You are the last man left on Earth atop a ziggurat, your gun your only hope against the skeletal alien hoards-- staring with their omnipresent red eyes. Yes, this is an iOS game, and even before the jump I am going to tell you that yes, it is completely and totally awesome. Humor me, though, follow the jump and let me tell you why.Sure it's a simple how-high-of-a-score-can-you-rack-up type of game, but there's so much depth going on in terms of gameplay control. The game's "precision mode" control scheme is one of the most refreshing and accurate iOS touch screen controls I've ever experienced. Drag your finger across the screen to rotate your aim, hold down on the screen to charge your gun, release to fire. It gives you unparallelled shooting accuracy on a handheld device known for lackluster controls. ZiGGURAT is doing exactly what every other iOS developer needs to-- creating controls designed specifically to work with the device, not shoehorning in controls meant for a device with buttons. When you die you are never cursing faulty controls, you curse yourself for your own ineptitude.
There's surprising depth hidden in this one screen game, even though each individual play usually lasts no more than a few minutes. The second time you play, perhaps, you'll realize that your gun doesn't reach maximum charge at the end of your hold, it hits it when the bullet is the biggest, somewhere 3/4 between the complete charging cycle and that this charge will net you bigger explosions. Maybe the fifth or sixth play it will dawn on you that it is possible to ricochet your bullets off the ziggurat itself, making it easier to pick off some of the lower alien freaks. Basically, it brings you both a charming simplicity and surprising hidden depth as you discover all the tiny nuances of the game's slick ass controls. It's Angry Birds for the hardcore set.
The graphics are pretty good, with a SNES 16-bit look. The main character looks like the cousin of the guy from Gunstar Heroes, and the aliens are appropriately full of 16-bit menace. The large aliens are charmingly pixelated and everything is bright enough to stand out amongst one another-- you can spot the yellow guy hopping through the hoard of blues no problem (or the stupid force-field guy...oh how I hate him). The music is 8-bit nintendo emulated goodness, and although only one song plays through the actual gameplay, it's a pretty rad chiptune that doesn't grate the nerves or get old. The death sound effects are fantastic as well-- that final scream rocks. It has well-implemented social media functions too, allowing you to post your high scores to Twitter or Facebook immediately after you earn them. If I had to come up with any faults for ZiGGURAT, I'd have to say I wish the scoring were handled differently. Instead of just flat out counting how many aliens I killed I would of much preferred some kind of dpeth to the scoring system-- have the different colored aliens be worth different amounts of points, give me combo bonuses for consecutive hits, just something more interesting than flat out kills. Then again, you could argue that messes with the games careful recipe of simplicity and depth, so I can see why they may have made that choice.Overall, though, if you have something that runs iOS it should have ZiGGURAT on it. It's only $0.99, addictive and awesome.
Title: ZiGGURAT
Developer: Action Button Entertainment, LLC
Publisher: Freshsuu
Platform: iOS
Released: February 17, 2012
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