eric March on October 10, 2008 at 11:24 pm
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When we last left our friends at Iron Square, I had given their fun little virtual game show Mr. Trivia Lite the twice-over because they had spiffed up and fixed the issues with the first version I had reviewed and snarked all over for its habit of mangling the English language while conveniently ignoring my tendency to eject streams of run-on sentences everywhere I went. In the re-review I pronounced that they had done good and with with a bit more work it could even be great, but was still a fine product in its own right.
The last month-and-change certainly haven’t seen them sitting idly by any means. In fact, they’ve apparently been working double-time, because they’ve already gone and added a brand new game to their lineup: Surface to Air Mayhem, and you know what? Holy crap.
But let’s get the plot synopsis out of the way first. You are the commander of the fictitious Shelton Air Force Base, which is currently under siege. Your job is to command the Super Turret code-named “Mayhem” to fire surface-to-air missiles and take down wave after wave of enemy aircraft as they fly by until reenforcements arrive.
If you’re an old fogey gamer like me then this may be sounding just a little bit familiar: Atari 2600 Air-Sea Battle, perhaps? Oh yes. Yes, indeed, because the gameplay at its most elementary level does bear a very strong resemblance, but it is further enhanced by generous helping of Missile Command, too. If retro classics serve as S.A.M.’s foundation however, Iron Square have built considerably upon it to create an exceptionally stylish, hyper-modernized, twitchy shmup capable of giving you the sort of visceral, cathartic endorphine rush that shmup fans crave. After the break, we’ll get into the meat of the gameplay and control, as well as provide a little gameplay video and more screenshots.
As you begin your game, enemy aircraft drift almost lazily by. You just tap where you want to fire a missile and Mayhem will furnish you with explosive ordnance. At first it’s easy — almost too easy. As long as you remember to lead your target (fire at where your target is going to be by the time your missile gets there, not where it is now) then once you get the speed of your missiles down you’ll be able to destroy them with ease.
It doesn’t take long before you begin to see the ways in which the difficulty ramps up. The initial aircraft begin to get slightly more numerous — but still no problem, since Mayhem can fire more than one missile at a time. (It’ll overheat if you fire too many though, forcing you to wait a second or two before firing off another.) But then aircraft start dropping relatively slow bombs, so you’ll have to target those as well to prevent them from destroying your base. (This is this Missile Command aspect) Then fast jets start appearing, requiring you to adjust where you lead your missile. Then the jets start firing missiles — they’re faster than bombs. Then the missiles start coming in guided flavour. Pretty soon all hell has broken loose and you find yourself doing mental and visual aerobics working out which targets to prioritize, which projectiles pose a significant threat to your (remaining) base installations, making sure your aim is true, and leading them accurately enough to blow them clear out of the skies.
You are not without a certain amount of help though. For starters, Mayhem is equipped with a special mode called, unsurprisingly, Mayem Mode, usable once per wave. Quickly rotate your device a quarter turn in either direction and you’ll be dropped into Mayhem Mode, which lets you fire as many missiles as you want, as quickly as you want, for 5 seconds. Just be mindful of your ammunition level and you can fill the enemy’s airspace with vicious plague of hellfire.
But Mayhem Mode is only good once per level, so to help out further, crates of ammo and upgrades will periodically fall from the sky. If allowed to land, they will temporarily upgrade Mayhem, giving you the ability to pack a mightier wallop. Just don’t let the enemy shoot it down — and be careful not to fire on it yourself, or you will lose it. This is far easier said than done when the action gets thick and heavy.
The game is a little forgiving when it comes to accuracy; as long as a target wanders into your missile’s explosion field while it’s still there, it’ll count as a hit — presumably, the target is ripped apart by your missile’s shockwave, if you’d like a bit more realistic an explanation. This helps extend the gameplay somewhat, allowing for a bit of ham-fistedness in your targeting.
Where the gameplay is concerned, S.A.M. is smooth as silk, even when hell seems to be flying apart at the seams. Tap events are perfectly responsive, with missiles firing just when and where you tell them. This should be obvious, and it’s the sort of thing most people don’t even pay attention to — until it’s not there, and with gameplay that gets as crowded and frenetic as it does in S.A.M. this is an important point to make.
The difficulty does ramp up fairly smoothly — but it also ramps up maybe just a bit too quickly, since by stage 5 you’re already wondering if maybe you weren’t born with enough fingers.
Visually, S.A.M. is stunning. The level of detail is exquisite, and it is clear that Iron Square are the sort of people for whom “good enough” just isn’t. Every object in the game is crafted as though it was the only thing players would be focusing on, which gives the overall visuals consistency throughout. If I had to pick any nits — and I do, you know — it’s that the explosions just aren’t big enough for my tastes. You’ve got this ol’ big missile (when considered at scale) that makes this comparatively itty bitty explosion. Since games like this are all about destruction and debris, it feels like this is a bit of an oversight. And speaking of debris, I’d like to have seen some. Sure, they’re purely visual afterthoughts that serve no practical purpose, but if you’re going to make a game that looks this good, you might as well go that extra mile, knowhutImean?
On the other hand, debris and large explosions just give the system more things to do at once, and this game already has lots to do, so if the inclusion of either one causes the game to bog down, I’d rather keep the smooth gameplay than ogle extra special visuals. Eye candy is nice, but only if it doesn’t have a steep price tag.
Sound in the game is similarly well placed. The militant soundtrack is certainly appropriate and — call me old fashioned — but suits the game far better than some hard rocking or thumping electronica piece. (And I like thumping electronica pieces — but a place for everything and everything in its place and all that.) In-game sound effects are well placed and are just what you’d expect given the quality of everything else in the game — more of that lovely consistency.
Of course, as drool-worthy as the screenshots are, they don’t convey what it’s like to play the game, only look at it, so I’ve included a little gameplay video video with this lot as well, just so you can see what you’re really in for.
Surface to Air Mayhem is currently available in the App Store for a measly $2.99, a price point that makes a game as good as this a total no-brainer, because even if it turns out you still don’t like it (and really, what the hell is wrong with you?), three bucks is hardly worth whinging about. You probably wasted more than that at Starbucks this morning, and you’ll probably make it back the next time you make a withdrawal from your couch. Check out the video below.
NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure, Iron Square did furnish me with a free copy of the game — it’s a little difficult to write a review of something you don’t have unless it’s so simplistic, obvious or terrible that you don’t need it — but those who have followed this site for any length of time — or the regular Touch Podium column whence it spawned — should know both that my opinions aren’t influenced by free stuff, and also that I’ve ragged on Iron Square before so clearly I wouldn’t mind doing it again. Heck, I like picking things apart. But come on, look at this game and tell me I’m wrong.
Didn’t think so.
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Posted in Games: Action, Games: Arcade, Games: Shmup, Paid Apps
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