HyperBurner
Warp drive fails to engage
$2.99 Developer Patrick Cook, badpotion.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 8 or later
Space travel is meant to be exciting. High speeds; beautiful, otherworldly vistas; a constant, edge-of-your-seat thrill. Hyperburner gets two out of three nailed. And, as Meat Loaf’s inimitable wisdom goes, two outta three ain’t bad.
You pilot a spaceship in third-person view through a range of levels, using a single digit dragged across the screen to steer. Acceleration is automatic; if there’s a brake, we certainly didn’t find it. Of course, as is the way of these things, there are obstacles. Scores of them, in fact. Your ship is equipped with a shield, but it takes time to regenerate – and only protects you from the briefest of grazes. Any knock more substantial? Kaboom. You’re MISA (missing in space action). Your vaporized remains will never be found. Back to the start you go.
If that makes it sound unforgiving, it largely isn’t. No, you’re not granted multiple chances at a level before being reset, but with each course clocking in at a minute or so in length, you’re hardly losing a lengthy investment. Nor are levels terribly punishing – we rarely found ourselves stuck for even five or 10 minutes.
So what this is, in short, is a space racing game with no real weight of urgency behind it. With no real evolution in how you play (where are our space blasters?!) you sometimes feel like you’re just repeatedly pushing the spaceship-shaped peg through the only available hole… at speed… Damn, it looks pretty, though.
the bottom line. A slick-looking space racer that offers limited thrills once you’ve gotten over the sense of speed.